Preview: Get to Know These Contenders
June 8, 2016
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
A sense of familiarity surrounds all four of this weekend’s MHSAA Lower Peninsula Golf Finals.
In Division 1, Detroit Catholic Central is the reigning champion and again looks incredibly strong, while in Division 3 Lansing Catholic has won three straight and will play to become the 12th team to win four consecutive titles.
The familiarity at Divisions 2 and 4 is more about teams knowing each other well; in Division 2, the top three ranked teams also played in the same Regional last week, while in Division 4 two of the top three hail from the Muskegon area.
Below are some expected team and individual favorites at each Final. First-round play tees off at 9 a.m. Friday, with the final round beginning at 9 a.m. Saturday. Click for a full list of Finals qualifiers and Regional results.
LP Division 1 at The Meadows at Grand Valley State University
Top-ranked: 1. Detroit Catholic Central, 2. Grosse Pointe South, 3. Grand Blanc.
Detroit Catholic Central ran away with last year’s title at Ferris State but might be even more unstoppable this weekend. Another sub-300 performance would seem to put the Shamrocks out front, but there’s a strong field ready to pounce if presented the opportunity; nine other finalists shot 308-316 at their Regionals, and Plymouth put up a 283 at its District at Fox Hills.
Detroit Catholic Central: Three Shamrocks finished among the top eight individually at the 2015 Final as DCC won the team title by 31 strokes, and all three are back – senior Max Palmer (tied for eighth) and juniors James Piot (tied for eighth) and Ben Smith (third). They shot a 283 to win their District at Chemung Hills in Howell and a 295 to win the Regional at Hartland, taking at least three of the top four individual places at both.
Grosse Pointe South: The Blue Devils shot a 290 to win their District at St. Clair Shores Golf Club and a solid 310 to finish second to Warren DeLaSalle at the Regional at The Orchards in Washington Township. Sophomores Evan Theros and Patrick Sullivan tied for third at the Regional and played rounds for last season’s team that finished sixth at the Division 1 Final. Juniors Jon Teddy Schoof and David Scupholm and senior Jon Theros also played in last year’s Final, giving South one of the most veteran lineups this weekend.
Grand Blanc: The Bobcats didn’t even make last season’s Final, but have stormed back and traded shots with No. 6 Midland the last two rounds, finishing second to the Chemics in the District but beating them by five strokes to win their Regional at Boulder Pointe in Oxford. Sophomore Zach Hopkins tied for individual runner-up at the Regional as three players finished among the top nine (with ties). The two players who didn’t break the top 10 were among the top eight (with ties) at the District.
Other individuals of note: Reigning champion Andrew Walker of Battle Creek Lakeview returns to lead a group including six of last season’s top 10 and two of the top three. The Spartans senior won his District at El Dorado in Mason with a 72 and shot the same score to win the Regional at Cedar Springs’ Cedar Chase. Flushing senior Joe Montpas tied with Smith for third last year, only three strokes back, and he won his District at Grand Traverse Resort with a 73 and his Regional at Boulder Pointe with a 69. Northville’s Jimmy Dales was 10th individually in 2015 as only a freshman, and Plymouth junior Jack Boczar made headlines last month with a winning 64 at his District.
LP Division 2 at Battle Creek’s Bedford Valley
The three top-ranked teams finished the Regional within four strokes of each other at Pohlcat in Mount Pleasant (Forest Hills Eastern at 312, Forest Hills Northern at 314 and St. Johns at 316). But Forest Hills Northern was the only one to play as a team at last year’s Final, although Forest Hills Eastern was runner-up only two seasons ago.
Top-ranked: 1. Ada Forest Hills Eastern, 2. Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern, 3. St. Johns.
Ada Forest Hills Eastern: The Hawks actually had to bounce back to win the Regional after finishing second to Forest Hills Northern at their District at Thornapple Pointe in Grand Rapids. Senior Zach Robbins tied for third at the District and then second at the Regional, where he was joined by sixth-place senior Marc Gerst in the top 10 against a strong field. Both played on the 2014 Finals runner-up team, and Robbins tied for fourth individually that year and sixth last season when he qualified alone.
Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern: The Huskies finished third last season, nine strokes back of champion DeWitt, and return a number of veterans. Senior Spencer Schab tied for 10th individually in 2015 and has finished among the top 20 at both the District and Regional, with senior Phil Lodzinski standing out most by winning the Regional and finishing second at the District. Seniors Brian McHale and Chase Lebster also both played at last season’s Final, and Lebster was third at the District two weeks ago. Forest Hills Northern is seeking its first Finals title since 1983.
St. Johns: The Redwings are playing for their first championship, and first top-two finish since 1961 – and might have a two-year window with four juniors and a sophomore in the starting lineup. Junior Eric Nunn missed the top 10 at last year’s Final by four strokes playing as an individual qualifier, and he was one of three placing among the top six (plus ties) at the Regional. Junior Zach Rosendale tied for second at the Regional and won his District at Pine River in Alma, where four St. Johns players finished among the top six (with ties).
Other individuals of note: Robbins and Schab are joined by two others who finished among the top 10 a year ago – Otsego junior Tyler Rayman, who tied for fourth, and Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood junior Devin Deogun, who also tied for sixth. Deogun shot a 67 at his Regional to finish low among four who broke 70 in all of Division 2. Pontiac Notre Dame junior Jackson Stowe (68), East Lansing senior Ian Carroll (68) and Trojans junior Tony Fuentes (69) were the others.
LP Division 3 at Michigan State University’s Forest Akers East
Top-ranked: 1. Lansing Catholic, 2. Jackson Lumen Christi, 3. Frankenmuth.
Lansing Catholic has won the last three Division 3 championships, after Jackson Lumen Christi won four straight from 2009-12. Lumen Christi also finished runner-up in 2013 and 2014. So it’s easy to understand why those two are the favorites again – although there are a few more that definitely have shown the ability to impact this tournament.
Lansing Catholic: The Cougars’ winning 305 at its Regional at Twin Brooks in Chesaning was 13 strokes lower than any other Regional score in Division 3 and 17 strokes better than a field that included No. 4 Tawas and No. 13 Freeland. Lansing Catholic’s 309 to win the District at Glebrier in Perry beat the field by 42 strokes. Senior Owen Rush was third at the 2015 Final and won last week’s Regional with a 69 and the District with a 72; sophomore Ethan O’Farrell and senior Viani Magaswaran both posted top–seven finishes at both preliminary levels as well, and junior Peter Kramer tied for second at the District.
Jackson Lumen Christi: The Titans finished third last season without putting a player among the individual top 10; only senior Will Double is back from last season’s starting five, and he’s joined by another group of solid players capable of making a move. All five finished among the top six at the District, led by junior and champion Luke Girodat, and Double was runner-up at the Regional as all five tied for 16th or higher.
Frankenmuth: The Eagles went from unranked to contender status after shooting a 318 – the second-lowest of any Division 3 team at Regionals – to win by 14 at Atlas Valley in Grand Blanc. Frankenmuth put two among the top 10 at their District but three among the top four at their Regional – junior Chase Singer was runner-up and senior Sam Struble and junior Daniel Wagner tied for fourth.
Other individuals of note: Only four of last season’s top 10 are back, including Lansing Catholic’s Rush. But that group also includes Macomb Lutheran North senior and individual qualifier Scott Sparks, who won the Division 3 individual title as a sophomore in 2014 before tying for sixth a year ago. Freeland senior Ben Balen also is back after tying for sixth, and Portland senior Rhet Schrauben was fourth last season and third as a sophomore.
LP Division 4 at Michigan State University’s Forest Akers West
Top-ranked: 1. North Muskegon, 2. Kalamazoo Christian, 3. Muskegon Catholic Central.
After finishing only two strokes behind Suttons Bay last season, North Muskegon is top-ranked heading into the weekend and seeking its first championship since 1997. But Muskegon Catholic Central has joined the conversation by finishing only 11 strokes back of North Muskegon at their District and two back at the Regional. Kalamazoo Christian has never won an MHSAA title in this sport and was eighth a year ago among a tightly-packed field, but won its District by 15 and its Regional by 30 over the last two weeks.
