'Oakridge Girls' Shine on Statewide Stage
June 10, 2016
By Tom Kendra
Special for Second Half
You have heard of the Oakridge boys.
No, not the country music quartet best known for its 1981 hit “Elvira,” but the Muskegon Oakridge football team, a perennial playoff power which boasts five championship game appearances and three MHSAA titles.
Now, the “Oakridge Girls” are getting their time on the statewide stage.
The young Oakridge softball team (34-2) hopes to take another couple of steps on its journey at Saturday’s MHSAA Division 2 Regional tournament at Gladwin, starting with a noon game against Cadillac.
“Our big goal is to win a state championship,” said junior ace pitcher Alyssa Fessenden, who is 18-1 on the season. “But that starts with the next pitch and the next at-bat. You have to be focused all the time or you’ll get beat. We learned that last year.”
After advancing to the Division 3 Quarterfinals in 2014, the Eagles never even made it to District weekend last year, falling to neighboring rival Ravenna, 3-2, in a Division 3 Pre-District game.
Fessenden said that loss has helped to bond and focus this year’s team, which has fearlessly made the move up to Division 2 for the first time. That lack of fear starts with an outstanding freshmen class, including shortstop and leadoff hitter Sophia Wiard, big-hitting outfielder Kaylie Piper, and pitchers Kayla Fessenden (Alyssa’s younger sister) and Madison Carroll.
“It has taken a lot of weight off of my shoulders,” said Alyssa Fessenden of the addition of the two freshman pitchers. “Last year, I had to pitch every single game and if I just didn’t have it for some reason, I had to keep going. This year, we have those two who can come in and that takes a lot of pressure off of me and keeps my arm fresh.”
Those three pitchers powered Oakridge to its first Greater Muskegon Athletic Association county tournament championship since 2001, as well as an undefeated season in the West Michigan Conference. The Eagles have continued rolling in the postseason, winning three games at last week’s Division 3 District at Sparta by a combined score of 29-1.
Oakridge has produced a storybook season despite having only three seniors – second baseman Alessa Buchner, centerfielder Abby Lowe and Miranda Vanderwort.
The leader of the Oakridge girls is Joe Coletta, the longtime offensive coordinator of the school’s football team and right-hand man of legendary coach Jack Schugars on all five of the Eagles’ runs to the MHSAA Finals.
“I took over the program because we had a good group of girls coming through that needed a coach,” said Coletta, who coached football at Oakridge for 25 years. “I figured I’d do it for two years. But it has gotten into my blood, and I just love it.”
Coletta has transformed the softball program and helped spearhead the renovation of the school’s dilapidated softball facilities, which he says are now a source of community pride. This summer, the field will get new dugouts, also funded by community donations.
Coletta gives much of the credit for the on-field turnaround to his assistant coach, Red Pastor, who has worked with most of the team’s 14 players since their youth days in the community recreation program, and a tremendous run of female athletes at the Muskegon County school. Oakridge also won a girls soccer District title this year and the girls basketball team has won 50 consecutive league games in the West Michigan Conference.
“This is a very competitive group of girls, but they genuinely enjoy being around each other and pushing each other,” said Coletta, who teaches physical education at Oakridge High School.
Oakridge can score runs in bunches as leadoff hitter Wiard (.513 batting average, 38 stolen bases) and No. 2 hitter Lowe are adept at getting on base, setting things up for the power bats of Alyssa Fessenden (3 home runs, 48 RBIs), standout catcher Hannah Reinhold (6 home runs, 58 RBIs) and Buchner (55 RBIs) to knock them in.
Both of the Eagles’ losses came on the same day – at the Michigan High School Blue Chip tournament at Byron Center, which featured 12 state-ranked teams out of 16 total.
Fessenden hopes the fast pitching the Eagles faced in that tournament will pay off Saturday, when they go up against Cadillac senior ace Gabby Hoagland in the Regional opener. Ironically, Oakridge found a way to beat Hoagland two years ago in a Division 3 Regional game, when Hoagland was pitching for McBain.
