D3 Powers Book Championship Matchup
June 16, 2017
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
EAST LANSING – Everyone who follows high school softball in Michigan expected another dominating Meghan Beaubien performance in Friday’s first Division 3 Semifinal.
But few expected a pitchers dual – broken up only by Beaubien the hitter as Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central earned the opportunity to play for a third straight MHSAA championship.
Beaubien allowed just two hits and struck out 15 Shepherd hitters at Secchia Stadium, and also led off the sixth inning with a triple before scoring the game’s lone run as the top-ranked Kestrels escaped the Bluejays and their pitcher Haley Peska 1-0.
Peska, who no-hit No. 4 Millington in Tuesday’s Quarterfinal, allowed only five hits and struck out six in just about matching the state’s most celebrated hurler of the last three seasons.
“We’ve played a lot of really good teams on our way here this year," Beaubien said. "This is a great example of it – Shepherd’s a team that nobody thought would be in the mix at this point, and they just played a great game and almost beat us.
“(But) the experience of being here has helped us mentally and with our confidence.”
Monroe St. Mary (26-3) will next face No. 3 Napoleon in Saturday’s 5:30 p.m. Final.
Maybe not the best news for Michigan State’s softball program – Beaubien will continue her career at University of Michigan – but the St. Mary’s ace has given up four hits total in 33 innings pitched at Secchia over the last three seasons. In fact, Friday’s was the first Semifinal in three seasons that she didn’t throw a no-hitter.
Not that giving up two hits made her any less dominating. That was made plain both in the sound the ball made pounding catcher Kenna Garst’s glove on her many fastballs, but also when she ended the game with a strikeout on a floating change-up that no one in East Lansing was expecting.
She’ll finish her high school career with an ERA well south of a run per game and passed 1,300 career strikeouts a while ago.
“This whole run was like, ‘OK, any game could be your last game.’ I know that,” Beaubien said. “Now I know for sure. Tomorrow is my last game. I don’t think it’s really hit me yet. It’s a little weird. I just want to go out there and make my last game of my career end with another state championship.”
The combination of two superb pitching performances made this one fly by in a mere 77 minutes. Freshman rightfielder Samantha Michael did have two hits in two at bats for St. Mary, with junior shortstop Kelsey Barron doubling in that lone run and junior third baseman Danielle Michael notching the team’s other hit.
Senior centerfielder Ryanne McKenna and junior shortstop Kianna Andrews had the hits for Shepherd (25-19), and of course Peska made the most memorable impact for a Bluejays team playing in its first Semifinal since 1997.
“They’ve got two coaches over there (Bobb Servoss and assistant Terry Lynch) that know a lot about the game … and in this game it’s all about keeping hitters off-balance,” St. Mary coach John Morningstar said. “You’re never letting anyone sit on something, and if all you’ve got is speed in this game it’s going to be a long season. Kids will catch up to that hard ball. Moving it around the way (Peska) does, she’s very effective. She had us chasing a lot of pitches that we wouldn’t normally swing at.”
Napoleon 16, Gladstone 0
Not that more proof was needed on top of a 36-4 record. But Napoleon’s seniors showed again Friday they’re ready for one last matchup with the St. Mary ace.
As freshman, they were part of a team that downed Beaubien and St. Mary in a Regional Final. But she and the Kestrels came back to eliminate the Pirates in a Quarterfinal in 2015, and Napoleon didn’t make it out of the District a year ago.
“We have been looking ahead, and saying we’re going to end up meeting Meghan, we're going to meet her,” Napoleon senior shortstop Paige Kortz said. “And just talking and scouting, hearing scouting reports. Of course they probably have with us (too), but just going ahead and figuring out what their weaknesses are, and we’re going to try to hit them tomorrow.”
They seemed to hit everything Friday, especially during the first inning. Napoleon jumped out to an 8-0 lead and finished the game with 19 hits over five innings.
Senior outfielder Kallie Pittman was 4 for 4 and scored two runs, while senior second baseman Ashton Jordan was 3 for 4 with two doubles, two runs and four RBI. Senior third baseman Haley Rose also was 3 for 4 and scored three runs, while Kortz, senior centerfielder Dylan Wiley, senior catcher Rachel Griffin and junior designated player Caitlin Pace all had two hits.
Senior Sydney Coe, in addition to driving in two runs, allowed only three hits in the circle and struck out six Gladstone batters. Senior centerfielder Alyssa Polley, sophomore third baseman Sydney Herioux and junior rightfielder Kaitlyn Hardwick hit safely for the Braves (34-10).
This was the fourth Napoleon team to make Quarterfinals and the first to make Semifinals, meaning of course that Saturday’s championship game also will be a first.
“Especially having eight seniors,” Kortz said, “we at the beginning of this season were determined to be Lansing bound. And determined to make school history.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Monroe St. Mary’s Samantha Michael rounds a base during Friday’s win over Shepherd. (Middle) Napoleon’s Sydney Coe takes a swing during the second Division 3 Semifinal.
