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Portage Unites 'Frenemies' Into Lacrosse Force
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
May 11, 2021
PORTAGE — On the basketball court, Brooke Hoag and Grace Cheatham were “frenemies.”
But now that spring sports are here, that has changed.
The two seniors from rival schools are teammates.
Hoag, from Northern, and Cheatham, from Central, are both members of the Portage girls lacrosse team, a co-op composed of players from both schools.
When playing against each other, “you have to be focused on your team,” Hoag said. “When you come to lacrosse, it’s almost like you flip a switch because they’re your team now.
“Playing against them is just fun. You look at them and you know how they play in different sports, so it’s fun because you can kind of pick on them. It’s also a competition, and you definitely learn how to separate the two sports.”
After being shut down last year because of COVID-19 restrictions, the lacrosse team is having one of its best seasons ever.
Portage is 12-2 so far and currently ranked No. 8 in Division I, according to LaxNumbers.com
“For our returners, I think (the year off) has given them more motivation to want to play,” said Kate Twichell, in her seventh year as head coach. “There’s a fire lit, especially under my seniors.
“They’re playing so hard. They understand every opportunity is another opportunity they weren’t going to get.”
This season is different from any other, with mandated masks and rapid testing. Adapting to cool weather and then hot makes masking up a little more challenging, Hoag said, but worth it to have a chance to play. Twichell said Portage schools provide a mask that is easier to wear. “None of them will claim they love it,” she added. “The second we say they can take them off, they will 100 percent take them off.”
But in spite of the drawbacks, “This year, our varsity team is playing together the best I think it’s ever played together,” Twichell said. “The team chemistry is just phenomenal.
“That’s really all them. They’ve really taken extra time to make sure that they are putting in the work to come together.”
For the first time, Portage is hosting an MHSAA Division 1 Regional, facing Zeeland East on May 20. Finals are June 12 at Novi High School.
Other Northern varsity players are seniors Mairin Boshoven and Karly Turchan, junior Annie Galin and freshman Avery Kelly.
Central players include seniors Kyla Meyle, Jenna Camp, Calista Richmond and Lauren DeHaan; juniors Ryan Knauer, Olivia Jensenius and Lauren King; and sophomores Sam Swafford and Lexie Springman. Casey Hendrixson coaches the junior varsity team.
Learning Fast
Neither Hoag nor Cheatham grew up playing lacrosse, but that is not a problem, Twichell said.
“My varsity players are all returning, so I have six returning starters on varsity right now,” she said. “My JV team, of the 15 of them, 10 are new to the sport this year.
“They’ve never touched a stick before. MHSAA gave us some small practices so we had a few in earlier, but most of them are brand new within the last 12 months.”
Learning that the stick is actually an extension of their hand is one of the hardest adjustments for new players, she said.
“I always tell the kids the first week is going to be the hardest – the frustration of dropping the ball and not being able to figure out the mechanics of it is always going to be the most difficult,” she said.
Hoag first played the sport when she was in eighth grade and took to it immediately.
“The only downside is the bruises you can get from it, but I like to say they’re like trophies showing you’re an aggressive player and it’s just something that you almost want to show that you play,” the midfielder said.
She kept in shape during the shutdown by working out at home.
“I have a net and a rebounder in my backyard, so I would practice shooting and my stick skills by myself,” she said.
Losing last season was especially difficult for the midfielder.
Not only is the junior season a big year for college recruitment but “my sister (Ashleigh) was a senior and I got my last chance to play with her taken away.”
Cheatham also has played lacrosse for five years, with her interest piqued by her father and brother.
Family helped her hone her skills during the shutdown.
“I live super close to Portage Central High School, so me and my brother (Andrew, a freshman who plays lacrosse at Central) used to go and play a lot of wall ball against The Stable. We did a lot of shooting drills on our own, just to keep busy.”
Both Hoag and Cheatham also played on summer and fall travel teams, which helped keep them in shape.
One unexpected moment for the two happened May 1 at the Matt Thrasher Memorial Games when each received a $500 scholarship, awarded each year to two players from the girls team and a player from each school’s boys team.
Thrasher played lacrosse and, while a freshman at Northern, died in a boating accident in 2004.
Cheatham echoed Hoag in saying it was an honor to receive the award.
“The fact that his family still does this is really amazing,” she said.
Hoag is headed to Trine University and will play lacrosse there, while Cheatham will attend Kent State in the nursing program and hopes to continue to play the sport, possibly at the club level.
Ultimate goal
While the ultimate goal is to one day have enough players to field a girls team at each school, the co-op team is under the umbrella of Portage Northern.
That poses one of the few problems for Twichell, who teaches Spanish at Hackett Catholic Prep.
“For me, honestly, the biggest thing is recruiting, getting into both schools equally to get enough kids to field a team,” she said. “Trying to get in the schools as one person from outside the school is pretty difficult.
