Elk Rapids' Smith Back on Course Just 2 Months After Severe Leg Injury
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
August 30, 2024
Leighton Smith’s freshman year was nothing short of amazing as she competed for Elk Rapids High School’s first girls golf team in the fall and capped it off in the spring with a track school record and bragging rights as the fastest 400-meter runner in Northern Michigan.
But events this summer were even more astonishing.
A horse riding accident in June left the 15-year-old fighting for her life, experiencing multiple surgeries and then recovering through physical therapy.
To top it off, she returned to the links Thursday representing the Elks at the Petoskey Invitational played at the Bay View Country Club. Smith shot a 100 as the Elks placed seventh. Her score was tied for the team’s best and featured four pars.
It was an impressive next step, to say the least.
No one could have been prepared to endure what Smith experienced this summer. And no one could have been better prepared to do it than the Elks sophomore, according to doctors, her coaches and her parents.
She underwent five surgeries in six days. The first surgery was done by Dr. Justin Hollander and Munson Medical Center. Dr. Hollander placed a titanium rod in her right leg to stabilize a severe femur fracture.
Smith developed compartment syndrome, which is extremely painful and happens when there’s too much pressure around the muscles and that pressure restricts the flow of blood, fresh oxygen and nutrients to muscles and nerves. That pain and lying in a hospital bed began to impact her mental health but Smith and her parents, Melinda and Don Smith, knew she had the capacity to get through her complications.
Medical personnel, including Dr. Hollander, were extremely impressed with her determination, drive and attitude throughout.
“When you’re in a situation like this you have try your hardest to keep the most positive mindset and thoughts you can, because the mentality you have is what is really going to affect how you handle the whole situation,” Leighton Smith said.
Following that first surgery, she underwent multiple life and limb-saving surgical procedures called fasciotomies in both Traverse City and Grand Rapids. A fasciotomy involves cutting fascia to relieve tension or pressure in order to treat the resulting loss of circulation in acute situations.
“I am not used to being in a bed against my will,” Smith noted. “I was stuck there – you don’t realize the things you take for granted until you’re stuck there like that.”
Don Smith also serves as co-coach of the Elks girls golf team with Mike Newhouse. He witnessed his daughter’s horse riding accident and was there every step of recovery.
He couldn’t be more thrilled about what he witnessed in Petoskey as a father or coach.
“It is great to see her back and looking forward to the future,” Don Smith said. “We went from time in the hospital where you’re scared to even hear what the answer was going to be about sports and anything in life, and to be able to participate in golf here two to three weeks into the season.”
The sophomore has received MHSAA approval to use a cart during competition as a medical necessity, and she may be able golf in enough events this fall to participate in her team’s Regional in Tawas and possibly qualify for the Lower Peninsula Division 3 Final in Battle Creek.
“Leighton has greatly exceeded my expectations,” Newhouse said. “I initially thought she might lose the season, and if she could get back by midseason it would be a slow return. But her performance today far exceeded anything I expected.”
Golf really isn’t her favorite sport. Horse competition and track meets top that list. She is set to defend her 400-meter title next spring at the Traverse City Record-Eagle Honor Roll season-ending meet, and she is the only Elks student-athlete participating in rodeo, doing so through the Manton High School chapter of the Michigan High School Rodeo Association.
“I have a positive attitude and I don’t take it too seriously, but seriously enough that I can play the game,” she said of golf, while noting her primary motivation for being on the team is her father’s love of the game. “It is a good skill to have to be able to play golf, but it is definitely third on my list for sports.”
Third on the list is fine for her coaches.
“Dad will take it top three,” Don Smith noted while recalling moments after the final surgery at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital. “The vascular surgeon talked with us for about 20 minutes and finally without us asking, he said she was going to be able to resume a normal life with sports and everything.”
And she has been back on a horse too.
“Now I am able to ride by myself pretty well, so I take him out every now and then and ride around the yard,” she said. “I think every time I get on, my Dad has a mini-heart attack – I think he’d prefer I never get on a horse again.”
Tom Spencer is a longtime MHSAA-registered basketball and soccer official, and former softball and baseball official, and he also has coached in the northern Lower Peninsula area. He previously has written for the Saginaw News, Bay County Sports Page and Midland Daily News. 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) Leighton Smith, left, consults with Dr. Justin Hollander during her recovery from horse riding injuries this summer. (Middle) Smith tees up a drive for Elk Rapids this season. (Below) Smith shares a moment with her horse. (Photos provided by the Smith family.)
