Preview: Familiar Foes in Girls Lacrosse
June 5, 2014
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Finalists taking the field Saturday to decide this season’s MHSAA girls lacrosse championships shouldn't be surprised by much from their opponents on the other side of the field.
Rockford and Ann Arbor Pioneer face off in Division 1 in a rematch of an April 2 game that the Rams won but by the slimmest of margins – 10-9. Division 2 finalists East Grand Rapids and Okemos didn't play each other during this regular season but met in both the 2013 Semifinals and 2012 championship game – with the Pioneers winning both games.
Both games will be played at Rockford High School; the Division 1 game begins at 2 p.m. and the Division 2 Final starts at 4:30 p.m.
Click for more information including all results from this season's tournament. Both finals also will be streamed live on MHSAA.TV and broadcast on MHSAANetwork.com.
Here's a brief look at the four teams vying for championships (player statistics do not include Semifinals):
Division 1
ANN ARBOR PIONEER
Record/rank: 15-5, No. 4 at end of regular season
League finish: First in Southeastern Lacrosse Conference
Coach: Zachary Maghes, sixth season (84-36-2)
Championship history: Division 1 runners-up 2011 and 2007.
Best wins: 14-6 and 15-14 (Semifinal) over No. 7 Hartland, 14-11 over No. 6 Birmingham United, 13-12 over No. 5 Bloomfield Hills, 11-10 over Division 2 No. 4 Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood.
Players to watch: Mercedes Reyes, sr. M (59 goals, 25 assists); Juliette Killough, jr. A (42 goals, 22 assists); Caroline Hurd, sr. M (34 goals, 14 assists); Stephanie Terrell, sr. M (32 goals, 13 assists).
Outlook: A team’s losses can sometimes indicate as much as its wins, and Pioneers’ are impressive – three of four in-state losses are to teams playing in this weekend’s championship games. Reyes was an all-state first-team selection last season and qualified for the MHSAA record book this spring – she added another seven goals in the Semifinal to take her total this season to 66. Starting goalie Lauren Chapman, a senior, also has been impressive – she is giving up only 5.6 goals per game.
ROCKFORD
Record/rank: 16-6-1, No. 1 at end of regular season
League finish: Second in Ottawa-Kent Rainbow Conference
Coach: Mike Emery, seventh season (119-34-6)
Championship history: Division 1 champion in 2013 and 2010.
Best wins: 11-3 over No. 2 Bloomfield Hills Marian, 12-7 and 14-9 (Semifinal) over No. 5 Bloomfield Hills, 10-9 over No. 4 Ann Arbor Pioneer, 22-11 over No. 9 Brighton, 16-3 and 10-7 over Division 2 No. 7 Grand Rapids Catholic Central, 16-15 over Division 2 No. 3 Caledonia, 6-5 over Division 2 No. 2 Okemos.
Players to watch: Meghan Datema, sr. M (58 goals, 16 assists); Alex Vandermolen, soph. M (50 goals, 14 assists); Kyleigh Egnatuk, sr. A/M (36 goals, 29 assists); Izzy Vickers, sr. M (34 goals, 29 assists).
Outlook: All but one player who scored in last season’s MHSAA Final will be back Saturday. Datema and Egnatuk both made the all-state second team last season, and Vandermolen earned an honorable mention. Datema, who added three more goals in the Semifinal, has qualified for the MHSAA record book single-season scoring list, and Vandermolen will do the same with two more goals in the championship game. Senior Kendall Short, who scored twice in last season’s Final, also had 29 goals coming into the week, with four more teammates scoring at least 10.
Division 2
EAST GRAND RAPIDS
Record/rank: 17-2, No. 1 at end of regular season
League finish: First in Ottawa-Kent Rainbow Conference
Coach: Rich Axtell, fifth season (95-16)
Championship history: Division 2 champion 2013 and 2012.
