LP Finals Preview: Champions Reign
May 30, 2013
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Fans attending any of this weekend's four MHSAA Lower Peninsula Girls Tennis Finals will notice plenty of familiar names on the bracket sheets.
Two of four reigning team champions are ranked No. 1 in their respective divisions, and three of four No. 1 singles champions from last season will play for repeats as well.
Below is a brief look at top contenders at all four tournaments. Play begins Friday morning and finishes Saturday. Click for more including brackets and seeds for all 32 flights.
DIVISION 1 at Midland Tennis Center
Top ranked: No. 1 Port Huron Northern, No. 2 Clarkston, No. 3 Grosse Pointe South.
Reigning No. 1 individual champion: Davina Nguyen, Utica.
The top three finishers from 2012 are the top three ranked teams again this weekend. Grosse Pointe South will look to defend its championship win, earned by a point over co-runners-up Clarkston and Port Huron Northern.
Port Huron Northern: The favorite is seeded at six flights and loaded with experience after last season’s near-miss. Allie Sweeney is the sixth seed at No. 1 singles after finishing runner-up at No. 2 last season, and Lizzie Brozovich is the third seed at No. 2 after finishing runner-up at No. 3; Rae Brozovich is the second seed at No. 3 singles after making the semifinals at No. 4. Three doubles pairs made at least the semifinals last season and two finished flight runners-up – Fran Basha and Alexis Wirtz are the second seed at No. 1 doubles after making their run as a fifth seed last season, and Jenna Brettschneider and Maddie Neaton are the second seed at No. 2 after finishing second a year ago. Amy Tseng and Maggie Bacheller are the top seed at No. 3 doubles after making last year’s semifinals.
Clarkston: All four singles players and the No. 1 doubles pair is seeded, led by two-time reigning No. 2 singles champion Lexi Baylis coming in as the second seed this time at No. 1. Teammate Isabella Spindler is the top seed at No. 2 singles and Dana Olsen is the top seed at No. 3 after teaming up for the No. 1 doubles championship last season. Paige Olsen, the reigning No. 3 singles champ, teams with Alex Whall as the top seed at No. 1 doubles this weekend.
Grosse Pointe South: Three of the team’s top four singles players are back from last year’s run; Carmella Goree is unseeded again at No. 1 but made the quarterfinals last season, while Brooke Willard is the fifth seed at No. 2 after also making the quarters. Maggie Sweeney is the third seed at No. 3 after winning No. 4 last season. Madie Flournoy is the top seed at No. 4.
Saline’s Mary Hanna: She is the top seed at No. 1 singles again after coming in the same in 2012, when she made the semifinals before losing to Nguyen. Hanna owns a win over Baylis this season.
Utica’s Davina Nguyen: After winning all four of her matches in two sets during last season’s No. 1 championship run despite entering as a fifth seed, Nguyen won’t surprise anyone this time – even as the third seed.
Ann Arbor Pioneer’s Anna Borowicz and Sarah Court: After winning No. 3 doubles last season, the Pioneers’ pair is the fourth seed at No. 1.
Other returning flight champions: Ann Arbor Pioneer's Evie VanDewege and Alyssa Roopas (No. 4 doubles, seeded second at No. 3 this season).
DIVISION 2 at Holly and Fenton
Top ranked: No. 1 Birmingham Marian, No. 2 Birmingham Seaholm, No. 3 Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern.
Reigning No. 1 singles champion: Abby Perkins, Mason.
As in Division 1, the top three ranked teams also were the top three finishers a year ago. Seaholm edged Forest Hills Northern by two points and Marian by six, with Bloomfield Hills Andover – No. 4 this season – tied for fourth in 2012.
Birmingham Marian: Seven flights are seeded among the top three at their respective positions, and the only unseeded player – No. 1 singles Elaine Apaza – was a semifinalist at No. 2 last season. Lauren Dietz is the second seed at No. 2, Breann Lunghamer is the top seed at No. 3, and Catherine Yaldoo is the top seed at No. 4. Bianca Emde and Tatum Schwartz played at the Finals with different doubles partners last season, but are the top seed this weekend at No. 3.
