Detroit Powers Succeed Amid Lower Numbers
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
April 20, 2016
Participation in spring sports, following a similar decline in student-aged population in Michigan, has been on a decline statewide over the last decade.
But while some like baseball have experienced a slight bounce-back over the last few seasons, softball in particular has seen its numbers continue to fall.
Coaches and administrators in the Detroit area point to a number of factors intertwined that produced a snowball-like effect – and now it seems to have come to a head.
Three softball programs in the Catholic League Central, a division that competes at a high level statewide, don’t have sufficient numbers to field a junior varsity this spring. Many programs don’t sponsor freshmen teams for the same reason.
But for schools like Birmingham Marian, Farmington Hills Mercy and Livonia Ladywood not to have a junior varsity softball team is quite shocking to some – especially considering that Mercy enters this season ranked No. 3 in Division 1 and Ladywood is No. 2 in Division 2.
Specialization fallout
Marian athletic director Dave Feldman isn’t among those stunned. He saw this coming. Feldman points to the 2007-08 school year when the Michigan High School Athletic Association was forced, by court decision, to switch the volleyball season from the winter to the fall and the girls basketball season from the fall to the winter.
Feldman has a daughter, a freshman at Marian, who participated on the junior varsity volleyball team this fall. When that season was over she joined a club volleyball team. Feldman said the club volleyball season begins in December and continues on into June.
“It’s not AAU,” Feldman said. “But you need to be an AAU member (to play). They play all of the time. Heck, they played on Easter Sunday. And every club is filled.”
The pressure on athletes to play year-round is arguably greater now than it ever has been, and can come from coaches, peers and family – based on a frequent misconception that if athletes want to earn a scholarship, they better keep up with the Joneses or be left behind.
Feldman said he’ll back his daughter with whatever decision she makes. If she wants to play volleyball nine or 10 months a year, he’ll support that. But Feldman said, financially, it’s getting out of hand. He estimated between the cost of airfare, hotels and meals that he’ll spend $6,500 in support of his daughter playing club volleyball.
And, according to Feldman, the increase in attention on volleyball is affecting participation in other sports.
“(Girls) basketball is fighting for its life,” he said. “Our field hockey program (a fall sport) is fine. Our lacrosse teams are fine.
“We have 15 playing volleyball at all three levels. We had 16 (total) try out for softball and we made two cuts. We haven’t had a JV the last two years. The last time we had a freshman (softball) team was in 2004 or 2005. The last few years the numbers have dropped off. It’s the specialization.”
Simply signs of change?
Warren Regina is another member of the Catholic League Central. Regina athletic director Diane Laffey also is the head coach for softball and basketball, and she said she thinks lacrosse has drawn some athletes away from softball – which makes sense, although the total number of girls playing high school lacrosse in Michigan has increased only about 1,000 over the last decade, while softball participation is down 4,000 athletes over the same time.
One should not use Regina as an example of decline – Laffey’s team won the Division 1 championship last spring and fields a softball team at all three levels. At the same time, Regina also has seen a rise in participation in lacrosse. There are 18 playing for both the varsity and junior varsity this spring, the highest participation in school history.
Mercy varsity softball coach Alec Lesko said, simply, that times have changed. Mercy reached the Division 1 Semifinals last season, just as Ladywood did in Division 2 the year before – yet despite this success, Mercy’s number of softball players also has declined.
“(The students) have many more options,” Lesko said. “In addition to their school work there’s band, theatre, honors society clubs. In the past kids would play three sports and be in the band. All of my daughters were multi-sport athletes. By their sophomore year they had to make a decision (on which sport they would concentrate).
“It’s also economics. They want to earn a scholarship. You hear horror stories about (the cost of) student loans. Even the big schools have trouble getting the (students to play softball).
“As far as college, and I can only speak about softball, the Big Ten coaches want the player they recruit to play other sports,” Lesko added. “I hope to have a JV program next year. A player that misses 30 JV games, we will feel that crunch later. There are those who think JV softball is a waste of time, that you should just compete in travel (during the summer). We will get some of those kids. Those who compete in travel then come to us as sophomores.”
Reasons for optimism
Don Peters is the softball coach at Clarkston, and between coaching travel and at the high school level he’s put in 35 years. He coached travel before taking over the Clarkston program. Peters said the two complement each another, or at least they should.
“I know some disagree,” he said. “The girls have a lot of choices in the spring. Look at all of the sports they can play. I don’t think lacrosse has cut into the numbers. Not yet, but it’s probably going to. We haven’t been affected. We have 45 (covering three teams) in our program. We really push softball in our community because it’s been established.”
Peters said coaches in softball and baseball need to make the game enjoyable, and one way is to reward those who chose to participate by playing them on a regular basis. A student who is No. 14 or 15 on a squad often will play once a week and, with all of the options available, isn’t willing to put in the practice time for limited game action.
Mercy senior first baseman Abby Krzywiecki played a variety of sports before her freshman year. It was then she decided that softball would be her main sport and she chose to pour all of her energy into it.
She said it’s not all gloom and doom for her sport.
“We had a small freshmen class (last year),” she said. “When I came in we had a large class. It was one of the biggest. It’s not that we’re not getting softball players. In the travel world, it’s becoming more intense. We have more younger people playing. The sport is getting more intense. The talent level is getting higher.”
Tom Markowski is a columnist and directs website coverage for the State Champs! Sports Network. He previously covered primarily high school sports for the The Detroit News from 1984-2014, focusing on the Detroit area and contributing to statewide coverage of football and basketball. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) A Farmington Hills Mercy hitters prepares to connect during last season's Division 1 Semifinal against Caledonia. (Middle) Warren Regina coach Diane Laffey hoists her team's championship trophy after the Saddlelites downed Caledonia in the Final last spring.