Cadillac also will have to find a way to get to Fessenden in what has the makings of a pitcher’s duel. Fessenden sports a 0.96 ERA, 160 strikeouts and just 27 walks in 102 innings pitched.
Fessenden tries not to be superstitious, although she does wear two pairs of socks every game and will do it again Saturday even though temperatures are expected to soar into the high 80s (Buchner is the opposite, wearing socks with the toes torn out).
“Fessy” knows the key to continuing the tournament run has nothing to do with socks, and everything to do with preparation and performance.
“Our coaches cranked up the pitching machine at practice this week and moved it in closer, so we’ll be ready for the fast pitching,” Fessenden said. “It should be a great game.”
Tom Kendra worked 23 years at The Muskegon Chronicle, including five as assistant sports editor and the final six as sports editor through 2011. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Muskegon, Oceana, Mason, Lake, Oceola, Mecosta and Newaygo counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Junior ace pitcher Alyssa Fessenden delivers for the Muskegon Oakridge softball team, which is 34-2 entering Saturday's MHSAA Division 2 Regional at Gladwin. (Middle) Joe Coletta, the longtime offensive coordinator for the powerful Muskegon Oakridge football program, is in his eighth season as the school's softball coach. (Photos by Sherry Wahr.)
Vicksburg Not Done After Historic Run
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
May 23, 2017
VICKSBURG — The first time Grace Stock played softball, she absolutely hated it.
The Vicksburg senior was just 8 or 9 at the time, and that dislike lasted all of one game.
In her second game, “I played second and there was a ball that was hit above me, and I went on tip toes and reached out my mitt,” she said.
“My eyes were closed and I caught it. After that, I just loved it and wanted to play all the time. I have a picture of it, too, which makes it even better.”
She may not be playing all the time, but she and her Bulldogs teammates hope to be playing well into the postseason.
Last year, her team became the first in Vicksburg school history to make an MHSAA championship game, losing 2-0 to Richmond in the Division 2 Final.
Losing just two seniors from that team, “people ask, reflecting back on last year, are your expectations the same?” fifth-year head coach Paul Gephart said. “I say, last year is in the past, and this year we’ve got to focus one game at a time.”
After flying under the radar last season, this year’s Bulldogs are ranked fourth in state with Districts set to start next week.
“It’s absolutely extra pressure,” Gephart said. “I think it motivates other teams. They’re going to bring their best effort against you.
“I think it’s bulletin board material for other teams and kind of fuels them. Now we’re on the other side of that, and there is that pressure as far as expectation.”
The Bulldogs take a 25-9-1 (16-2 Wolverine Conference) record into the final week of the regular season. They have clinched the conference title for the second consecutive year.
Three key seniors – Stock, Carlie Kudary and Shaidan Knapp – earned all-state honors last year and have been starters since their freshman season.
Sadie Martin – the team’s second pitcher and an “awesome” outfielder, Gephart said – and “really solid” first baseman Raquel Rice round out the senior class. Gephart said in his mind he refers to the seniors at the Fab Five.
“All five of them, the four years they’ve been here, the team has been academic all-state,” he said. “I think that’s huge that they’re that intelligent and that driven.
“The way it works in softball, individual academic all-state you get that award your senior year, and all five will get that award this year.”
Stock is second on the team with a .487 batting average and 44 RBI.
“She is a solid catcher, all-around catching,” Gephart said. “Offensively, defensively, she’s the best catcher I’ve been around or associated with in female softball.”
Stock was behind the plate and Avery Slancik on the mound for every postseason game last season.
“I used to be a pitcher, but I wasn’t too good at that. But I liked that I was in every play, so catching suited me well,” Stock said.
Slancik, a junior, started playing travel ball with the Portage Hurricanes when she was 8 and was coached by her dad, Michael Slancik.
“Dad actually coached nine of the 11 girls we have on the team,” she said. “Back in the day I was a pitcher and a catcher, but my brother was a catcher so I chose to pitch.”
When she was a freshman, her father put up a barn with three batting cages inside.
“Me and my brother (Trace), who is a freshman at Hope and plays baseball there, and a neighbor are out there all the time practicing and getting better every day.”