Birmingham Seaholm: The Maples are seeded at seven flights as well, with six seeds among the top three and three top-seeded doubles teams. And the only unseeded player – Lauren Frazier at No. 2 singles – won No. 4 in 2011. Jackie Meier and Rachel Wilson won No. 3 doubles last season and are partners on two top-seeded pairs – Wilson with Laine Boitos at No. 2 and Meier with Nancy Benda at No. 1. Lauren Benderoff and Sam Lareau are the top seed at No. 4 doubles, and Labina Petrovska should contend as the third seed at No. 1 singles after finishing runner-up at No. 2 last season.
Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern: Four seeded doubles pairs and six seeds overall should have Forest Hills Northern in contention again. No. 1 doubles champion Victoria Minzlaff and No. 2 champs Shelby Moored and Lauren Gager – three of four champions at the top two doubles flights last season – are back with new partners. Minzlaff and Moored are the second seed at No. 1. Gager and Edie Jiang are the third seed at No. 2.
Mason’s Abby Perkins: She won the No. 1 singles championship last season as a fifth seed, so entering as a sixth seed might not mean much – but would make a great story if she repeats.
Bloomfield Hills Lahser’s Mollie Fox: She’s the top seed again at No. 1 after falling to Perkins in the semifinals last season.
Richland Gull Lake’s Sara Remynse: The senior is the second seed at No. 1 after not playing high school tennis the last two seasons. She was the No. 1 singles runner-up in Division 3 as a freshman in 2010.
Other returning flight champions: Okemos' Emily Struble (No. 2 singles, seeded first at No. 2 this season).
DIVISION 3 at Holland
Top ranked: No. 1 Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood, No. 2 Detroit Country Day, No. 3 Ada Forest Hills Eastern.
Reigning No. 1 singles champion: Alexandria Najarian, Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood.
Cranbrook-Kingswood is playing for its fifth-straight top-two finish and third straight MHSAA championship. Country Day won the title in 2010 and finished third last season, and Forest Hills Eastern is expected to make a bigger jump after tying for sixth last spring. Five of last season’s six seeded players at No. 1 singles are seeded at that flight again, and the sixth this time was the No. 3 singles runner-up last spring.
Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood: All four doubles pairs won flight championships last season, and five of those eight players are back in the doubles lineup, including reigning No. 3 pair Briana Latica and Holly Meers and Meg Phyle, half of last season’s No. 1 winner. The team owns the top seeds at all four singles flights: Joining Najarian are Anna Short at No. 2, Allison Motea at No. 3 and Sarah Lipworth at No. 4. Last season's No. 4 doubles champion is split among two new pairs; Lauren Lanzon remains part of the top seed at No. 4, and Christina Roualet is part of the second-seeded pair at No. 2.
Detroit Country Day: The Yellowjackets are seeded at six flights, with two players back after winning championships in 2012. Madelyn Karoub is seeded second at No. 2 singles after winning the flight, and Jane Ziecik is teamed with Ellie Miller as the second seed at No. 1 doubles after winning No. 4 singles. All four Country Day singles flights are seeded among the top four.
Ada Forest Hills Eastern: Three singles and three doubles flights are seeded, with reigning No. 3 singles champion Madeline Bissett the third seed this weekend at No. 2. Remington Gerst, while unseeded, is back at No. 1 singles, and Jada Bissett is the third seed at No. 3 after entering the fifth seed at No. 2 in 2012.
Grand Rapids Catholic Central’s Sydney Liggins: She’s the second seed at No. 1 singles after falling to Najarian in last season’s championship match, also as the second seed.
Allegan’s Livia Christman: She made the No. 1 semifinals as the sixth seed last season, and is the third seed in that flight this weekend.
DIVISION 4 at Kalamazoo College
Top ranked: No. 1 Bloomfield Hills Academy of the Sacred Heart, No. 2 Grosse Ile, No. 3 Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard.
Reigning No. 1 singles runner-up: Meika Ashby, Kalamazoo Hackett Catholic Central.
