Ace Pitching, Extra-Base Hitting Send Hartland, Woodhaven to Saturday

By Tom Kendra
Special for MHSAA.com

June 15, 2023

EAST LANSING – Riley Phillips is one of the smallest girls on Hartland’s softball team and she bats way down in the No. 8 spot in the order.

But Thursday, she delivered her team’s biggest hit.

Phillips smacked a triple to deep left-center field in the fourth inning, scoring two runs to help the Eagles soar to a 4-0 victory over Lake Orion in the second Division 1 Semifinal at Michigan State University’s Secchia Stadium.

“I can’t believe I got ahold of it like that,” said Phillips, a converted outfielder who is playing second base for the first time this season.

“It was an amazing feeling to slide into third base and have everyone cheering for me. My senior year couldn’t be any better.”

It actually has a chance to get a little better Saturday, when Hartland will play for its first softball championship since 1996 when it faces Brownstown Woodhaven in the Division 1 Final at 12:30 p.m.

Woodhaven also posted a shutout, blanking Grand Blanc, 3-0, to advance to its first softball championship game.

Based on Thursday’s results, Saturday’s Final could be a pitching duel between Woodhaven’s Grace Usher and Hartland’s Kylie Swierkos.

Swierkos held Lake Orion’s previously hot bats to just four hits, all singles, with no walks and seven strikeouts. The senior did not allow a baserunner and was perfect after the third inning.

Eagles ace Kylie Swierkos makes her move toward the plate during her team’s victory.“I had a lot of nerves at first, but I guess that’s to be expected playing here,” said Swierkos, who improved her season record to 22-1. “To go this far with this team is just so special. I’m glad I get to share it with these people.”

Her dominant performance came as no surprise to fifth-year Hartland coach Taylor Wagner.

“Kylie has worked her whole life for this moment,” said Wagner, who has led the Eagles to two Regional titles out of four attempts as head coach. “She was built for this.”

Swierkos not only delivered on the mound, but with the bat as well. In fact, all four of Hartland’s runs were knocked in by the three seniors at the bottom of the batting order – one by Faith DeLanoy in the seventh spot, two by Phillips at No. 8 and one by Swierkos at No. 9.

That type of balance throughout the lineup has allowed Hartland to get back to the Finals and in position to win the school’s second softball state championship.

“They make it easy for me as a coach because, from top to bottom, they are getting the job done,” said Wagner, who is assisted by Lindsay Brandon. “This is one of the toughest sports to win a championship in. You have to win seven games, and you have to be perfect.”

Lake Orion, 33-7, came into the postseason unranked and made an impressive run to the Semifinals, including a 2-1 upset of top-ranked Macomb Dakota in the Regional Final. The Dragons had scored double-digit runs in their first three postseason games, but their bats went cold Thursday against Swierkos.

Lake Orion sophomore pitcher Rylee Limberger did her part to keep her team in the game, allowing eight hits and four earned runs in six innings of work.

Click for the box score.

Brownstown Woodhaven 3, Grand Blanc 0

Grace Usher was dominant on the mound, using her changeup and impeccable control to keep Grand Blanc off-balance.

Usher went the full seven innings in the win, allowing just two hits and striking out nine.

“I was nervous at first; I was shaking,” said Usher, a junior who upped her season record to 19-3. “Once we scored those two runs, it settled me right down.”

A Woodhaven hitter connects during her team’s Semifinal win.The Warriors scored two runs in the first inning and added another in the third – with both of those rallies started by doubles from sophomore shortstop Ariel Krueger, who scored two runs. Lindsay Marlewitz also had two hits for the Warriors.

That was more than enough runs for Usher, who said the strategy coming into the game was pitching the Bobcats down and away, and throwing plenty of changeups.

“When Grace is on her game, I would put her up against anyone in the state,” said second-year Woodhaven coach Ken Kroll, before adding a little caveat before Saturday’s Final. “But we have three pitchers we can go to, and they all have different stuff.”

Usher’s performance overshadowed a strong outing from Grand Blanc senior Sydney Long, who allowed five hits and struck out eight in six innings.

Brownstown Woodhaven, 35-4 and ranked No. 10 entering the postseason, is making school history with every game this postseason, winning its first softball Regional title last weekend, and now adding Quarterfinal and Semifinal wins.

“We are playing care-free,” explained Kroll. “The girls are feeling it right now. I would say we are very confident, but not cocky.”

Click for the box score.

PHOTOS (Top) Hartland catcher Sadie Malik shows Semifinals-level intensity Thursday. (Middle) Eagles ace Kylie Swierkos makes her move toward the plate during her team’s victory. (Below) A Woodhaven hitter connects during her team’s Semifinal win. (Photos by John Castine/Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)

Game May Change, But Success Continues as Wilson Nears 800 Coaching Wins

By Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com

April 16, 2024

SOUTH HAVEN — No dugouts, no outfield fences, $25 bats.

Southwest CorridorThings have come a long way since Wilma Wilson took over the coaching reins at her alma mater 35 years ago.

“When I played, we didn’t have fences, we didn’t have dugouts; we had benches,” the South Haven softball coach said. “If you hit a home run, it had to be an in-the-park home run because there were hardly any parks that had any fences.

“It’s come a long way. Now you go to fields that are turfed. I love it. I’m glad to see the change for the girls and to see more emphasis on them playing and being involved.”

With a 791-406 record over her 35 years coaching the Rams softball team, Wilson is closing in on 800 career wins. Her current record puts her 19th among MHSAA coaches and just 16 victories behind former Monroe coach Vince Rossi’s 807 victories.