Slancik has been the Bulldogs number one pitcher since she was a freshman and earned all-state honorable mention last year.
“He’s coached baseball his whole life until I started playing softball,” she said. “Whenever we went to his house, we’d always play catch.
She and Stock are best friends, which will make for an interesting season in another year. While Stock will play softball at Calvin College after graduation, Slancik plans to play at Hope the following year. “It’s going to be fun,” Slancik said. “They’re big rivals, but we’re going to stay best friends.”
Kudary, meanwhile, is a slap-hitter and one of the fastest players on the team.
“She gets on base a lot for us and since she bats leadoff, that gets us going right away,” Gephart said. “As a freshman, initially she was on the JV and we brought her up when we had an injury, and she’s been a starter ever since.
“She has so much speed, there are teams who would have really good hits in gaps, but she gets to them. That makes us really solid up the middle with Avery pitching, Grace catching, Shaidan at shortstop and Carlie at center.”
Knapp leads the team with a .510 batting average and 50 RBI. Her grandfather, Ed Knapp, got her started playing softball.
“He’s coached baseball his whole life until I started playing softball,” she said. “Whenever we went to his house, we’d always play catch.
“I’d ask to go to the park to hit instead of playing at the playground. I’d want to hit softballs. He’s been with me through the whole experience.”
Ed Knapp, who has coached various sports since 1964 and baseball until 1998, is Gephart’s assistant. He is also a member of the Michigan High School Coaches Association and Vicksburg halls of fame.
Knapp’s sister, Tailynn, is a freshman infielder – but they don’t get special treatment from their grandfather.
“He doesn’t really treat me like a grandchild, but at the same time, he’s such a sweet old man he acts like everyone’s his grandchild,” Shailyn said. “It’s nice to be able to see him on the field because I know him off the field. He’s a really fun guy.”
Ed Knapp said there is a down side to coaching his granddaughters
“People are always going to say, yeah, they’re playing because he’s the coach. They always say that until they look at how they play. No coach can survive if they play favorites.”
On the up side, “It’s a lot of fun watching them progress and get better. They really listen. It’s easy to work with them because you can do it in more of a grandfatherly approach.”
He hopes to instill words of wisdom to the players from his decades of coaching.
“You have to have fun. That’s the main reason kids play sports, is to have fun,” he said.
“I just cringe when I hear some of these coaches screaming and yelling at their players. You can just see those girls with their heads going down.”
Team bonding plays a big role in Vicksburg’s success.
“The key is how close we are and just trusting that the person behind us has each other’s back,” Slancik said. “For instance, if one of us gets out, the next person will get another hit.
“If one person makes an error, the next person can step up and say, ‘It’s all right, I’ve got you.’ We’ve been implementing that into our game.”
Stock recalled how the team also got a boost from the community when it returned from the MHSAA Finals last year.
“Fans were lining the street and, we got escorted by police officers and fire trucks, so that was pretty cool,” she said. Later that summer, “There was a party at the football field for family and friends. We got all of our awards, and parents told us how proud they were of us.”
Of course, Vicksburg was disappointed to end the Cinderella season with a loss. But being one of two Division 2 teams standing at the end was special.
“You never want to lose,” Kudary said. “We have to look at it from a better perspective and realize we were the second team in the state to get there.
And yet, “We have to keep our focus and keep working hard at practice. We can’t let last year’s season interfere with this year’s season.”
The other junior on the team is third baseman/outfield Lauren Goertler.
The lone sophomore is pitcher/infielder Kali Yant, and other freshmen are catcher/outfielder Camille Wadley and third baseman/pitcher Rylie Richter.
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) Vicksburg pitcher Avery Slancik warms up before an inning during last season’s Division 2 Final at Michigan State’s Secchia Stadium. (Middle top) From left: Carlie Kudary, Avery Slancik, Shaidan Knapp. (Middle below) Vicksburg’s Grace Stock, last season catching the championship game and also as a child catching with her eyes closed. (Below) From left: Bulldogs head coach Paul Gephart and assistant Ed Knapp. (Middle photo provided by Grace Stock.)