Sacred Heart is the reigning champion and finished runner-up in 2011, but Grosse Ile should make a strong push after finishing 14th in Division 3 last season. Gabriel Richard tied for eighth in Division 4 last season, and watch also for No. 4 Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central – the reigning runner-up.
Academy of the Sacred Heart: Outstanding doubles are the strength of a team powerful throughout. Three doubles pairs are top seeded and the fourth – reigning No. 1 championship pair Kelsey Nagle and Emily Nash – is seeded second. No. 2 top seeds Heidi Lemon and Sarah Spangler won at No. 3 last season, and Kendall Lehmann – paired with Hannah Gerard as the top seed at No. 3 – was part of the No. 4 champion a year ago with current No. 3 singles player Teresa Walewander. Tate Lehmann at No. 4 singles also is top-seeded.
Grosse Ile: The Red Devils are seeded at seven flights, and six are seeded either second or third. The team’s top performers at last season’s Division 3 Final – No. 1 doubles pair Brianna Riley and Julia Formentin, who made the quarterfinals – are seeded second at No. 2 singles and third at No. 3, respectively.
Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard: The Irish are seeded at all four singles flights and unseeded in doubles. But those singles players are capable of pulling Gabriel Richard into contention. Colleen O’Brien is the second seed at No. 1 after winning No. 2 last season, and Anjali Sood is the top seed at No. 2 after making the quarterfinals at No. 1. Maddy Szuba is the second seed at No. 3 after making the No. 2 quarterfinals in 2012.
Kalamazoo Hackett’s Meika Ashby: She’s looking to finish her high school career with a fourth championship match appearance and third championship – she won No. 2 as a freshman, No. 1 as a sophomore and finished runner-up at No. 1 last spring. She'll play No. 1 again this weekend.
Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central’s Kelsi Black: The fourth seed at No. 1 singles last season, she made the semifinals. This spring she’s seeded third at No. 1.
Other returning flight champions: Grandville Calvin Christian's Taylor Applehof (No. 3 singles, unseeded at No. 1 this season), Chrissy Flynn (No. 2 doubles, part of fifth-seeded No. 1 doubles this season).
PHOTO: Utica's Davina Nguyen, here playing for the 2012 Lower Peninsula Division 1 title at No. 1 singles, is one of three reigning MHSAA No. 1 singles champions set to play again this weekend. (Click to see more at HighSchoolsSportsScene.com.)
Performance: Munising's Marissa Ackerman
October 6, 2017
Marissa Ackerman
Munising senior – Tennis
Ackerman capped her second straight undefeated season with the Upper Peninsula Division 2 championship at No. 1 singles. She defeated every No. 1 singles player in the Upper Peninsula this season and lost only one set, in her semifinal, during the Sept. 27 Finals to earn the Michigan Army National Guard “Performance of the Week.”
A five-sport athlete, Ackerman also plays libero for the volleyball team during the fall, basketball and then softball and runs track in the spring. She was 13-0 on the tennis court this season, following a 13-0 junior year as a No. 2 singles champion and a 10-1 sophomore campaign where her only loss came in the U.P. Finals also at No. 2. She finished her four-year varsity career 42-7 playing no lower than No. 2, and did so while Munising played all of its matches on the road as it doesn’t have home courts. Her school, in Class D with just more than 200 students, plays tennis in the Great Northern Conference with the U.P.’s biggest schools, and she won the No. 1 singles league title as well. The Mustangs won two U.P. Finals team titles during her career, in 2015 and shared with Ishpeming Westwood in 2016.
Ackerman was followed in the singles lineup by twin sister Kelsea, and they’ve pushed each other to be better both in sports and in the classroom – the pair both have grade-point averages near 3.9. Marissa has an opportunity to play basketball at the college level but isn’t sure if she wants to continue in that sport or tennis. She’s also unsure what she’ll study after high school, although the medical field appears to be calling: her sister wants to be a nurse, her brother is studying physical therapy, her mom is a dietician at the local hospital and her dad is a nurse and director of the intensive care unit at the hospital in Marquette. Ackerman is interning at the hospital currently and considering becoming a physical therapist or athletic trainer.
