Roque Shines as Sault Ste Marie Surges
January 14, 2016
By Dennis Grall
Special for Second Half
SAULT STE. MARIE – Abby Roque has taken a somewhat unusual route to reach another high level of hockey.
The Sault Ste. Marie High School senior, an accomplished international player on the women's side, is the only female playing on her school's boys hockey team, as she’s been each of her four seasons with the Blue Devils. She is the only girl to have ever played for the Sault, which is home to one of the top boys programs in the state.
The Blue Devils, two-time MHSAA champions who finished second in the Division 3 playoffs in 2013 and 2014 and reached the Quarterfinals last year, are 10-4-1 this winter.
Roque, a forward who also plays on the team's top power play unit, has five goals and 14 assists. She has received a scholarship to play for the University of Wisconsin, which has one of the nation's premier women's hockey programs. The Badgers, coached by former Olympian and NHL star Mark Johnson, are currently ranked second in the country.
"It has really helped me see how college hockey will be," Roque said before a recent practice as the Blue Devils prepared for the Sault Lions Showcase this weekend and games against Dearborn Divine Child and Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice. Sault Ste. Marie is ranked No. 9 in Division 3 this week.
"It's been a good four years. It has helped me improve every single year," she added. "I've never been the best player on the team, but that has made me work hard to try to be the best player on the team.”
Last season, Roque was one of 15 girls who played on boys high school hockey teams in Michigan and earned Division 3 all-state second team honors.
She also played on the U.S. Women's Under-18 International Ice Hockey Federation world championship team that won gold in 2015.
"The speed of the guys high school game has helped me prepare for women's college hockey," she said.
While not as fast on the high school ice, Roque knows how to compensate against the boys. Asked for her primary strength, she said, "my smarts on the ice. The guys are very fast, they are very powerful. I have to make the right pass. My stick handling skills are good."
Those skills also give her a decided edge when she does play against other females, such as the IIHF world tourney, where she led the world juniors in face-offs. Even though checking is not allowed in the girls game, her experience in the more physical brand of boys hockey has helped provide a major advantage.
"I do enjoy the checking. The physical part of hockey is great," she said with a chuckle. "Girls hold the puck longer. Guys come at you (faster and harder) and you have to move the puck faster."
Getting knocked around in the corner in boys games is no problem. "I'm not intimidated by anyone on the ice," she said. "I've gotten stronger playing with the guys. I'm clearly not as strong, but I hold my own. It is all really just hockey to me at this point."
Her Sault coach, John Ferroni, said many opposing players and fans are not even aware there is a female on the ice. "She has definitely learned how to manage herself in the boys game," he said. "She is very competitive, sometimes even too competitive."
Indeed, she says, "I try to be the intimidating one on the ice."
That is not surprising since she has grown up with hockey a major part of her life. She began playing at age 4 and her father, Jim, is a former hockey coach at Lake Superior State University. Her uncle, Tom Bissett, is hockey coach at Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern.
"If kids inherit things from their parents, she has inherited her dad's hockey IQ. She picked up the sport and has had a lot of hockey conversations with her father, and she comes from a hockey family," Ferroni said, noting her mother also has a strong athletic background.
Roque, who also has played golf and soccer and boasts 4.0 grade-point average taking advanced placement classes, said playing boys hockey was not a hard decision. She played in the strong Sault boys youth program from day one and realized the boys were the direction to take after playing girls hockey in the fall as an eighth grader.
"She always played with good hockey players, and they always accepted her as a girl," said Ferroni, in his fifth year as Sault coach. He said Roque "understands the game real well and made the commitment a long time ago. She is very dedicated to the sport."
Ferroni said Roque "has decent speed and decent quickness at the boys level. She is a strong skater and is very hard to knock off the puck. She is very elusive and always seems aware of what is going on around her."
That ability to see the game makes her "a playmaker without question" according to Ferroni. "She passes the puck extremely well; she has good, strong passing skills."
