Favorites Marian, Fox Finish First
June 1, 2013
By Bill Khan
Special to Second Half
GRAND BLANC TOWNSHIP — Athletes sometimes have a mantra they repeat to get through tough patches in the heat of competition.
Power-packed words like “compete,” “strong” and “courage” often provide a mental boost to the struggling athlete.
So, what went through the mind of Bloomfield Hills Lahser junior Mollie Fox with the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 2 No. 1 singles championship on the line?
“‘Angry bubbles and elephants,’” she said. “Those are the words I repeat to myself to laugh and keep things more lighthearted, just when things start to get close.”
There were plenty of tense moments for the top-seeded Fox, who was pushed to a rare three-set match before emerging victorious by a 7-5, 4-6, 6-4 score over previously unbeaten senior Sara Remynse of Richland Gull Lake on Saturday at Genesys Athletic Club.
Fox broke Remynse’s serve in the third set to take a 4-2 lead. A break by Remynse closed the deficit to 5-4 before Fox closed it out on her opponent’s serve.
After taking a 4-1 lead in the first set, it was a battle all the way for Fox, who was upset in last year’s semifinals after also coming in with a No. 1 seed.
A relaxed approach helped Fox overcome the burden of high expectations.
“I went in with a little less pressure than before, knowing it’s a game and whatever happens will happen,” Fox said.
Remynse was the Division 3 runner-up as a freshman in 2010. She didn’t play high school tennis the last two seasons, focusing on United States Tennis Association tournaments. After signing with the University of Michigan in the fall, she decided it would be fun to play high school tennis as a senior.
Remynse beat Fox in a USTA tournament last summer, but wound up on the short end of a highly competitive match on Saturday.
“She’s a really good player,” Remynse said. “She deserved to win. She was the better player in the third set. I can’t be mad.”
Birmingham Marian, a powerhouse in Division 2, added a second MHSAA championship to its string of 19 consecutive top-10 finishes. Marian beat Birmingham Seaholm, 27-23. Ada Forest Hills Eastern finished among the top three for the 11th straight year, placing third with 21 points.
“People didn’t think we were going to be as good as what we were,” Marian coach Lincoln Wirgau said. “We have 14 girls on our team, myself and my assistant. We circled up after our team was set, and it was us 16 against everybody else; we were fine with that. I like our odds with those girls and our six seniors.”
A common thread for this year’s team and Marian’s 2010 squad is the presence of a Lunghamer sister.
Kelly Lunghamer was the No. 3 singles champion, and Kristin Lunghamer made the No. 1 doubles semifinals in 2010. This year, freshman Breann Lunghamer matched Kelly’s feat by winning No. 3 singles.
After winning a marathon 3-6, 7-5, 7-5 semifinal over Mason’s Samantha Perkins, Lunghamer won the title with a 6-3, 6-2 decision over Claire Markley of Seaholm.
“I always saw them winning state titles and never knew what a state title was like,” Lunghamer said. “I always watched them being excited and happy about it. It’s pretty cool.”
Lunghamer was Marian’s only singles champion. The Mustangs also had champions at No. 2 doubles, with first-time finalists Tatyanna Dadabbo and Sally Thorensen winning.
Okemos sophomore Emily Struble repeated as No. 2 singles champion in dominant fashion, winning 48 games and losing only five in four matches. She led 5-0 in the first set of the finals against Lauren Dietz of Marian, then lost two games in a row before regrouping for a 6-2, 6-0 victory.
The No. 1 doubles championship duo of senior Nancy Benda and junior Jackie Meier of Seaholm never played together before this year.
Benda was a successful singles player, losing in the semifinals in 2011 and the second round last season in the No. 1 flight. Because of a wrist injury, it was determined that playing doubles would be best for her.
“It was definitely a different game,” Benda said. “I wasn’t used to doubles at the beginning of the season. It was an adjustment period, but Jackie and I came together. It was mostly getting used to the court and having two girls on the other side of the net. There’s more strategy involved.”
Meier was on the championship No. 3 doubles team last year before making the leap in competition to No. 1 doubles.
“At No. 1 doubles, every single team comes out to play so hard,” Meier said.
Lahser won half of the singles titles, with Meryl Reams taking the No. 4 flight with a 6-2, 6-1 victory over Catherine Yaldoo of Marian.
Forest Hills Northern’s Stephanie Nguyen and Sarayna Sundaram won No. 3 doubles by beating Kyra Fitz and Danny Harro of East Grand Rapids, 6-2, 6-0.
Seaholm’s Lauren Benderoff and Sam Lareau won No. 4 doubles by a 6-2, 6-1 score over Charlotte Garrison and Madison Lorenz of Bloomfield Hills Andover.
