Top-Ranked Inland Lakes Sets Bar High
May 4, 2017
By Dennis Chase
Special for Second Half
INDIAN RIVER – Rain wiped out a Tuesday doubleheader, but it was not a complete wash for Inland Lakes softball coach Krissi Thompson and her top-ranked Division 4 team.
Thompson learned afterward that the Bulldogs will be honored by the Michigan High School Softball Coaches Association for their cumulative 3.83 grade point average, the highest among softball teams in Division 4.
“In the classroom and on the field, these girls are 100 percent dedicated to what they do,” Thompson said. “We have four 4.0 (grade point average) players and others who are really close.
“I can’t say enough about them. They are amazing kids. You don’t get this every day. We know we have something special here. We’re very fortunate.”
Two of the team’s four seniors, Cloe Mallory and Vanessa Wandrie, are among those sporting 4.0 averages.
Mallory, a four-sport athlete until this school year, signed to play softball at Central Michigan University, where she’ll study biomedical sciences.
“It’s hard juggling sports and school, but it (4.0) shows that I put forth the effort and did the best I could,” the all-state pitcher said.
Wandrie, a three-sport athlete, signed to play for Siena Heights, where she’ll major in biology.
“I’ve worked really hard, academically and athletically,” the shortstop said. “It’s cool to see that hard work pay off.”
That type of work ethic is also paying dividends for the team’s two other seniors, second baseman Kimmy Rorick and catcher Pam Braund. Rorick, a 3.9 student, and Braund, a 3.7, will both attend the University of Detroit Mercy in the fall. Rorick will enroll in an advanced program, where she can earn a master’s degree in five years, to become a physician assistant. Braund will enter the pre-dental program. The two will room together.
“We’ll lean on each other for support, just like we have in high school,” Braund said.
Mallory, Wandrie, Rorick and Braund are four-year starters in softball. They are the sparkplugs for the 16-1 Bulldogs, who reached the MHSAA Quarterfinals two years ago and then lost to Unionville-Sebewaing 1-0 in the Division 4 championship game last June.
They would like nothing better than to capture just the second MHSAA team title in school history – and the first in a bracketed sport. The girls track team won it all in 1979.
“That’s our goal – to make history at Inland Lakes,” Wandrie, who turns 18 today, said. “Last year we came so close to winning it all, and we don’t want to let it slip away again.”
Unionville-Sebewaing, which has won five MHSAA Finals titles in Divisions 3 and 4 over the last 11 years, scratched out a run in the sixth inning and Stanford-bound pitcher Nikki Bauer made it stand.
That near miss is motivating the Bulldogs this season.
“It left a bad taste,” said Braund. “We talk about it every day in practice.”
Most of that runner-up squad is back.
“It’s an extremely veteran team,” Thompson said. “Most of the girls play travel ball throughout the summer so they have a lot of game experience.
“Each year we’ve been getting closer and closer. Then, when we got there (MHSAA Finals), it was like ‘Wow.’ But (the outcome) left us hungry for more. We have high goals.”
Through 17 games, Inland Lakes has outscored the opposition 218-16. The Bulldogs are hitting .415 as a team.
“We’re a strong hitting team, but we’re pretty strong defensively, too,” Thompson said. “We’re quite solid on both sides. It’s fun to watch them hit, though. I do enjoy that.”
To prepare for the upcoming MHSAA tournament, Inland Lakes ramped up its schedule. The Bulldogs competed in a tournament at Midland Dow last weekend, finishing 2-1 against Division 1 foes, all of whom are ranked.
Inland Lakes opened with a 2-1 eight-inning win over Clarkston, then rallied from a 4-0 deficit to edge Mount Pleasant 6-5 in nine innings. The Bulldogs fell to White Lake Lakeland 5-2 in the final game.
That tournament helped answer some questions since Inland Lakes has been rolling over its competition in the north. Particularly impressive was the comeback win over Mount Pleasant.
“We’re not used to losing,” Rorick said. “It was neat to see that we continued to play hard when we were down, and that we were able to come back. We never give up. Our coaches make sure of that.”
Thompson, who was a pitcher on the school’s 1999 Semifinal team, is in her 15th season as head coach. But she’s the first to admit it’s “not a one-person show.” Her husband, Nate, has been right there along the way, too. Nancy Wandrie has assisted four years, Dan Mallory three.