Ferroni admits he "had to look at a lot of things before taking her" on the team. After that process concluded, he said, "I knew she would be fine, but no way did I think she would rise to the level she has risen to. I didn't see that (second team all-state) coming."
After checking out girls programs, Roque and Ferroni realized the Sault High School boys team would be the best path to follow. Ferroni said playing against other girls was not fast enough, and the puck movement among the boys was much better.
"We afforded her and gave her a great opportunity," Ferroni said. "She walked into a good, strong program as a freshman and was not just being a player, but was a real solid player. She definitely has raised the bar around here for girls.
"She has helped us as much as we have helped her."
Roque said Wisconsin "was the right fit for me. I loved everything about it, about Madison. Everything is about hockey. I just couldn't go anywhere else."
Roque also received scholarship offers from women's programs at North Dakota, Boston College and Boston University, among other schools.
This school year's participation figures will not be compiled until the spring, but about 250 girls total played on MHSAA boys teams in 2014-15.
Denny Grall retired in 2012 after 39 years at the Escanaba Daily Press and four at the Green Bay Press-Gazette, plus 15 months for WLST radio in Escanaba; he served as the Daily Press sports editor from 1970-80 and again from 1984-2012. Grall was inducted into the Upper Peninsula Sports Hall of Fame in 2002 and serves as its executive secretary. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for the Upper Peninsula.
PHOTOS: (Top) Sault Ste. Marie's Abby Roque positions herself near the net during one of her team's games. (Middle) Roque is the first girl to play on the Sault's boys hockey team. (Below) Roque, here on her U.S. Under-18 team, brings international experience to the high school season. (Photos courtesy of the Sault Ste. Marie athletic department.)
Performance: Stevenson's Seth Lause
January 9, 2020
Seth Lause
Livonia Stevenson senior – Hockey
The four-year varsity center accomplished one of the rarest of hockey feats Saturday against No. 3 Hartland, scoring three short-handed goals in No. 2 Stevenson’s 5-2 win to earn the MHSAA “Performance of the Week.” Although the National Federation of State High School Associations does not keep a record for short-handed goals in one game, it is possible that Lause was only the second player nationally to score three at the high school level, following Lucas DeBenedet of International Falls, Minn., in 2011.
Lause is tied for the team lead in goals this winter with eight and ranks second with 12 assists as Stevenson is off to a 9-1-1 start. He made the Division 2 all-state second team last season with five goals and 12 assists over 19 games. The MHSAA also has not previously tracked a record for short-handed goals in one game – but for added perspective, the feat has been achieved only once in NHL history. Lause’s first goal came in the second period, and his second and third scores came during the same power play over 1 minute, 29 seconds, during the third period.
Stevenson has had one of the state’s strongest programs over the last decade, making at least the Quarterfinals five straight seasons, finishing Division 2 runner-up twice and winning the championship in 2013. After helping his team to another title pursuit, Lause hopes to continue playing at the junior level after graduation in the spring. Whether he begins college later or right away, he’s interested in the medical field and particularly psychology – and carries a 4.4 GPA at Stevenson.
Coach David Mitchell said: "Seth is a tireless worker ... both on the ice and in the classroom. He is an extremely high-character student-athlete that works tirelessly on his craft. It's been a real honor and pleasure to watch him grow as a player, as a person and as a leader. The sky's the limit for Seth with regards to his future. He is for sure leaving his mark on Livonia Stevenson hockey."
