St. Mary's Earns Another Saturday Return, Taking on History-Making Kenowa Hills
By
Steve Vedder
Special for MHSAA.com
June 11, 2026
EAST LANSING – Death, taxes and Orchard Lake St. Mary's baseball team finding itself in another MHSAA Finals championship game.
The last of those three certainties was affirmed again Thursday when the torrid Eaglets blanked Dearborn Divine Child 8-0 in a Division 2 Semifinal at Michigan State.
Orchard Lake St. Mary’s used two productive innings to soar into Saturday's 9 a.m. title game against Grand Rapids Kenowa Hills. The spot in the Finals will be the program's 10th since 2007, with three titles won from 2019-2022 and six since 1998.
Despite the long track record of success, Eaglets coach Nick DiPonio said the winning never gets old or taken for granted. The program has averaged 33 victories per season since claiming the 2019 Division 2 title.
"This was definitely not just another game," said DiPonio, whose No. 1-ranked team upped its winning streak to 26 games. "We're battle-tested. We play in a great league with great players, and we're used to competition. We've become good at blocking out all the extraneous noise."
Orchard Lake St. Mary's sent 12 batters to the plate to score five runs in the third inning and added three more runs in the fifth. The third inning barrage included three triples, including one by Hudson Brzustewicz with the bases loaded. Luke Crighton drove in a run with another triple.
The trio of runs in the fifth included an RBI single by Zach Essig, one of three current Eaglets who had older brothers play on previous state champions. Essig said his current teammates are well-aware of the program's previous success.
"It's crazy," said Essig, who has two older brothers on former champs. "I'm the only one without a ring; we haven't won anything yet. Those guys were role models for us. Our older brothers pushed us. We've got a lot of good guys on this team, and we're capable of beating anyone when we play well."
Crighton, who scattered four hits and faced only three batters over the minimum, thought he did a quality job of wading through a Divine Child lineup which scored 30 runs over the Regionals and Quarterfinal.
"I threw strikes and felt strong, and overall I thought I did okay," he said. "I was able to trust the defense to make the plays.
DiPonio said Crighton is a big-game pitcher.
"I expected him to go out and do this, the last two years, really," DiPonio said. "He always gives us a good chance to win. He throws strikes with multiple pitches."
Brzustewicz said there is no doubt one of the team's foremost goals is to carry on the long history of success in June. That success is felt by virtually all the players, he said.
"There is a brotherhood; we're going out there for our brothers,” he added. “We like to have fun and win, and we're right there this year. We've won like 26 in a row, but I don't know if we're at the same level yet as some of those teams. A couple won 40-some games."
Dearborn Divine Child coach Jeremy Shay, who has seen plenty of talented Eaglets teams in his four years, says the current club is a good one because it covers all parts of the game.
"They're very good," he said. "They obviously can hit and have very good pitching and play well defensively. They're tough to beat.”
Grand Rapids Kenowa Hills 9, Vicksburg 6
While Kenowa Hills may be known for an outstanding pitching staff, it was a pair of clutch seventh-inning hits that propelled the Knights into their first MHSAA Baseball Final.
Trailing 6-5 entering their final at-bats and having blown a 5-0 lead earlier, the Knights got a two-run triple from senior outfielder Andrew Lake and run-scoring single by Jack Stoddard to up their winning streak to 20 games.
"I was looking fastball and I choked up on the bat, and (the pitcher) hung a curve and I turned on it," Lake said. "You dream for this moment."
The clutch hits aside, Kenowa Hills (36-2) entered the game with a remarkable pitching staff which included three pitchers who had combined for a 26-1 record and ERA of under two runs a game. Kenowa Hills pitchers have 13 shutouts this season and 28 games where they have held teams to three runs or fewer.
"That's been our team all year – we battle," Stoddard said. "We come together as a team and have stayed motivated."
Kenowa Hills led 5-0 in the third inning with Hudson Drake driving in one run on a sacrifice fly and Brennan Gustinis adding an RBI triple.
But Vicksburg (30-8) cut the margin to 5-2 in the bottom of the third and then took a 6-5 lead into the seventh. Bulldogs junior outfielder Maguire Bowles drove in three runs with a single, bases loaded walk and triple. Graham Kubiak also drove in a pair of runs.
Despite the eye-popping numbers posted by the pitchers, first-year Kenowa Hills coach Todd VandenHeuvel said his club can hit and score clutch runs. The team entered Thursday with a .380 team batting average and come-from-behind wins over Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central and East Grand Rapids that proved to players that despite being unranked to start the season, they could be a power.
"Can we be really good or great?" he asked players earlier this season. "I think we've moved the needle toward being great. We've played from behind late before. It was an unusual situation, but I think it allowed us to play an aggressive game. That doesn't surprise me; that's what great teams do.
"I think we have a perfect balance of both (hitting and pitching). We like getting a run every inning; we don't do a lot of three or four-run innings."
Vicksburg coach Brian Deal, who is retiring after 28 years and 487 wins, said a team from a small town like Vicksburg making a Semifinal is a major feat.
"It's great for all the small towns," he said. "We did this for all those small towns. We think we can go toe-to-toe with any team. We had our chances to put more runs on the board."
PHOTOS (Top) An Orchard Lake St. Mary’s runner crosses the plate during the Eaglets’ Division 2 Semifinal win Thursday at McLane Stadium. (Middle) Kenowa Hills’ Bobby Haisma (19) applies a tag on Vicksburg’s Maddox Rosalin a few steps in front of first base.
