Oscoda Teams Rise From Past to Perfection
February 8, 2019
By Chris Dobrowolski
Special for Second Half
OSCODA — The tide has turned in Oscoda.
After struggling year after year in boys and girls basketball, the Owls are enjoying quite a turnaround on the hardcourt this winter as both teams enter the final month of the regular season undefeated — just one of two schools in the state to be collectively unbeaten in boys and girls hoops.
The boys team boasts a record of 15-0 and is 9-0 in the North Star League Big Dipper division, while the girls squad has cruised to a 12-0 mark, including going 5-0 in league play.
It hasn’t always been that way, however.
“There’s a lot of years where we really struggled,” said Oscoda varsity boys basketball coach Seth Alda, a 2003 graduate of the school who is in his seventh year at the helm. “It wasn’t that long ago. There were a lot of years where we not only struggled but a lot of teams beat us by quite a bit.”
The boys team has reached a stretch where it has failed to win a league championship in 27 years or District title in 18 straight seasons, while the girls program became infamous for having lost 89 consecutive games at one point.
“We went almost four and a half years without winning a game,” said Oscoda varsity girls basketball coach Mark Toppi, who took over the girls program four years ago. “They had only had a couple wins in the past three years before I took the job.”
The Owls had been caught in a rut for most of the last few decades, partly due to a precipitous decline in the school’s enrollment after Wurtsmith Air Force Base was decommissioned in 1993. As families left the area, Oscoda became a shell of itself. At one time Class B playing within the North East Michigan Conference, the school was unable to remain competitive with its league rivals as its student population was slashed in half. It eventually made sense to leave the NEMC, and Oscoda toiled as an independent before finding a landing spot in the Huron Shores Conference, which eventually morphed into a reconfigured North Star League in 2014.
Things began to trend in the Owls’ favor last season as a group of talented and ambitious athletes started making their mark. It’s a core of players who have gotten better by working hard, dedicating themselves, including honing their games and picking up additional competition on local travel teams.
“We kind of saw it coming,” said Alda. “Last year we were 14-8, which was our first winning season in 15 years. We returned a lot of players off that team. Last year we were young, and this year we’re still young. We have a lot coming back next year too.”
The Owls’ main core consists of juniors Brayden Mallak, Gabe Kellstrom, Devin Thomas and Chance Kruse, as well as sophomores Owen Franklin and Gavin Lueck.
“We’re guard-oriented,” said Alda. “We like to get up and down the court. We press. We shoot a lot of threes. Typically, we go four out and one in — four guards and one post player. We like to push the tempo. We like to increase possessions. We’ve got three kids (Mallak, Kellstrom and Franklin) who are shooting over 35 percent — a couple of them over 40 — from the 3-point line.”
The girls team managed to come up with 13 wins a year ago despite not having a senior on the roster. That was part of the ascent from three victories in Toppi’s first season, to seven wins two years ago. The 13-9 record in 2017-18 earned Toppi the Associated Press’ Class C Coach of the Year Award.
With all that returning experience from the best girls team Oscoda had seen in years, the Owls were primed for an even better season.
“I could tell we were going to have a good year, just because of all the work they put in over the summer,” said Toppi. “We had a lot of success (last summer). We play up all the time whenever we go to team camps. We always try to play Class B or Class A schools. We take a lot of beatings in the summer. This year was the first year that we were winning against some of those schools. That was a nice sign. I try to tell them, ‘If we’re losing by 15 to a Class A school, that’s not bad.’ This year we were beating some of them.”
The Oscoda girls team has a bit more experience than the boys, with senior Katelyn Etherton in her fourth year as a starting guard. She reached the 1,000-point mark in her career earlier this year. Junior post player Lauren Langley is another key veteran who teams with Etherton, and each average close to 17 points per game. Sophomore Macy Kellstrom leads the team in steals and assists as the point guard, and classmate Izzy Hulverson is averaging a double-double in points and rebounds.