The Rams are 2-2 on the young season, but started off with a bang — actually three bangs over the right field fence in a one-run squeaker against Paw Paw on March 26.

Although the team has just 11 players, it is stacked with experience. Nine players saw action last season, and the five seniors have three or four years of varsity time.

Those seniors include twins Kamryn and Taylor Holland.

Against Paw Paw, Kamryn hit her first grand slam, a walk-off homer in a 12-11 win.

The Rams enjoy watching Marlee Wilson’s Broncos this season. “I knew it was going to be close as soon as I saw it,” the third baseman said. “I just kept running and started jumping up and down when I saw it go over.”

She was one of the veterans instrumental in the team’s postseason play last year, as South Haven reached its Division 2 District Final before losing 6-2 to Hamilton.

The Rams are focused on a longer run this year.

“A lot of the girls have been on the same team, and we’ve played together the past three years,” Kamryn said. “We know enough about each other and work good together. Everything clicks.”

Her sister, a shortstop/pitcher, agrees she and her teammates already have solid connections and said Wilson is a big reason.

“I love how much she pushes me,” Taylor Holland said. “She’s always there when you need her. She’ll take you aside if you need anything and always wants us to be our best. I just love that about her, because she loves us on and off the field.”

Wilson does more than work on softball with the players.

“(Last week) I sat down with the girls and had a good heart-to-heart, working through frustrations, trying to help kids maneuver through things in life, whether at school, at home, in the game,” she said. 

“That’s a huge part of coaching and what keeps me in it, knowing I can make a difference helping these kids manage life a little bit.”

Continuing the legacy

One of Wilson’s former players who is still very involved in the sport is her daughter, Marlee Wilson, in her first season as Western Michigan University’s head softball coach.

The Broncos won their 20th game of the season Sunday, making Wilson WMU’s winningest first-year softball coach. 

Wilson, right, joins daughter Marlee to form an accomplished mother-daughter coaching tree. “I coached her when she was small, coached her through high school, coached her in travel ball,” Wilma Wilson said. “She’s a very competitive kid, plays really hard. She has that same love for the game that I do, same drive.”

Marlee Wilson said one important thing she learned from her mom was to make softball fun.

“Practices in high school were always really fun,” she remembered. “It was the best part of the day. I couldn’t imagine it being any other way. (I want to) continue that and also develop the student athletes as people.

“There’s not a huge career in softball like there is in baseball and other sports, so you’re going to play four or five years in college then hopefully be prepared for life after sports, which (Mom) did a really good job with me.”

When she has a chance to talk with high school athletes, Marlee Wilson tells them to have fun and learn the basics of the game.

“That’s huge in high school,” she said. “At the college level, we can tell players who went through really good high school programs or travel programs that have those really good fundamentals or softball IQ.

“(Mom) does a really good job of developing players as a whole so when they get to that level, they understand that part of the game.”

Wilson played softball at WMU from 2014-18 and was a three-time academic all-Mid-American Conference honoree, a 2017 MAC Distinguished Scholar-Athlete and a four-time NFCA All-American Scholar.

Sparking like Sparky

Although Wilma Wilson calls him a “co-coach,” Dave Gumpert considers himself her assistant the last 11 years.

“I respect her many years as being a coach,” he said. “We talk things over, but she makes the final decisions.

“It’s been a really good relationship. She bounces things off me, I bounce things off her. It’s been a good run so far.”

Gumpert, who had a seven-year stint as a major league pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, Chicago Cubs and Kansas City Royals, is the one who good-naturedly calls Wilson “Sparky” and not because of her sparkling personality.

Myraql McGee settles in under a fly ball. “She pretty much lets me run practice, and she walks around,” he said, smiling. “I played for (Tigers manager) Sparky Anderson and that’s what he did. He walked around the outfield, just talking to people and doing all the PR stuff while all the other coaches were getting the work done. So I like to tease her.”

Equipment has been another area of change during Wilson’s tenure.

“The equipment has gone crazy from the technology of bats,” she said. “A bat back in the day would be $20, $25. Now they’re $400. 

“If take my school budget and buy balls for the season for both our (varsity and JV) teams and a bat, I’ve used two-thirds of my budget.”

But South Haven is making those bats work. Senior centerfielder Myraql McGee said hitting is among the team’s most noticeable improvements from a year ago.

“Our whole lineup is good power hitters. It doesn’t matter where you are, our lineup is pretty stacked,” said McGee, who will continue her career next season at Missouri Valley College.

“Fielding-wise, we could work on a couple things, but we don’t make as many errors at routine plays as many other teams.”

Other seniors are Sam Beeney and Kayley Gorham, and juniors are Madi Dotson, Grace Strebeck and Molly Verseput. Sophomores are Addison Dekoning and Erin Bos, and they are joined by freshman Ly’Nique Cunningham.

Gumpert was with Wilson when the Rams reached but lost in the Division 2 Final in 2018 and sees some similarities between that and this year’s team.

“Offensively, we had a good team, but I would dare to say this team is as good offensively as that team was,” he said. “It’s going to boil down to how well our pitching does, how well our pitchers progress. If we have the pitching I think we can develop into, I think we’ll be competitive with anybody.”

Pam ShebestPam 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) South Haven softball coach Wilma Wilson, right, welcomes home Kamryn Holland after Holland’s grand slam March 26. (2) The Rams enjoy watching Marlee Wilson’s Western Michigan Broncos this season. (2) Wilson, right, joins daughter Marlee to form an accomplished mother-daughter coaching tree. (4) South Haven senior Myraql McGee settles in under a fly ball. (Top and WMU photos provided by Wilma Wilson, family photo by Pam Shebest, and McGee action photo provided by McGee.)