“They’re amazing,” Thompson said. “They work so great with the kids. Everybody has a certain job and makes sure everything is taken care of.”
Cloe Mallory leads a talented pitching staff that also includes junior Lindsay Van Daele and freshman Grace Henckel.
Mallory – who has also lettered in volleyball, basketball and track – had a procedure on the patellar tendon in her knee in August. That kept her out of volleyball and most of basketball. She opted not to run track and focus solely on softball this spring.
“It was an overuse injury – the continuous pounding from pitching and all the other sports I did,” Mallory said.
The injury has not set her back on the diamond.
“No, not too much at all,” Thompson said. “She’s been taking precautions.”
Mallory entered the season with a career 0.60 earned run average, striking out nearly 50 percent of the batters she faced. She also hit .495 with 20 home runs over her first three years. She’s added another eight home runs to that total this season. But it was her pitching prowess that caught the eye of Central Michigan coach Margo Jonker.
“Cloe is a pitcher with moxie,” Jonker said in a release on signing day. “She owns the circle when she has the ball in her hand. Her mental and physical skills make her a pitcher that one can be excited about.”
Mallory, 18, has been working with two pitching coaches the past few years – Steve Howard of Grand Rapids and Peter Finn of Midland.
“Once I saw (Howard) I gained five to eight miles-per-hour on my pitch,” Mallory said. “He mostly works with form. That helped me because I was all over the place when I was younger. I had to dial it in. (Finn) has helped me with the mental aspect of the game, the strategy, what pitches to throw and when.”
At Inland Lakes, Mallory is one cog in the machine.
“She’s surrounded by 11 other girls that help contribute to make her that good,” Thompson said.
The coach prefers to talk about team and not individuals.
“We’re family oriented,” she said. “That’s what keeps us humble.”
Her players agree.
“We’re a tight-knit group,” Mallory said. “We’re there for each other day in and day out. That’s what brings us our success.”
“Everybody gets along,” Rorick added. “There’s no team drama.”
“We abide by that (family motto),” Wandrie said. “We know we’ve got each other’s back. We know we can rely on each other. I love this group of girls. We’re like sisters. It’s fun to be with them.”
“There’s a togetherness,” Braund concluded. “Someone makes a mistake, everyone is there to pick them up.”
The four captains have played softball together for nearly 10 years, dating back to Little League. Their squads advanced to the state tournament three times, giving coaches an inkling of what was to come.
“It’s a small school (253 students),” Rorick said. “Everybody knows everybody, but growing up with (the other seniors) it’s really given us a connection and it makes it easier on the field because we know what each other is thinking.”
In addition to the four seniors, the varsity roster consists of four juniors (Van Daele, outfielders Sydney DePauw and Maki Henckel and third baseman Madison Milner), two sophomores (outfielders Precious Delos Santos and Mara Clancy) and two freshmen (Henckel and catcher/infielder Amber Passino).
There’s also 13 underclassmen on JV and a growing legion of players in Little League.
“This team has done huge things for our community,” Thompson said. “Softball has taken off like crazy in our town. There are so many young girls now that want to play softball, that want to be part of it. It’s amazing to see. These girls have sparked something here.”
The players have helped foster that growth by mentoring young girls in the Little League program.
“They look up to us,” Rorick said. “It’s nice to see girls eager to do so well and work so hard. It makes me feel like the program is going to keep going farther after we graduate.”
And that competitive edge? Well, it applies to the classroom, too.
“We keep tabs on each other’s grades,” Braund admitted. “We’re competitive.”
Even with the younger players, Braund added, the upperclassmen “instill the importance of academics.”
So, now that the Bulldogs are atop the polls, they would like to remain there and finish it off with a title.
“At the end of the day, it comes down to who is the better team,” Mallory said, “and we’re working really hard to be that team.”
Dennis Chase worked 32 years as a sportswriter at the Traverse City Record-Eagle, including as sports editor from 2000-14. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Indian River Inland Lakes' Cloe Mallory unloads a pitch during last season's Division 4 championship game. (Middle) Catcher Pam Braund secures a pop fly against Unionville-Sebewaing.