The problem the girls team has discovered is it isn’t getting pushed by the teams on its schedule. The Owls are winning by an average of 34 points per game. A 41-25 win over Tawas was the closest to date. Toppi hopes not having a close game during the regular season won’t hurt the Owls when they get to the postseason. For now, he’s just focused on getting the Owls ready for a tournament run.
“I’m just trying to get them to play hard and practice hard,” he said. “I don’t want them to look at the schedule. We’re still trying to get competition in practice and get better every day.”
The boys games have been a little less one-sided, particularly two clashes against league rival Mio. Oscoda beat the Thunderbolts both times, but one was a seven-point win in a back-and-forth game a week ago and the other was a 35-33 nail-biter earlier this season that wasn’t decided until Mallak drove the length of the court and scored on a buzzer beater.
The buzz has caught up to the Owls as the wins have continued to pile up for both teams.
“Around the school I feel like everybody’s wearing Oscoda across their chest a lot more proudly than what it was a while ago,” said Franklin. “Wherever you go, people know who you are now.
“Every practice Mr. Alda talks to us about how we could be the first in so many years to do this (or that). Early in the year we were 8-0 and he was like, ‘You’ve got a chance to go 9-0. That hasn’t happened in 30 years. He talks to us a lot about making history.”
The struggles the school endured in basketball are not forgotten, but both teams are doing their part to make better memories on the court. The girls already snapped a 48-game losing streak to nearby rival Tawas, and the boys swept the Braves for the first time in 20 years. The boys team is also close to ending that elusive conference championship drought, and both teams have their eyes on earning some District tournament hardware.
“I keep talking about how exciting it is when you get to tournament time, if you can make a run,” said Alda, who was a freshman on Oscoda’s last basketball Regional champion in 2000. “This is just a really cool thing to be a part of.”
Chris Dobrowolski has covered northern Lower Peninsula sports since 1999 at the Ogemaw County Herald, Alpena News, Traverse City Record-Eagle and currently as sports editor at the Antrim Kalkaska Review since 2016. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Lauren Langley, left, and Brayden Mallak have been key to Oscoda’s perfect starts; Mallak here hits the game-winning shot against Mio. (Middle) Katelyn Etherton beats everyone to the basket during a win over Lincoln Alcona. (Below) The Owls celebrate that Mio victory Dec. 13. (Photos courtesy of the Oscoda girls and boys basketball programs.)
Shores Star Walker Continues Drive for Hoops Greatness as College Coach
By
Scott DeCamp
Special for MHSAA.com
August 8, 2024
NORTON SHORES — Dribbling, passing, and shooting are prerequisites for basketball players, and Muskegon Mona Shores alumna Jordan Walker did them quite well.
But for Walker, determination has been perhaps her most important trait.
It helped her win the Michigan Miss Basketball Award during her senior season in 2017 after suffering an ACL injury prior to her junior year with the Sailors. It’s also allowed her to continue an ascent in the basketball world.
Time-management habits and prioritization have been instilled in all three of Jarvis and Danielle Walker’s three children.
“There’s a special drive with these (Walker) kids,” said Brad Kurth, who was Jasmyn and Jordan Walker’s basketball coach at Mona Shores.
Jordan Walker earned two master’s degrees over six years of college while juggling the demands of being a Division I basketball player at Western Michigan University and University of Tennessee. The 25-year-old’s playing days appear to be finished, but she’s still pursuing her basketball dreams as an assistant coach at the D-I level.
Walker spent the 2023-24 season as a first-year assistant at Mercer University. This March, Mercer head coach Susie Gardner announced her resignation, meaning Walker had to seek opportunities elsewhere.
In typical Walker fashion, she landed on her feet, and it didn’t take long. In May, she was hired as an assistant coach at Jacksonville University. Her responsibilities include player development with point guards, academics, community service, and housing.
“(The Mercer position) kind of fit exactly where I was at perfectly,” Walker said during a break while on the road recruiting for Jacksonville recently. “I was really thankful for that opportunity and thankful for my circle and my village thinking of me at that time and putting my name out there because it honestly was the perfect situation for me.