North Muskegon: The Norsemen tied for second last season despite its low scorer, now-senior Will Mierz, coming in only ninth. That consistency among the group has continued to pay off with four of last season’s top five back and three of the four finishing tied for seventh or better at the Regional at The Emerald in St. Johns. Junior Brendan Harris was runner-up at the Regional with a 70, while junior Gannon Moss led four among the top eight (with ties) with a third-place 75 at the District at Stonegate in Muskegon.
Kalamazoo Christian: Four of the top five from last season’s eighth-place finisher are back this weekend, including sophomores Colin Sikkenga and John Cramer. Sikkenga tied for seventh at last season’s Final and won the Regional last week at Thornapple Creek with Cramer coming in eighth and seniors Taylor Resh and Jared Wenke placing sixth and seventh, respectively. All five Kalamazoo Christian players finished among the top 13 (with ties) at a District at Milham Park in Kalamazoo against a field that also included No. 7 Kalamazoo Hackett and No. 10 Concord.
Muskegon Catholic Central: Like Frankenmuth in Division 3, MCC also went from unranked to contender with a strong postseason so far. The Crusaders did finish just two strokes back of North Muskegon at the Regional with junior Collin Powers finishing first overall and two others coming in among the top seven, and Powers also took first at the District. He was fifth at the 2015 Final and this time will be one of four current players who were in the lineup as MCC finished ninth as a team.
Other individuals of note: Seven of last season’s top 10 are back, with Jackson Christian senior individual qualifier Noah Schneider the highest returning placer after coming in third and four strokes off the lead. East Jordan junior individual qualifier Logan Smith tied with Powers for fifth last season, with Concord now-senior Jacob Butterfield seventh and Clarkston Everest Collegiate now-senior Tyler Rozwadowski 10th. Schneider and Rozwadowski shot 73s to tie for the third-lowest Regional score in Division 4 last week, behind only Powers’ 68 and Harris’ 70.
NOTE: West Bloomfield Frankel Jewish Academy will play its Division 4 rounds Thursday and Friday.
PHOTO: Lansing Catholic’s Owen Rush watches a shot during the first day of the Lower Peninsula Division 3 Final last season; he ended up third overall as the Cougars won their third straight team title. (Click to see more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
Brogan Finishes School Sports Career by Teaching Lesson in Perspective
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
June 22, 2023
Baylor Brogan admittedly broke down for a moment or two. Who could blame him? Six months of unpredictable lows and highs to finish his senior year of high school sports had just taken another unexpected dive.
In December, the Lansing Christian senior tore his right ACL playing basketball, ending his hoops season after it had just started. Nine months of anticipated recovery were expected to wipe out his entire golf season too – and after he’d finished eighth in Lower Peninsula Division 4 as a junior in helping the Pilgrims to their first team Finals championship.
But wait. Brogan made it back to the golf course in mid-May after just five months. He played one practice round, and the next day finished fifth individually at his team’s Regional at Ella Sharp Park in Jackson, advancing to the MHSAA Final as the third of three individual qualifiers.
His recovery was remarkable. The story just kept getting better. And if he would have gone on to win the Finals championship two weeks ago, or even place top-10 again, the ending would have been extraordinary.
Instead, he faced another completely unscriptable scenario – but the difficult decision he made launched the latest dip into the highest of notes as he ended his Pilgrims career.
Brogan headed to Battle Creek’s Bedford Valley for the weekend of June 9-10 to finish off his comeback. He thought he’d shot a 79 during Friday’s first round that tied him for 13th – well within range of a potential top-five finish. In golf, playing partners keep track of each other’s scores – and after Brogan’s group finished its 18 holes, he and his partners that round attested to what had been counted on their scorecards, and Brogan figured that was it until Saturday.
But there was a problem.
As he and his two coaches talked through the round after, they realized what had been reported for hole No. 15 was incorrect. It should have included another stroke. His total score should have been 80.
And yet, no one would have known except for those three. But that wouldn’t have sat well with Brogan or his coaches. As soon as they realized the mistake, they contacted the tournament director and rules official.