“Likewise, especially during the offseason, getting enough practice time at both facilities so that each player gets their home facility or their home games or home practices, that can be a challenge.”
Next year that could be a bit easier. Twichell’s husband, Kurt, was recently named Northern’s head football coach after longtime coach Pete Schermerhorn retired. The past seven years, he was on the Portage Central football staff.
One future recruit for the girls team should be a shoo-in. The couple’s 2½-year-old twins – daughter Aubrey and son Griffin – already have lacrosse sticks.
Pam Shebest served as a sportswriter at the Kalamazoo Gazette from 1985-2009 after 11 years part-time with the Gazette while teaching French and English at White Pigeon High School. She can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Calhoun, Kalamazoo and Van Buren counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Portage’s Brooke Hoag fires a shot against Grand Rapids Northview this spring. (2) From left: Portage coach Kate Twichell, Grace Cheatham and Brooke Hoag. (3) Grace Cheatham (45) advances the ball against Ann Arbor Skyline. (4) Twichell and daughter Aubrey enjoy a moment with lacrosse stick in hand. (Action photos by Chris Boot. Head shots by Pam Shebest. Twichell photo courtesy of the Twichell family.)
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Playing with Purpose
May 18, 2012
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Lauren Hooker gets up for every lacrosse game. She and her teammates will dress the same for school, send each other pump-up messages throughout the day and carry that momentum into the locker room and onto the field.
But she admits she plays her best against her toughest opponents.
“It’s playing to their level. Playing someone good forces you to step up and play the best,” Hooker said. “It brings the best out of you. I don’t enjoy playing some of the really easy teams as much.”
The East Grand Rapids senior loves a challenge. And she’s helping the Pioneers blaze through a few of them in this, her final high school season, before joining the Marquette University program this fall.
East Grand Rapids has started this season 20-0. The Pioneers are ranked No. 1 both in Division 2 and regardless of division based on the computer rankings supplied by LaxPower.com. And they are doing so with only two seniors – although Hooker, who received a Second Half High 5 this week, gives the team a star at the top that few teams in Michigan can counter.
Playing attack, she’s scored 101 goals -- already third-most for a single season in the MHSAA record book, and more than 25 percent of her team's total. Add in her 33 assists, and her 134 total points are fifth in MHSAA history for one season.
And indeed, she’s been at her best against the best. Hooker had three goals and three assists in an 11-9 win last week over No. 2-ranked Grand Rapids Catholic Central. She scored seven goals in each of two games against Division 1 No. 5 Rockford, and had nine goals in Monday’s 17-8 win over Division 1 No. 2 Hartland.
“She’s what I’d call sneaky quick. Basically, she doesn’t take a big wind-up in her shot; it looks like she’s cradling, looking to pass. And then she just puts it past the goalie,” Pioneers coach Rich Axtell said. “Some players take a different approach, but she’s deceptive. She’s got really good stick control. When she’s in close, she can make you feel pretty slow by comparison.”
Hooker has been on a quest after being part of teams that have lost either in the first or second rounds of Regionals her first three seasons. The last two, the Pioneers ended with defeats by the eventual MHSAA champions. A year ago, they lost 14-13 in double overtime to eventual Finals winner Grand Rapids Catholic Central.
But there’s no question in Axtell's mind that Hooker has brought her game up a level this spring. That effort began in September, when she hit the weight room for training that continued all winter.
Hooker said she started those sessions in part to bring the team together early, especially with so many young players joining the program. Axtell said he thinks part of that drive also came with getting the scholarship to Marquette, which will begin as an NCAA program in 2013.
“She’s really playing with a lot more purpose,” Axtell said.
Hooker first was a golfer, before quitting that sport until taking it up again as a freshman in high school. In the fall, she was the low scorer on the Pioneers golf team that finished eighth at the Division 3 Final, and she missed the individual top 10 by only two strokes.
But lacrosse has been her number one since she first picked up the game during third and fourth grades. “A huge tomboy,” Hooker learned the game from a boy who lived in her neighborhood. After attending a couple of boys clinics, her mom found a girls team for her in the Forest Hills area.
Her mom and group of others then organized an East Grand Rapids youth team that Hooker joined for a few years before jumping up to the Pioneers’ varsity lineup as a freshman.
This offseason she accepted the challenge to set a championship standard. She hopes to leave high school next month having helped the Pioneers win their first MHSAA lacrosse title – with the groundwork for more to come as she moves on.
“I have a lot of hope for the program to continue to do so well,” Hooker said. “Hopefully when I’m gone, people will carry on doing so well.”
Click to read more about Hooker's future plans and lacrosse influences.
PHOTOS: East Grand Rapids' Lauren Hooker (14) has scored 101 goals this season (Photos courtesy of East Grand Rapids lacrosse.).