“At the Final Four, you meet people and you meet a lot of coaches and you network, you build relationships. There was one coach I saw on the road a ton throughout the year and I saw at the Final Four and he knew the situation. At that point, (Jacksonville) didn’t have any openings, and later on it opened up and they gave me a call. At that point, it was getting to the interview and what the position holds and what it would look like. Again, it was another situation that was perfect for where I was at in life and what I wanted to do and the path that I’m on, so it was another no-brainer for me to head to Jacksonville.”
At Mona Shores, the 5-foot-7 guard broke the school’s all-time scoring record — one that stood 22 years — with 1,365 points. During her Miss Basketball season, Walker averaged 22.1 points, 8.5 rebounds, and 5.5 assists per game.
At the collegiate level, Walker amassed more than 1,300 points, 700 rebounds, and 400 assists. In two seasons with WMU (she lost one season with another ACL injury), she started 54 of 64 games and averaged 11.8 points, 4.9 rebounds, 2.2 assists, and 1.8 steals. As a graduate transfer at Tennessee, she started 77 of 96 games and averaged 6.3 points, 4.1 rebounds, 3.0 assists, and 1.1 steals while helping the Lady Vols reach the NCAA Tournament three times.
According to Walker, the foundation for her success began in the home and in the Mona Shores school community.
“Honestly, my memories with Mona Shores I truly cherish because it’s such a special time, a special place. Playing high school ball, I tell people AAU and high school ball is some of the most fun times that you’ll have playing. Obviously, I enjoyed my college time as well — I did six years,” she quipped. “But I definitely enjoyed my time at Mona Shores. Just the people that were there because it was a truly special place.
“Again, I talk about the village a lot because it does take that and (the) Mona Shores community, they really just poured into me and supported (me) and that’s something that I was always grateful for. Especially my head coach there, Brad Kurth. He did an amazing job with us and preparing us, not only for the games in high school but for the next level as well as far as player development and scouts and going over stuff like that so when I got to college, it wasn’t my first time seeing a scout, it wasn’t my first time doing a film study. Those things I always take with me.”
Of course, with the Walker family, it’s always been books before basketball.
While at Mona Shores, Jordan Walker served on the MHSAA’s Student Advisory Council and earned one of the prestigious MHSAA/Farm Bureau Insurance Scholar-Athlete Awards as a senior; only 32 honorees are selected annually. Walker earned her bachelor’s degree in political science and minor in communications from WMU in 2020, taking only three years. At Tennessee, she completed her first master’s degree in 2022 in business administration (MBA) with a concentration in entrepreneurship and innovation; she finished her second master’s degree in 2023 in the Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communications (ALEC) Department with a concentration on name, image, and likeness (NIL) and women’s leadership.
When Walker suffered the ACL injury at WMU, which sidelined her for a year, it allowed her to get ahead in the classroom. She had 19- and 20-credit semesters that year. In her third and final year at WMU, she was taking 21 credits in a semester.
“Academics in our house was nothing to play around with,” Walker said. “If you didn’t have your academics right — in the summer, if you didn’t finish your workbooks, if you didn’t read your books, you were not playing basketball. Academics were a big thing, and I thank my parents for that because they instilled that at a young age.
“It came down to time management, which kind of goes back to what I was saying about the foundation of your high school and what you do in high school and the habits that you form because that’s ultimately going to carry you throughout college. Of course, you can tweak it and gain new things, but I think Mona Shores did a great job of setting me up academically so that when I got to college, some of the courses that I took, I was able to comprehend at that level and take multiple classes and high-credit semesters and be able to graduate early, which led to me being able to get my (two) master’s (degrees).”
All three of the Walker siblings continue to achieve at a high level on and off the court.