As Season 50 Begins, Johnson Continues Nurturing Opportunities Into Lasting Successes
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
April 13, 2022
Kay Johnson’s high school athletic career consisted of a field hockey game, one or two volleyball matches and a basketball game.
“We would get the gym one night a week, and we’d play something,” she said, recalling her days at Whitmer High School in Toledo, Ohio. “There weren’t a lot of opportunities.”
The introduction to sports was all she needed, however, to form a lifelong passion for athletics. Johnson is starting her 50th season this week as softball coach at Morenci High School in south central Michigan. The school is less than two miles from the Ohio border but has long been on the Michigan map when it comes to sports.
Much of that credit belongs to Johnson. She’s coached multiple generations of Bulldogs athletes. At one time she coached four sports – basketball, volleyball, track and softball.
“In the winter we would have basketball practice until 5, then the girls would spend the next half hour working on their spring sports,” she said. “I would catch our softball pitchers in the gym and our track athletes would put some work in.”
In the spring of 1976, Johnson coached Morenci to a league championship in softball and the Lower Peninsula Class D track & field championship.
“We were very successful in the 1970s,” she said. “We got a head start on a lot of people. We had all of our sports going pretty strong those first seven or eight years.”
Johnson arrived at Morenci at about the same time Title IX was becoming law. The legislation protected people of all genders from discrimination in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance.
Morenci, she said, got a leg up on other schools in the area when it came to sports. Part of that was the push she gave sports at the school.
“I knew in the eighth grade that I wanted to be a physical education teacher,” she said. “Out of high school I went to Adrian College, and I played everything I could. I played basketball, field hockey and volleyball and played two years on the tennis team.
“Adrian encouraged women to get involved in sports, so I was fortunate there, too.
“At Morenci, we had a superintendent, Harold Hall, whose daughter was a good athlete, and he wanted her to participate in sports. It didn’t happen overnight because of Title IX, but it developed. We had a lot of girls participate.”
She didn’t necessarily dream of one day becoming a coach but accepted the role when she got to Morenci.
“I was the physical education teacher,” she said. “It was kind of assumed the PE teacher would be a coach. They sort of just gave me the sports to coach. I was okay with it.”
There were some growing pains with girls athletics.
“In the winter, our basketball team would have to wait until after wrestling meets to have a practice,” she said. “Some nights our practices were from 9:30 or 9:45 to 10:30. Most of our girls did two or three sports. Finding gym time was a struggle.”
Things that athletes take for granted these days, such as uniforms, were also difficult to come by.
“We wore the same T-shirts for all of our sports the first few years,” she said. “It wasn’t until we pushed for it that every sport had their own uniforms. I don’t think anyone was suing anyone in Morenci back then, but there were little pushes here and there to make things happen. I don’t even remember when the pay for coaches started evening out. Nothing happens without a push.”
Over the years, however, Title IX took hold and athletes from Morenci and all over the state and nation benefited.
As the seasons grew and things evolved, Johnson eventually stopped coaching varsity track & field, volleyball, and basketball, although she had huge successes in each sport. Johnson was teacher for 23 years and middle school principal for 15. After retiring she went a couple of years without a formal title but covered assorted duties such as middle school volleyball coach, volleyball scorekeeper, filming for boys basketball and football and running concession stands. Soon, she became athletic director, a position she left a few years ago.
Softball, however, has remained her constant.
“I’m still challenged by it,” she said. “That’s what keeps me coming back.”
The Bulldogs went 19-14 last year and won the 25th District title of Johnson’s tenure. She also has 11 league titles, nine Regional titles and two Class C Finals championships (1985 and 1986) in softball. Her 949 career wins put her firmly in the top 15 among the state’s all-time winningest softball coaches. Technically the 2022 season is No. 49, although she’s been coach for 50. The 2020 season was canceled due to COVID-19.
“I still coached all winter to get the girls ready,” she said. “We just didn’t have a season.”
Johnson said she has been happy coaching at Morenci. In 1978, she briefly coached basketball at another Lenawee County school when it appeared Morenci was not going to have high school athletics due to a millage not passing. She was juggling coaching the girls at Morenci and at another school, but when the millage passed and sports were restored at Morenci she gave up the other school.
“I’ve never really looked to go anywhere else,” she said. “I never looked to coach in college. The recruiting never interested me.”
Johnson has 23 athletes in the Morenci softball program this year including some who have not played softball before, meaning she’s teaching the game almost from the bottom up.
“I just have to be patient,” she said. “I enjoy the challenge of seeing where we start to where we end. I’ve never been one to coach to win the first game of the season. I want to win the last.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Morenci softball coach Kay Johnson talks things over with player Rebekah Shoemaker during last season’s Division 4 Regional. (Middle) Johnson confers with the home plate umpire. (Photos by Doug Donnelly.)