Coach Rod Gendron said: “Marissa is one of the most competitive players I have coached. She plays to win and is all business on the court. Marissa knows when to play offensively, but understands how to use her extraordinary defense skills. To win a point against Marissa, you will need to hit several great shots, but that ball will keep coming back over and over. She literally wears opponents out mentally and physically. I admire how she can take a player’s strength away during a match. She forces players to over-hit, because they think they have to hit better and harder shots to win each point, which plays into her strategy. Marissa is athletic and agile on the court. She is a dual-sport athlete in the fall playing volleyball too. Plus, she starts on the basketball team, and runs track and plays softball in the spring.”
Performance Point: “During the finals, I knew it was going to be a hard match because last year the number one girl that played for us (Frankie Mattson) beat the girl I played (Iron River West Iron County’s Katarina Serbentas) for the finals, and she was pretty good so I was nervous about that,” Ackerman said. “I had a bye the first round and I had to get over playing against Ishpeming (in the semifinal), and I started off really slow and really nervous. Me losing that (second) set and going into a third set, it really showed me you have to work to get what you need to get done and that anybody can beat you if you’re having an off day. After I beat (Ishpeming) I was telling myself, ‘You need to step up your game and really get focused.’”
5-sport scholar: “You really have to be on your game whether it’s sports or school. On the buses a lot of us would be studying with each other or helping each other with homework. Definitely, homework is first and sports are second. We’d always have school and then practice, and then usually after practice my sister and me go home and study. We have a really busy day, but I really don’t like not doing anything, sitting around, and it keeps me active and always having something to do.”
Sisterly assistance: “We get really competitive. I’m really defensive (in tennis) and she is very offensive, so she has a lot of winner shots on me. But there’s a lot of shots where she thinks she has a winner and somehow I get it back. She’s a great challenge to play with. We started tennis with my grandma (Munising assistant Claudia VanLandschoot) when we were at least 3 or 5, and it just stuck. Having somebody always there with you – and we always want to get better at whatever we’re doing whether it’s basketball, tennis, any sport that we play – we always compete to get better. And by pushing each other, we know we’re going to get better.”
Net gains: “I definitely see myself as very confident in volleyball and tennis, more so in tennis because it’s an individual sport. But for volleyball I play back row libero, so I have a huge part in our team and how we execute our plays. One bad pass could lead to not setting up our executions right. That same focus I have during tennis is always with me during volleyball, during matches.”
Good and bad of good-bye: “It’s really heart-breaking to see all the years of tennis just go by. It’s crazy how fast the whole season goes, and I’m really happy about the outcome and my team. But (having only volleyball left this fall) makes it easier on my body. I was super tired and exhausted and sore, and now I’m just sore in my legs from volleyball. … I’m happy I have more recovery time in my body, but at the same time I’m super sad tennis is over.”
- Geoff Kimmerly, Second Half editor
Every week during the 2017-18 school year, Second Half and the Michigan Army National Guard will recognize a “Performance of the Week" from among the MHSAA's 750 member high schools.
The Michigan Army National Guard provides trained and ready forces in support of the National Military Strategy, and responds as needed to state, local, and regional emergencies to ensure peace, order, and public safety. The Guard adds value to our communities through continuous interaction. National Guard soldiers are part of the local community. Guardsmen typically train one weekend per month and two weeks in the summer. This training maintains readiness when needed, be it either to defend our nation's freedom or protect lives and property of Michigan citizens during a local natural disaster.
Previous 2017-18 honorees:
September 28: Minh Le, Portage Central soccer - Read
September 21: Olivia Theis, Lansing Catholic cross country - Read
September 14: Maddy Chinn, Pontiac Notre Dame Prep volleyball - Read
PHOTOS: (Top) Munising's Marissa Ackerman returns a volley during a match against Gwinn this season. (Middle) Ackerman connects during her run to the No. 1 singles title at the Great Northern Conference tournament. (Photos by the Marquette Mining Journal.)