Best wins: 10-8, 9-8 and 9-8 (Regional Semifinal) over No. 3 Caledonia; 20-3 over No. 5 Grand Rapids Christian, 10-5, 16-8 and 22-5 (Regional Final) over No. 7 Grand Rapids Catholic Central; 12-10 over No. 4 Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood (Semifinal), 11-9 and 11-10 over Division 1 No. 1 Rockford, 16-5 over Division 1 No. 4 Ann Arbor Pioneer, 15-9 over Division 1 No. 7 Hartland.
Players to watch: Liza Elder, jr. A (76 goals, 46 assists); Meggan Loyd, sr. A (31 goals, eight assists); Lexi Duca, soph. A (25 goals, 14 assists); Lindsay Duca, fr. A (27 goals, 16 assists).
Outlook: Similar to 2013, East Grand Rapids is arguably the top team in either division entering the weekend with a pair of wins over Division 1 No. 1 Rockford and a win as well over No. 4 Ann Arbor Pioneer, Rockford’s opponent in that division’s Final. East Grand Rapids has lost only four games over the last three seasons, and both this spring came to teams from out of state. Elder had two more goals and two more assists in Wednesday’s Semifinal win, and her 126 points rank seventh in MHSAA history for one season. She’s verbally committed to sign next year with collegiate powerhouse Northwestern University.
OKEMOS
Record/rank: 20-3, No. 2 at end of regular season
League finish: First in Capital Area Activities Conference
Co-Coaches: Donny Luberto and Charley Lawler, first seasons (20-3)
Championship history: Division 2 champions 2010 and 2009, runners-up 2012 and 2007.
Best wins: 9-7 over No. 3 Caledonia, 15-1 and 18-5 over No. 8 Haslett/Williamston, 15-4 over No. 6 Livonia Ladywood (Semifinal), 5-4 over Division 1 No. 6 Birmingham United, 9-6 over Division 1 No. 2 Bloomfield Hills Marian, 7-6 over Division 1 No. 5 Bloomfield Hills, 9-6 over Division 1 No. 4 Ann Arbor Pioneer.
Players to watch: Bailey Ellsworth, sr. A (55 goals, 16 assists); Kendall Luberto, soph. A (48 goals, 30 assists); Olivia Sherman, sr. A (46 goals, 27 assists); Courtney Humphrey, sr. D; Katie Johnson, sr. G (5.0 GAA, .700 save %); Alex King, sr. M (31 goals, 30 assists).
Outlook: Okemos opened with three wins over ranked Division 1 teams, and its only in-state loss came 6-5 to Division 1 No. 1 Rockford. One of the few top teams the Chieftains haven’t faced is East Grand Rapids, but they’re familiar after falling to the Pioneers 17-6 in the 2012 Final and 13-5 in last season’s Semifinal. Ellsworth added another goal Wednesday and also has qualified for the MHSAA single-season goals list. King was an all-state second-teamer last season and sophomore midfielder Angela Palmer adds another 36 goals – but defense might be what sets Okemos apart. Goalie Katie Johnson made the all-state first team as a junior, and Humphrey in front of her made the second team. No opponent in Michigan scored more than seven goals on Okemos this season.
PHOTO: Rockford senior Kyleigh Egnatuck (8) was a key part of last season’s Division 1 championship winner and will take the field again Saturday as the Rams look to repeat. (Click to see more at HighSchoolsSportsScene.com.)
Trepins Makes Helping Kids Her Business
June 17, 2020
By Tom Lang
Special for Second Half
It’s not enough to recently-graduated Grandville High senior Brianna Trepins to play lacrosse well. She additionally wants to see the sport grow and prosper in west Michigan – and she knows that begins with young kids in the community.
She also knows too well, from personal experience, that coming from less financial means than most peers can keep young girls from giving the sport a try in the first place. Often, it’s as simple as the stigma of not having as nice of a stick as other players.