Performance Point: “The first goal was just a fortunate bounce. I think one of their guys missed a pass, and I ended up being on a line rush 2-on-1 with my teammate Noah (Turner). I was just looking for a shot on the first one, just trying to go low stick, since he had the low stick kinda showing me a little bit of that, and the rebound just came out to me when I shot it there, and I ended up burying it,” Lause said, describing his three goals. “The second one was (Ian) Kimble had a good play with his stick. He poke-checked it around one of their defensemen, came in, and created space for himself in the zone and saw my flying into the net. And so he threw it down into the corner and I picked it up down low, and I came around the net on my backhand side and I was looking around to see where everyone was at. I kinda looked off the goalie, and the goalie I saw was low and he had the high short side open, and so I flipped it up over and went up on the high far side. And then the third one was just a good play by Adam Heard. I was calling for it. I got behind their D at the far blue and he found me and gave me a great pass on my tape, and I just came in and shot it high glove. Honestly I didn’t even know we were still short-handed on my third goal, but everyone told me after the game that it was still short-handed and I’d scored three shorties, and I thought it was pretty cool. At first … I didn’t realize to scale how big of a deal it was.”
Fueled by fun: “It’s just been fun. Last year, I was more focused on just doing as much as I could to win. I still do now, but I don’t put as much pressure on myself now. It’s just a great thing, since it is my last year, just kinda taking a different approach to it this year and just letting everything go and going out and having a blast. This may or may not be my last moments playing; with my friends and for my high school, obviously this is the last year. It’s just been a lot of fun playing with these guys. I think that’s just been the big difference – me letting go mentally and just having a blast doing it. … I’ve always known there’s been something special (with this team), just every year we’ve been here. But this year especially, it’s been just a lot of guys bought in earlier. It just happens quicker with some teams than others. The approach that we’ve had has just been a lot more relaxed, a lot more fun. This group has really connected with one another, and everything’s just clicking right now.”
Play hard, cheer hard: “We usually go to all the other events that we have (at school). So basketball, swimming, volleyball, other sports – we always attend their games. We try to show support that way by going and trying to create a small student section if you will, the whole hockey team. We go to every sport that we can, even tennis we go to. …. Our coach really takes pride in that too, because for everyone who comes to our games, all the peers who come to our games, he likes to give back to them and say thanks, honestly, just for a support they give us. Without them, it’s totally a different environment.”
Stevenson strong: “We just work hard. Our effort is our floor here. We’ve always prided ourselves on being one of the hardest-working teams, both on and off the ice, also involving ourselves in the community (and) we reach out to a lot of teams. We go to a lot of other team events here at our school. We just put a lot of pride in ourselves and the extra stuff we do. It’s just what makes us, us. We’re very involved in development and trusting the process of development and just being a team that works hard. We really just pride ourselves on that.”
The doctor is in: “Anything medical, I’m really interested in. … I’m mostly focused on the brain. I just love how the brain works. There are other organs like the heart that everyone knows about – we know every single little detail about the heart. But the brain is just something that’s so mysterious that a lot of people haven’t figured out yet. So that’s a thing that intrigues me – what is really going on, and something to just figure out because it’s a developing thing right now.”
– Geoff Kimmerly, Second Half editor
Past honorees
Dec. 5: Mareyohn Hrabowski, River Rouge football - Report
Nov. 28: Kathryn Ackerman, Grand Haven swimming - Report
Nov. 21: Emily Van Dyke, Southfield Christian volleyball - Report
Nov. 14: Taylor Wegener, Ida volleyball - Report
Nov. 7: Carter Solomon, Plymouth cross country - Report
Oct. 31: Jameson Goorman, Muskegon Western Michigan Christian soccer - Report
Oct. 24: Austin Plotkin, Brimley cross country - Report
Oct. 17: Jack Spamer, Brighton cross country - Report
Oct. 10: Kaylee Maat, Hudsonville volleyball - Report
Oct. 3: Emily Paupore, Negaunee cross country - Report
Sept. 26: Josh Mason, South Lyon soccer - Report
Sept. 19: Ariel Chang, Utica Eisenhower golf - Report
Sept. 12: Jordyn Shipps, DeWitt swimming - Report
PHOTOS: (Top) Livonia Stevenson's Seth Lause is a four-year contributor to one of the state's top programs. (Middle) Lause also is serving as a captain this winter. (Photos courtesy of the Livonia Stevenson hockey program.)