“For him to say, ‘Hey Coach, I just want to do the right thing,’ and knowing the right thing would potentially DQ you,” Pilgrims head coach Jason Block explained, “I just said, ‘Hey, we’re a Christian school. We have Jesus to answer to.’ I just think putting our heads on the pillow at night knowing we made the right decision for us felt good, and he agreed with that.”
Brogan figured they would just put in the lower score – after all, it was a stroke worse, and the other competitors couldn’t be mad about that. But because Brogan had already attested to the 79 – and by his own admission should have been monitoring his card after every hole while his round was being played – by rule he was disqualified and would have no score for the first round of play.
“When my head coach called me and told me, that’s when the sadness … I definitely cried a little bit,” Brogan said.
But here’s why his weekend will be recalled down the road as the games go on and others every once in a long while find themselves in a similar spot.
Brogan could have gotten angry. He could have blamed his coaches, or his partners, or anyone else supporting him on the course that day for not catching the mistake. He could have questioned the rule, called the disqualification unfair. He could have thrown a fit, made a scene. This was the last event of his high school career, and after he’d already battled back just to get here.
Instead, he chose grace. He just went back out and played. He would no longer have a chance to place with a two-round score, but also by rule he could still finish the weekend with Saturday’s 18 holes.
“To get DQ’d senior year was kind of a bummer. But in the end it didn’t really matter that much, because they let me play, and my name was still on the leaderboard,” Brogan said. “That’s really all I cared about, is that I could go out and even though it wouldn’t count if I did well, I still wanted to go out and compete. Because that’s what I missed so much from being injured, and that’s all I wanted to do – is still play.
“I just went back out to the range that night. They said I could still play. That was the one thing I could be grateful for. I just went back out and practiced again, and woke up at 6 a.m. the next morning to go play.”
It’s guaranteed Brogan will be sure to monitor every hole on his scorecard as his golf career continues at Wheaton College (Ill.) these next few years. But like his coach, Brogan credited his faith for guiding how he managed this situation. There was an unintentional mishap, and it happens. He needed to accept it and report it, and that’s how he approached it.
Still, Brogan now would have to fill people in on what happened – and that seemed worst of all.
So he sent a group text to his team. Then he waited for his parents to get home from a date night – and they definitely were curious because Block had texted them how sorry he was about the tough news. They had no idea what that meant until Baylor explained – and they told him how proud they were of him for making the right decision.
Brogan’s dad Eric then texted the rest of the family – Baylor is eighth oldest of 10 siblings – and others who had been supporting him. That helped a lot. And the next day, Brogan went out and shot an 80 – a pretty big personal win after missing all but a few weeks of a season, and after the disappointment of the evening before.
“As a coach, he missed the whole season, he comes back like he comes back, and then to have this happen, it would have been very easy to go, ‘Man, can we just forget about it? Can we just not say anything?’” Block said.
But that was never a conversation.
Now, about the hat.
During a spring break trip to Florida six years ago, Brogan and his grandfather Dr. George Bettman were on the golf course. Brogan hadn’t really started playing golf at that point, but he accompanied his grandpa as Bettman shot below his age – 90.
A week later, Dr. Bettman died. Sometime after that, as the family was looking through some of his things, Brogan found the hat. It was way too big for Brogan at that point, but by junior year he was able to wear it with a washcloth lining the inside to make it fit more snugly.
There aren’t a lot of straw hats to be found at Michigan high school golf events, so it’s definitely been something of a Brogan signature as well as a reminder of his grandpa.
“It’s his hat, and I feel like he would love seeing me have some success in golf,” Brogan said, “and probably love even more that I would turn myself in for a mistake.”
Geoff Kimmerly joined the MHSAA in Sept. 2011 after 12 years as Prep Sports Editor of the Lansing State Journal. He is a senior editor of MHSAA.com's editorial content and has served as MHSAA Communications Director since January 2021. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for the Barry, Eaton, Ingham, Livingston, Ionia, Clinton, Shiawassee, Gratiot, Isabella, Clare and Montcalm counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Lansing Christian's Baylor Brogan follows an approach shot during the LPD4 Final at Bedford Valley. (Middle) Brogan, in the straw hat, celebrates his team's 2022 championship. (Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)