PHOTOS: (Top) Birmingham Marian's Sally Thorensen returns a shot during Saturday's LP Division 2 Finals. She and partner Tatyanna Dadabbo won the No. 2 doubles flight. (Middle) Lahser's Mollie Fox won the No. 1 singles championship, taking the final match in three sets. (Below) Birmingham Seaholm's Nancy Benda and Jackie Meier (left) shake hands with Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern's Victoria Minzlaff and Shelby Moored after winning the No. 1 doubles final. (Click to see more at HighSchoolsSportsScene.com.)
Quick Study Becomes Three-Time Champ
October 18, 2012
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
At the end of every fall, Escanaba native Denny Lueneberg heads back to California after another summer in his hometown and fall coaching the Eskymos girls tennis team.
A tennis instructor in Palm Springs who played at Western Michigan University, he’s seen plenty of talented players over the decades. So his final thought to Escanaba senior Codi Jenshak before he departed this month was especially meaningful.
Lueneberg told Jenshak he used to consider her a softball player who also plays tennis – which made sense, since Jenshak pitched the Eskymos to the Division 2 Quarterfinals this spring.
But after this fall, Lueneberg said he now sees Jenshak as a tennis player who plays softball – a seal of lasting approval on a career that included three MHSAA singles championships, including MHSAA Upper Peninsula Division 1 titles at No. 1 the last two seasons.
“I felt like I finally had done what I needed to do, for him to think that,” Jenshak said. “He takes tennis very seriously. He always thinks no one could ever play enough. He has pretty high expectations.
“When he told me that, it was just special.”
Jenshak receives a Second Half High 5 for repeating as the best player in the Upper Peninsula Division 1. And as a sophomore, she won the title at No. 2 singles.
As a freshman, Jenshak played mostly No. 4 doubles. After all, she was just starting to learn the game.
Jenshak had played for fun and attended one of Lueneberg’s beginner clinics when she was young. But nothing serious – until Lueneberg saw her hitting with her dad one summer and encouraged Codi to come out for the high school team.
He knew he could teach her the shots. What caught his eye was how she reacted to and pursued the ball, like a softball infielder making a play.
After a mostly uneventful freshman year, Jenshak lost a close match to start her sophomore season and then beat the same player handily in the MHSAA Final. She split four matches with Kingsford’s Sam Fleming as a junior, but beat her when it counted – in the championship match.
This season she beat Fleming all five times they faced each other, including 6-1, 6-2 in the Final, and finished 18-2 overall. Her losses were to Iron River West Iron County’s Kylee Erickson, the U.P. Division 2 champion – Jenshak finished 1-2 against her this season.
Jenshak did beat Erickson in their first meeting, but then lost to her four days later. Jenshak didn’t speak much with Lueneberg for three days after that – and that hammered home again how seriously she took her “other” sport.
“She processes things. I don’t know where that came from … but you can explain things or maybe try to do things with her in tennis that other players are not capable of doing in terms of strategy and shot selection,” Lueneberg said. “She’s willing to do that. It cost her a couple of matches her junior year, but by the end of the year she was doing those things and becoming a better player. … (And) by no means has she reached her potential.”
Jenshak also plays basketball, and sees crossovers among all of her sports.
She picked up tennis quickly, just as she’s been able to pick up other sports. She has a similar point in both her overhand throwing and serving motions where her arm slows down. The lateral movement she uses as an occasional second basemen is similar to that employed on the tennis court or even defending a basketball opponent.
Her strengths and weaknesses correlate for all three. She uses the same steady work ethic to fix the bad and hone the good.
Girls tennis is played in the spring in the Lower Peninsula, so Jenshak hasn’t gotten a chance to see how she’d compare against top players from downstate. She did get that chance in softball, leading her team before it fell to eventual Division 2 runner-up Saginaw Swan Valley in the Quarter at Central Michigan.
“I’m actually pretty curious. I played a lot of softball in lower Michigan, played a lot in Wisconsin and Illinois and other places, so I can see where my talent stacks up against other people,” Jenshak said. “But in tennis I can’t. We don’t get out as much. … I’d love to see how we would stack up. We just never got the opportunity.”
She might get a better gauge next season if she decides on a small college – she’s received interest at that level for both sports, and is considering playing both. Or she might go to Central Michigan and attempt to walk-on the softball team and play on the school’s club tennis team.
“If she wanted to commit to this sport, she has the skills and the athletic ability. She’ll obviously get better and enjoy the game at a different level,” Lueneberg said of Jenshak's tennis potential.
“Usually it’s a summer thing, and we try to get the most out of them. Once in a while we get an athlete like Codi, and we try to develop them. Someone special comes along every once in a while."
PHOTO: Escanaba's Codi Jenshak returns a volley during a match earlier this season. (Photo courtesy of RRNsports.com)