Carrying Heavy Hearts, Wayland Soars
June 13, 2015
By Bill Khan
Special for Second Half
EAST LANSING — It should have been one of the happiest moments in Leigha Morse's young life, but she couldn't keep from breaking down in tears.
Morse apologized several times for crying while talking about her two-homer performance in Wayland's 11-0 victory over Frankenmuth in the MHSAA Division 2 softball championship game Saturday at Michigan State University.
She was hardly alone. In a surreal celebration scene, the Wildcats struggled to balance the joy of winning a championship with the sorrow of losing a close member of the Wayland softball family.
Bill Merchant, the father of Wayland assistant coach Nicki Cardosa, was killed in an automobile accident two days earlier. His death came before the Wildcats took the field to play in their MHSAA Semifinal, but the players and coaches weren't notified until after the game.
On Saturday, they returned to the same field with the knowledge of Merchant's tragic death still fresh in their minds.
"We made sure that, even with the heartbreak of the Merchant family, we knew we had to pick them up and stay with them," senior pitcher Mallory Teunissen said. "We prayed for them. We made sure that, even though it was a hard loss, that we sang the song we always sing and everybody was still pumped up for this game."
Wayland coach Cheri Ritz said Friday's practice went well until she broke down. Local pastors were brought in to talk with the players. A T-shirt from Wayland's 2006 championship team, on which Merchant had two daughters, and one of his hats were found in his house. They hung in Wayland's dugout for the championship game.
"It was pretty emotional for Nicki and I," said Ritz, who was Merchant's sister-in-law.
The Wildcats (36-2) put their sorrow aside once they stepped between the lines, turning in a dominant performance that saw Morse set one record and Teunissen nearly tie another.
Morse became the first player to hit two homers in an MHSAA Final, sending a solo shot over the 220-foot mark in center field in the second inning and lining a three-run homer over the left field fence in the seventh to cap the scoring.
"I just went up and said, 'Do it for him,'" Morse said. "(Cardosa) has not only been my coach in this, but volleyball as well. She's like a second mom to me."
Teunissen struck out 17 batters, one shy of the MHSAA Finals record for a seven-inning game shared by Kalamazoo Christian's Keri DeJong (1996) and Galesburg-Augusta's Jackie Bowe (2008). Only three other pitchers, including DeJong in 1998, had 17 strikeouts in a seven-inning game.
Teunissen had a no-hitter until Frankenmuth's Ivy Holland singled with two outs in the fifth inning. She allowed four hits and walked three, including the first two batters of the game.
"I just get out there and try to do my thing, make sure my pitches are working," Teunissen said. "In the beginning I walked a few batters, but I had to shake it off."
Frankenmuth had runners on second and third with one out after the two walks in the first inning, but didn't score.
Wayland scored in each of the first three innings to build a 5-0 lead.
Morgan Teunissen, one of three sisters on the team, led off the game with a single and scored on a two-out single to short center field by Hailey Houck to open the scoring.
Morse made it 2-0 by blasting her first homer in the second inning.
The Wildcats broke it open with a three-run third during which they had three extra-base hits. Doubles by Abby Merice and Houck, and a single by Mallory Teunissen scored one run apiece.
After stranding a runner on third and failing to score in the fourth, Wayland tacked on two more runs in the fifth inning when Morgan Winger lined a double over the left fielder’s head.
Frankenmuth's best chance to score came in the sixth when Amariah Wright headed for home on a single by Kayla Brooks, only to be thrown out by center fielder Abby Merice.
Morse's three-run homer capped a four-run seventh inning for Wayland. The first run of the inning scored on a home run by sophomore Bethany Teunissen, an all-stater last season who nearly missed this entire season with a knee injury. Teunissen didn't start Saturday.
"I just get one at-bat normally a game," she said. "It was difficult. I just loved cheering on the team while I was out. It was a great opportunity to come back."
"My little sister Bethany came back from an ACL and she finally got that hit," Mallory Teunissen said. "I can't say how proud I am of her. She tore her ACL in basketball. We weren't sure if she'd be back for the tournament or not. She's an incredible player. I'm so glad she got to get back and I got to play with her my senior year."
Frankenmuth finished with a 37-4-1 record, reaching an MHSAA Final for the third time in school history.
"We played so well all year, then we laid an egg a little bit," Frankenmuth coach Brad Walraven said. "Their pitcher beat us up. That was a good team. You feel lousy for losing the game, but there's 130 other schools who would love to be in our shoes. It was a tough loss, but a great season. It was a wonderful team that I have. I'm going to miss my seven seniors."
PHOTOS: (Top) Wayland players and coaches hoist their MHSAA championship trophy after claiming their first title since 2006. (Middle) Pitcher Mallory Teunissen struck out 17 Frankenmuth batters Saturday.
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.
Things 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.
“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.
“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.
“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 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.)