Hope Rained Eternal During 1978 Finals
May 31, 2018
By Ron Pesch
Special for Second Half
“If the weatherman is in a co-operative mood, Michigan’s high school athletes, both boys and girls, will wind up another competitive school year Saturday,” wrote Detroit’s premier high school sports scribe, Hal Schram, 40 years ago just prior to the staging of the 1978 MHSAA softball and baseball state finals weekend.
“Let’s hope we get them in on schedule”, said Bob James, director of athletics for the Warren Consolidated Schools and a member of the MHSAA Representative Council. “I’ve been in high school sports for 35 years, and can’t remember a spring with more postponements and cancellations.”
Despite highest hopes, weather would, again, be a factor on the final weekend of the prep season. Games were scheduled for eight locations around the Lower Peninsula, with rain postponing Class B and Class C contests in softball and Class B and Class D in baseball.
SOFTBALL
In the 1979 yearbook, Impressions, published by East Detroit High School, staff celebrated school’s past half-decade of accomplishment and history:
“Girls have been playing softball at East Detroit now for almost 50 years, although it was called the girls baseball team until the mid-sixties. The teams have always done very well, many of them went undefeated, but none of them ever did as well as the 1978 squad.”
Roxanne “Rocky” Szczesniak, who would later earn All-American honors at Wayne State University, tossed a four-hitter and smashed a three-run homer as the Shamrocks eliminated defending Class A champion Portage Central, 6-3, in the day’s opening Semifinal, played at East Detroit’s Memorial Park. It was only the second defeat in 52 games for Portage Central, coached by Tom Monroe.
Waterford Township slipped past Flint Carman, 1-0, in 10 innings in the day’s second Semifinal, then capitalized on six errors by East Detroit in the title game to grab the Class A softball championship, 4-0. In the first inning, Mari Latozas doubled home a run to open the scoring for the Skippers. Waterford then added unearned runs in the third and fifth to seal the win. Coached by Joe Alsup, the Skippers finished the year at 25-3. He would post a 197-39 record in nine seasons at the school before it closed following the 1982-83 school year. Twenty years later, Alsup’s Waterford Kettering team earned the 1998 Class A softball crown. Today, he ranks fourth in all-time softball coaching victories in Michigan.
In Class B, Fenton cruised to their first of three straight titles with an 8-5 win over South Haven at Belknap Park in Grand Rapids on Monday, June 19, the game rescheduled because of the weather. Pitcher Barb Barclay posted her 24th win without a loss and boosted Fenton’s season mark to 28-1. Barclay was instrumental in the win at the plate as well with a triple and a single, while scoring three runs for the Tigers. With two outs in the third inning, Fenton rallied with four straight hits to open up a 2-1 lead. South Haven again jumped in front, 4-2, in the fifth, but Fenton bounced right back, again rallying with two down to open up a 7-4 lead.
“This was our biggest challenge of the season,” said Fenton coach Dave Lazar. “For a young team, South Haven is pretty good. They’re scrappers.”
It was South Haven’s second consecutive trip to the Finals. In 1977, the Rams lost to Grosse Ile, 5-3. South Haven would return to the Finals for a third straight time in 1979, again falling to Fenton.
Earlene Seeley, who would later play college ball at Ferris State, reached first base on a bunt, stole second, then scored on an error to give Shepherd a 1-0 lead over New Lothrop before rain forced delay at Brookwood Park in Clare on Saturday. Pitcher Deb McAvoy, who had hurled three and a third innings of no-hit ball, completed the first no-hitter in MHSAA title game history as Shepherd grabbed a 2-0 victory in the Class C championship on Monday. It would be six more years before a second no-hitter was tossed in the Softball Finals. Since McAvoy’s gem, 14 additional no-nos have been thrown in the MHSAA softball title game.
At Robinson Park in Ionia, Laingsburg swept to a 6-1 win over Central Lake for the Class D softball title. Junior Robbin Sawyer, who upped her record to 17-0 on the season, tossed a two-hitter in the Wolfpack’s 15-2 Semifinal win over Owendale-Gagetown and then held Central Lake to a single hit in the title game. Sue Hurst went 3 for 3 at the plate in the championship game, including singling home a run before scoring on the front end of a double steal, all in the first inning. Carrie Kooster tripled twice in the Semifinal, driving in six runs to lead the Wolves.
BASEBALL
Boasting an outstanding pitching staff, coach Marv Rettenmund’s Flint Southwestern squad rolled through the regular season, then battled its way through the tournament before downing East Kentwood, 7-1, to win the first, and only, Class A baseball title in Flint-area history.