4 Years of Work Paying Off as Senior-Led Linden Heads to Finals
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
October 13, 2021
Ask any member of the Linden girls golf team if she thought three years ago that the current level of success the team is enjoying was possible, and they quickly say no.
It’s tough to blame them. In 2018, the varsity team was made up of five freshmen and two sophomores, and the Eagles were struggling to be competitive, shooting a 467 in the Regional and coming in 10th out of 10 teams.
But that didn’t stop them from buying all the way in, and now the Eagles – led by those five freshmen who are now seniors – are headed to the Lower Peninsula Division 2 Finals with all of their season goals already accomplished.
“I would tell them then, ‘Three years from now, if you keep working, maybe you might have a chance to do something,’” Linden coach Jon Hamilton said. “I was talking to their parents about this, but how many kids will keep going when you tell them that if they work for something for three years, that maybe you’ll accomplish something? They did.”
Linden placed third in this year’s Region 10 tournament, shooting a 364 to qualify for the Finals, which will be played Friday and Saturday at Bedford Valley in Battle Creek. All four scorers for the Eagles – Ella LaMothe, Cate Draper, Kaitlyn Straub and Emma Lurvey – are seniors, as is Brooke Goll, who was the No. 5 on that day. All five were on the team in 2018.
“During freshman year, I wouldn’t have seen myself going to states,” LaMothe said. “I would have seen us as a team being a lot better, and maybe having a chance in the Metro League and the Regionals. But it’s taken a lot of hard work – four years of practicing every day in the fall and on our own during the summer. It’s been a lot of fun.”
It’s the first time in the nine years Hamilton has been coaching that he will take a team to the Finals, and that wasn’t the only first for the program under his guidance this season.
The Eagles won the Flint Metro League title, edging rivals Fenton and Goodrich in the league tournament. They also earned a head-to-head victory against Fenton.
After that win, Hamilton dug into his archives to pull out the scores from the 2018 showdown between the programs. Back then, Fenton won 179-257. This year, Fenton was again at 179, but Linden shot a school-record 165.
“After beating Fenton it was like, ‘Wow, we’re actually at the top of our league at the moment,’” Straub said. “It just feels amazing that we were able, as a team, to get better. It wasn’t just one singular girl getting better, it was all five of us from the beginning of freshman year to now getting better.”
LaMothe, Straub and Draper – who missed most of her freshman year with an eye injury – had played some golf before they joined the varsity squad. Lurvey said she had been on a course “a few times” but that freshman year was truly when she started. Goll was basically brand new.
“I was friends with the girls, so I figured why not try?” she said. “I had some kids clubs that I used to use to just hit some whiffle balls in my hard. I had to get a new set and everything, because those were really small.”
While they’ve made up the majority of the scoring for Linden during each of the past four years, they haven’t been completely alone. Hanna Baldwin and Cassie Most were the sophomores on that 2018 team, and Emma Most has contributed this season.
But the core has been the Class of 2022, which believed enough in itself, even when times were tough, to work toward bigger goals.
“I think that it’s super amazing,” Lurvey said. “We all didn’t really expect this at all, and this year we really just kicked it in. It’s a big accomplishment for all of us.”
The season isn’t over, of course, with the trip to Bedford Valley still to come. But while there are some admitted nerves heading into the biggest tournament of their careers, the Eagles are rolling into Battle Creek without any pressure as they’ve already accomplished all they had set out to do this season – and much more than anyone believed they were capable of just a few years ago.
“I’d say it’s probably icing on the cake,” Draper said. “We want to go in and compete, shoot a low score and place. But we’re going to go and have fun and work together as a team. I don’t really feel pressure to be the best in the state in our division. I think we’re just going in to have fun.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Linden’s Ella LaMothe, Emma Lurvey and Kaitlyn Straub convene during the Flint Metro League Tournament, won by the Eagles. (Middle) The team’s five seniors, including also Cate Draper and Brooke Goll, have played varsity together since they were freshmen in 2018. (Below) The five seniors stand together during one last Regional, from left: Lurvey, Draper, Straub, Goll and LaMothe. (Photos courtesy of the Linden girls golf program.)