Trepins, who will continue her lacrosse career at Aquinas College, has helped coach youth in the community. Many times young girls are willing to try the sport but have to borrow a community center stick that’s – let’s say – not top-of-the-line equipment and well-used past its prime.
“Most of the pockets weren’t good, and the girls had to learn how to play with these sticks,” Trepins said. “When they see another girl playing with the brand new, greatest versions of these really cool sticks, that’s hard on them. I could relate. I didn’t have the best equipment growing up, so I sympathized, and I began taking sticks and restringing them – and it all went from there.”
Trepins’ discovery led to starting a business and online store last November – LaxZoo. She sells T-shirts and other lacrosse items to pay for materials to restring lacrosse sticks that people donate. She also repairs sticks of teammates and other players, and the profits from her small fees go to string material for more donated sticks – and in the short term some of the profits have gone to COVID-19 relief efforts.
“I have a ton of respect for entrepreneurs in general, because I think that takes a certain type of bravery – and the fact that she has done that at such a young age; it shows me how much she loves lacrosse and wants to incorporate it into her life moving forward,” said her Grandville coach, Alexandra Vanden Bosch. “And to do all that, she’s taking a big personal risk to start her own business. That’s so huge.”
Trepins first attempted lacrosse in 8th grade, later than most teammates.
“When I first tried lacrosse, I didn’t like it that much,” Trepins said. “I had to wear a skirt, which I thought was weird.”
But she made some good friends and tried out again as a freshman, and made the varsity team. Before the end of the season, she became a starter on defense.
“Throughout the year my coach kept giving me some opportunities to go out on the field and show what I could do as a player, and I really didn’t have that before,” she added. “To have someone really believe in me and believe in my abilities was kind of life-changing. So, going on the field and actually feeling confident playing a sport was an amazing feeling that I never wanted to end. The program at Grandville is great, and my teammates were so supportive.”
Vanden Bosch made it clear Trepins earned it all.
“She just blossomed so quickly and got that opportunity to start on defense, and that was her natural athleticism,” the coach said. “Then when she became passionate about lacrosse because of that, she made the most improvement in between offseasons that I’ve ever seen in a player. Through that she developed leadership, and we named her as a captain her junior year. When I say hardest worker in the room, that is her.”
With the cancellation of her senior lacrosse season after all MHSAA spring sports shut down because of COVID-19, Trepins shifted gears to prepare for college, which had begun over the winter with applying for scholarships. A significant award came from the local Community Choice Credit Union’s Foundation, a $5,000 grant as part of a statewide $100,000 annual program the credit union started 11 years ago that has grown to $1.2 million in educational support for students who are focused on supporting their Michigan communities.
She plans to study pre-dental at Aquinas College – in part because she respects the work of a cousin who is a dental hygienist, but mostly because she has had her own issues growing up with teeth complications that still cause her pain in her jaw on a fairly regular basis. She is missing an adult tooth under a baby tooth that has remained in place as the family cannot afford dental insurance.
“If you looked inside my mouth, my teeth are a little weird on one side (looks concaved),” she said. “My family could never afford to fix it when I was growing up, so I want to be able to fix things like that for other people. I guess it’s quite common, and I want to help other kids when they’re growing up. There are a few options to fix it, but they are all so costly. … I just kind of have to deal with it.”
As to what Trepins has learned from starting and running a small business:
“It feels almost like a reality check at some points but also unreal in all honesty. You always see people with their businesses and think, ‘Wow, I could do that too.’ But the truth is running a business takes a lot of time and hard work for it to really start to get off the ground. But at the same time, every time you have an order that gets placed or you see someone using something that you've made – for example getting to see the little girls run around with the sticks I've strung for them – it feels a little bit unreal, and like all the work that you've put into it is actually paying off.
PHOTOS: (Top) Grandville's Brianna Trepins, left, maintains possession of the ball during a game earlier in her career; her senior season was canceled due to COVID-19. (Middle) Trepins strings and shows off a restrung lacrosse stick. (Photos courtesy of Brianna Trepins.)