USA, K-Christian Power Way to D4 Final
June 14, 2019
By Jason Schmitt
Special for Second Half
EAST LANSING – It may have taken six-plus innings, but Kalamazoo Christian coach Kevin Lewis eventually had a chance to take it all in Friday morning.
And he had an opportunity to exhale as well.
All it took was a three-run home run from senior Jayme Koning, a shot which served as an explanation point on the Comets’ 6-1 victory over Coleman in a Division 4 Semifinal at Secchia Stadium.
“It was very relaxing after that sixth inning. It was then I knew,” said Lewis, referring to a four-run sixth that gave his team a five-run cushion. “(Koning) was hot all day. When she came up to the plate, I had that gut feeling, like, ‘If she drops a bomb right here, it’s done.’ And she did it. That’s not the first time. She did it against (Stevensville) Lakeshore. When you’re facing teams like that, for her to come up clutch in two situations like that shows me what kind of ballplayer she really is.”
Koning was 3-for-4 in the game, reaching base on all four of her plate appearances. She also had a double and an RBI single which tied the game at 1-1 in the first inning. Her home run was her 14th of the season. She went the distance on the mound, allowing just four hits while striking out four, including the last Coleman batter of the game – setting off a grand celebration for her team.
“Both (the home run and game-ending strikeout) were different excitements,” Koning said, answering which was more special to her. “The home run gave us a little insurance that I really like, and getting that out is just in-the-moment awesome.”
The game was extremely tight through five innings, the difference coming on an RBI single by freshman Faith Kline – scoring courtesy runner Nyla de Jong – which gave her team a 2-1 lead. To that point both Koning and Coleman starting pitcher Jaden Berthume were cruising along.
Berthume scattered eight hits through the first five innings, allowing just two runs. Coleman’s defense struggled throughout the game – collecting four errors – while Kalamazoo Christian was flawless in the field.
“Defense is obviously the name of the game,” Lewis said. “We have a really good defense. We have freshmen in the lineup. We’ve got sophomores in the lineup. We’re deep all the way up through. It came down to defense and our pitching on the mound. Jayme held them tight, and we got the job done.”
Senior Sydney Duong was 3-for-3 with a walk for Christian (31-8), and scored a pair of runs. Sophomore Zoe Hazelhoff collected a pair of hits and junior Megan Snook had an RBI single and scored a run for the Comets, who will face Unionville-Sebewaing in Saturday’s championship game.
Berthume and freshman Katelyn Pnacek each had two hits for Coleman (35-8), which entered the postseason ranked No. 1 in Division 4. It was the Comets’ third straight trip to East Lansing. Last year they fell to Centreville in the championship game.
“When we’ve got chances to score, we’ve got to be able to get the hit,” Coleman head coach Chad Klopf said after the game. “We’ve been doing that all year. We’ve been able to keep the bats going when we needed them (this year). If it was tomorrow or if it was yesterday, we might have won it. But it was their day today.
“This was our third straight year down here. We’ve had lots of experience. That’s why we’re here again. It gave us so much experience the last two years, and it gave all of our young girls this year more experience. Hopefully we can do what we do and get back (here) again.”
Unionville-Sebewaing 8, Rogers City 3
Changing things up a bit from last year’s Semifinal appearance seemed to do wonders Friday afternoon for Unionville-Sebewaing.
The Patriots, limited to just four hits in last year’s 4-0 loss to eventual champion Centreville, exploded for eight runs on 16 hits in their win over Rogers City.
“The last couple days, I’ve liked where we’re at offensively,” USA head coach Isaiah Gainforth said. “We had two really good days of preparation. To put 16 hits up in the semis, you can’t ask for much more offensively. I’m extremely proud of the girls’ approach, their discipline. Hitting is contagious. When someone starts it, everybody else is ‘Let me get the bat and see what I can do.’ That was kind of our mentality there.”
Sophomore Maci Montgomery was a perfect 4-for-4 against the Hurons, collecting three doubles and a triple, scoring twice and driving in three runs. Her leadoff triple to start the game got things going for the Patriots (30-9), and her two-run double in the fifth capped off the scoring for her team.
“Couldn’t ask for a better start,” Gainforth said. “It’s so important, getting that first run in any game. Being able to score first was big because it just loosens everybody up. When you get production from top to bottom, that’s a dangerous team right there.”
The team’s No. 9 hitter, junior Danielle Harper, also had quite a game. She was 3-for-3, scored three times and added a two-run home run to give herself a 4-1 lead in the fourth inning.
Sophomore Brynn Polega and freshmen Macy Reinhardt and Laci Harris all collected two hits each in their team’s victory. Polega also pitched a complete game on the mound, allowing just two earned runs while striking out four.
“We kind of learned from some of our mistakes last year,” Gainforth said. “A lot of these girls are back, but you’ve got some new girls. We weren’t in awe (today). The experience factor. Last year we were kind of consumed by it, and I don’t know if it kind of got to us a little bit. Today we kind of switched it up a little bit, got down here this morning and tried to keep our same routine and same approach that we’ve had in all our tournaments.”
Rogers City (27-8) was led by senior Taylor Fleming, who was 2-for-4 at the plate. She connected for a two-run home run in the fifth inning. Senior Linnea Hentkowski was 1-for-2 with a run scored in the loss.
“They hit the ball well. Give them credit,” Hurons head coach Karl Grambau said. “We’ve shut teams down all year long. They outhit us today, no doubt about it. They’ve got a great tradition, and so do we. Hopefully we’ll meet again someday.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Kalamazoo Christian’s Sydney Duong makes a throw to first base during her team’s Division 4 Semifinal win Friday. (Middle) USA's Macy Reinhardt circles third base during her team's victory over Rogers City.