"Sometimes, you have pretty good players, and when you have them, you'd better cash in," Rettenmund told the Flint Journal 30 years later.
Blessed with a “1-2 punch of senior left-hander Ruben Luna (14-0 with a 0.82 earned-run average) and senior right-hander Risto Nicevski (9-1, 0.72),” Southwestern dropped only three of 35 games, (all by a single run) before rolling to 16 straight victories. Tournament play was “capped by five close games,” including a scare in the Semifinal, before the championship matchup.
Luna and Nicevski combined for a one-hitter in the title contest, played at Memorial Field in Wyandotte. Earlier in the day, Luna fanned 12 batters in a three-hit, 1-0 shutout of Plymouth Canton. Third baseman Bob Cardenas singled home designated hitter Al Weatherford in the fifth inning for the game’s only run.
"That was one of the toughest teams we played," said Rettenmund. Plymouth Canton’s Russ Mandle led off the seventh inning with a booming double between the gap in left and centerfield, but was gunned down when trying to stretch it to a triple. “We made a perfect relay — (left fielder Dale) Bennis to (shortstop Matt) Diment to Cardenas.
"That was a once-in-a-lifetime ballclub."
Tom O’Dowd allowed a single hit in Jackson Lumen Christi’s 10-6 victory over Spring Lake in Class B, played at Aquinas College’s Kimble Field in Wyoming. The game, rescheduled to Monday after Saturday’s rain, saw six errors mar Spring Lake’s dreams of a title. Three of Lumen Christi’s first four batters reached base or advanced on errors, and all scored as the Titans jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead. Dave Schonhard notched the game’s only RBI, doubling in a pair of runs in the second inning to increase the lead to five. O’Dowd, selected in the 12th round of Major League Baseball’s amateur draft by the Toronto Blue Jays earlier in the spring, claimed 14 strikeouts, but dealt with control problems, walking 13. Trailing 10-2 entering the bottom of the seventh, the Lakers took advantage, gaining four walks and notching their only hit to pull within four before O’Dowd was relieved and the side was retired.
“We ran into a heckuva pitcher,” said Spring Lake coach Don Rohn following the game. “He throws the ball well. He’s probably the fastest right-hander we’ve seen all season.”
The win capped a stellar school year for the Titans, who won the Class B football crown in the fall and the Tier II hockey title in the winter.
Delayed by heavy rain, Bay City All Saints pounded out 13 hits including three singles by Ed Pawlaczyk, to down Addison, 8-0, in Class C championship play at Marshall High School. Dave Shooltz allowed seven hits in five innings for the win. Randy Morse, who went the distance in the team’s 2-0 Semifinal triumph over Allen Park Cabrini, earned the save. It was the first of seven final game appearances by All Saints and their first of four state baseball titles. The seven visits to the championship game has been equaled by Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett and exceeded by Harper Woods Bishop Gallagher, with eight. Blissfield leads the list with nine trips to championship games, and tops all schools for baseball state titles with seven.
With two outs in the top of the 10th inning, Saranac’s Steve Metternick doubled in two runs to break a 1-1 deadlock as the Redskins topped Frankfort 4-1 in the Class D title showdown. The game, played at Alumni Field on the campus of Central Michigan University, had been interrupted on Saturday at the top of the third, with Saranac leading 1-0. Southpaw Craig Coulson earned the win for the Cinderella squad, going all the way. The sophomore hurler allowed four hits, struck out eight and walked four on the afternoon. Saranac ended the season with 16 victories against 11 defeats.
Ron Pesch has taken an active role in researching the history of MHSAA events since 1985 and began writing for MHSAA Finals programs in 1986, adding additional features and "flashbacks" in 1992. He inherited the title of MHSAA historian from the late Dick Kishpaugh following the 1993-94 school year, and resides in Muskegon. Contact him at [email protected] with ideas for historical articles.
PHOTOS: (Top) Shepherd’s softball team poses with its 1978 Class C championship trophy. (Middle top) East Detroit’s Rocky Szczesniak unloads a pitch for the eventual Class A champ. (Middle below) Ruben Luna prepares to deliver for Flint Southwestern. (Below) Saranac’s “Cinderella” Class D champion celebrates.