Jasmyn Walker, the eldest of the siblings, was a first-team all-stater at Mona Shores and a Division I basketball player at Valparaiso and Western Michigan. She is in her first season as an assistant coach at George Washington University after previous stops at Purdue-Fort Wayne, Butler, Ferris State and Davenport.
Jarvis Walker II, the youngest of the siblings, was a first-team all-stater at Muskegon High School and is a graduate student playing basketball for Indiana University-Indianapolis after starting his collegiate career at Purdue-Fort Wayne.
The Walker siblings are each other’s biggest fans.
“I’m immensely proud of them,” Jasmyn Walker said. “Jordy and Jay have gone above and beyond to reach their goals. I’ve seen the work they’ve put in, the time invested, and sometimes the lows that come with chasing dreams. They’ve pushed themselves at every turn.”
Jarvis Walker II said that sister Jordan is somebody who will “figure it out no matter the circumstances.”
He believes that each stop along her journey has afforded her great experience and deeper knowledge that will benefit her not only in basketball but in life.
“Grind, grind, grind — she is one of the hardest-working people I know,” he said about his sister. “It has motivated me to be better in every aspect of life from school to basketball and day-to-day interactions and how I go about certain things.”
In many respects, Kurth feels like a proud papa to the Walkers as he’s coached Jasmyn and Jordan and has spent countless hours around the family.
“All three of the kids — I mean, Jarvis, Jordan, and Jasmyn — I could never be prouder of a group of kids,” Kurth said. “You talk about the full package: Basketball is one part, but every single one of them shows academic excellence, every single one of them shows extreme character. Those are things that are timeless. Basketball is a young person’s sport. Coaching you can do a long time, but your playing days are limited. I think I’ve seen a lot of kids sacrifice everything, including their character, including their academics, to do basketball and they shouldn’t. Character should be at the top. These three kids, it’s just matchless.”
Included in Jordan Walker’s long resume is her active participation in leadership programs such as “So You Want To Be a Coach” and “Above the Rim Summit.”
Walker aspires to be a collegiate head coach. She’s doing all she can to keep climbing that ladder.
With her second master’s degree specializing in NIL and that being such a large part of college athletics now, she appears to have a leg up on her competition.
“NIL can look like a bunch of different things, and I think that when choosing a school and what that looks like, make sure that outside of NIL it meets all of your expectations,” Walker said. “Money and brand deals and all of that may look enticing, but still don’t fall on your standards of what your program you want to have has.
“It’s the academics, and if they have your major, and it’s the culture and it’s your relationships with your coaches and your teammates. Make those be your tops and NIL be a plus. I think that that’s the biggest thing.”
2024 Made In Michigan
August 6: MCC's Glover Fills Key Role as Athletic Trainer for Super Bowl Champions - Read
August 1: Lessons from Multi-Sport Experience Guide Person in Leading New Team - Read
July 30: After Successful 'Sequel,' Suttons Bay's Hursey Embarking on Next Chapter - Read
July 24: East Kentwood Run Part of Memorable Start on Knuble's Way to NHL, Olympics - Read
July 22: Monroe High Memories Remain Rich for Michigan's 1987 Mr. Baseball - Read
July 17: Record-Setting Viney Gained Lifelong Confidence at Marine City - Read
July 11: High School 'Hoop Squad' Close to Heart as Hughes Continues Coaching Climb - Read
July 10: Nightingale Embarking on 1st Season as College Football Head Coach - Read
June 28: E-TC's Witt Bulldozing Path from Small Town to Football's Biggest Stage - Read
PHOTOS (Top) At left, Jordan Walker stands with her class on the Breslin Center floor during the 2017 MHSAA/Farm Bureau Scholar-Athlete Awards ceremony, and at right in 2023 after receiving her second master's degree from University of Tennessee. (Middle) Walker makes her move toward the basket during a game her senior season at Muskegon Mona Shores. (Below) Jordan Walker, middle, takes a photo with sister Jasmyn and brother Jarvis. (Graduation and family photos courtesy of the Walker family; Mona Shores basketball photo by Tim Reilly.)