Oakridge 3-Sport Star Potts Applying Lessons to 'Second Chapter' in Sales
By
Tom Kendra
Special for MHSAA.com
July 20, 2023
Jamie Potts put a major strain on his feet and ankles for many years.
Potts was constantly twisting and contorting in cleats and sneakers as a three-sport standout at Muskegon Oakridge and later as a rare two-sport star at Grand Valley State University, where he is still listed in the school’s football and baseball record books.
So it’s fitting that the 30-yeaar-old Potts is now helping to heal feet and ankles as a medical device salesman for Stryker.
“It’s a very competitive, fast-paced job and lifestyle,” said Potts, who graduated from Oakridge in 2011.
“I am very thankful for that because there is a huge void there. When you put so much of your time and energy into it, transitioning out of competitive sports is difficult.”
Potts is the youngest of four boys, so he practically grew up in the bleachers at Oakridge. By the time he got to high school, he fell effortlessly into the rhythm of football in the fall, basketball in the winter and baseball in the spring – all while maintaining a 4.1 GPA, good for fifth overall in his class.
Potts did everything on the football field at Oakridge, as a 6-foot-3, 200-pound dual-threat quarterback. As a senior, he rushed for 1,561 yards and 24 touchdowns and threw for 696 yards and 10 TDs – along with totaling 64 tackles and successfully booting 9-of-13 field goal attempts.
“He was a fantastic high school athlete and one of the best athletes to ever come out of Oakridge,” said former Eagles coach Jack Schugars, the all-time winningest high school coach in the Muskegon area who is now the special teams coordinator at Ferris State. “He was a tremendous leader and the epitome of a role model for younger kids.”
Potts was a solid, if not spectacular, basketball player, known as a defensive specialist who wasn’t afraid to guard anybody.
Then in the spring, he was back to all-state status in baseball as an outfielder, batting .584 his senior year with six home runs, 38 RBIs and 34 stolen bases.
That meant it was decision time when it came to college – would it be football or baseball?
Potts received several Division I offers, including from Central Michigan University for football and Oakland University for baseball.
But it was Division II Grand Valley, particularly then-assistant coach Matt Yoches (now the director of football operations at Miami of Ohio) that floated the possibility of playing both sports – a very rare feat at the DII level.
Potts made the GVSU coaches look like geniuses. He was a four-year starter at tight end and receiver, finishing his career second all-time for the Lakers in TD receptions (35) and third in career receptions (169). In baseball, he finished with 241 career hits, the fifth-most in school history at the time.
“People told me that playing both in Division II wasn’t realistic,” said Potts, who now lives on the east side of the state in Fenton, with his 1-year-old daughter, Brooklyn. “But I wanted to give it a shot and I think I did all right with it. Growing up in Oakridge, my life was all about sports, so it prepared me.”
Potts was drafted by the Texas Rangers shortly after his senior collegiate baseball season in 2015 and played that summer for Class A Spokane (Wash.), batting .217 with four home runs in 57 games. He missed training camp and the first two games of the 2015 football season, but returned to help the Lakers to the DII Semifinals his senior year.
He prepared to resume his baseball career and left in late February for the Rangers spring training complex in Surprise, Ariz., before announcing his retirement in March with a long and heartfelt Facebook post, which concluded:
“My best advice I can give is that you should always chase your dreams until your heart says it’s time to stop,” Potts wrote. “No matter how far out of reach you think it is or how old you are, you can do it with enough hard work and preparation.”
Potts, who completed his degree in allied health sciences with a minor in psychology during the Lakers’ 2015 football run, then had to shift gears and find his place in the “real world,” outside of competitive sports.
Potts said Oakridge, in addition to being a hard-working sports community, also did a mighty fine job preparing him and his three older brothers, sons of Tom and Kathy Potts, for life after athletics. Oldest brother Chris is an engineer, Andy works as a logistics manager and Aaron is an orthopedic surgeon.
It was actually Aaron who pointed him in the direction of medical device sales. He went through five interviews shortly after his retirement before landing his first job in the field at Arthrex in Grand Rapids, before moving on to Kalamazoo-headquartered Stryker last year.
“A big part of my job is being in the operating room with the surgeons and making sure that everything is working,” explained Potts, who is part of a six-member team which covers much of eastern Michigan. “It’s very intense, very much like the feel of a close game. No doubt all of those years of sports help me every day.”
But Potts could not leave sports behind completely after his baseball retirement.
He was back in Muskegon in the spring of 2016 and attended a Muskegon Ironmen indoor football game. He spoke with team owner TJ Williams, who Potts used to watch playing for Oakridge as a kid, and a few weeks later, he was in an Ironmen uniform.
Potts played two years with the Ironmen as a receiver, linebacker and kicker.
“It was a lot of fun, really, getting to play in front of fans in Muskegon again,” said Potts. “The worst part was the walls. I’ve never experienced getting tackled into walls before and, I tell you, that takes some getting used to.”
More recently, Potts helped out last month as a coach at Schugars’ kicking camp at Oakridge, getting him back on the turf at Russell Erickson Stadium, where the field is now known as Jack Schugars Field.
“I’m happy to be a role model for kids,” said Potts. “You learn so many life lessons from playing sports. It really gets you ready for the second chapter of life.”
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PHOTOS (Top) Jamie Potts runs the offense for Muskegon Oakridge as a senior in 2010, and now. (Middle) Potts, second from left, is advancing in his career in medical device sales. (Photos courtesy of Jamie Potts.)