Five proves key for Cougars in D3
June 15, 2013
By Greg Chrapek
Special to Second Half
Five was the key number during the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 3 Boys Golf Final at the Bedford Valley Golf Course in Battle Creek.
Division 3 powerhouse Jackson Lumen Christi was aiming for its fifth straight championship, while Lansing Catholic was looking to snap Lumen’s string and win the fifth golf title in Cougars history.
For two days the two powers battled it out. And in the end it was Lansing Catholic that came out ahead.
Thanks to a strong Saturday, the Cougars finished with a team score of 613 to defeat Lumen Christi by five strokes.
The seeds for Lansing’s Catholic’s title actually were sewn last season when the Cougars recorded a five of another kind – finishing fifth at last year’s Final.
That team, however, had no seniors in the lineup and all five starters were back this spring.
“We had high expectations going into the season,” Lansing Catholic coach Charlie Furney said. “We pretty much had our entire team coming back. We set a goal of improving on that fifth-place finish, and we figured we had enough talent to finish on top. And that is what we did.”
Balance was key to the victory as all five Cougars finished within 15 strokes of each other.
Junior Brent Marshall led the way as he carded rounds of 73 on the first day and 74 on the second to finish with a 147. That score was good enough for second place as an individual – but the team title was more on Marshall’s mind.
“It felt great,” Marshall said. “That was our goal going into the season, and it felt great to fulfill it.”
Marshall was not the only Lansing Catholic golfer to finish among the top 10 individually, as senior Jacob Johnson put together rounds of 79 and 73 to finish with a 152 total and in a tie for ninth.
The Cougars also received a 156 from Adam Elias, a 160 from Joey Jurkovic and a 162 from Niko Voutsaras.
“The key was our number five guy Adam Elias,” Marshall said. “He shot a 75 on the second day. He really came through and helped us push ahead of Lumen Christi.”
That 75 came in handy for the Cougars, who trailed Lumen Christi by seven strokes, 304-311, heading into the final day.
“We have two very good players in Johnson and Marshall,” Furney said. “We knew that in every tournament we would have a couple of low scores. The key to our success is our depth, and the number three and four players. In the District and Regional our fourth score was 89. The key for us was to get that fourth score in the low 80s, and that’s what we did.”
Lansing Catholic’s fourth score on Friday was an 81 from Elias, while on Saturday the fourth score was an 80 from Voutsaras.
While the title was the fifth for the Cougars, it was the fourth under the watch of Furney. Furney also coached the Cougars to titles in 2001, 2004 and 2005.
“Every one is special,” Furney said. “This year’s team was a little different in that we had two returning all-state players.”
With all but Johnson returning next season, the Cougars will be looking to add back-to-back titles for the second time in 10 years.
“We graduate our best player, and it will be a big loss,” Marshall said, “but we have all our other players returning, and we hope that we can make up for it.”
For runner-up Jackson Lumen Christi, a fifth straight title was not something that was expected heading into the season.
“We lost five of our top six players from last year’s team,” Lumen Christi coach Dave Swartout said. “It was really a rebuilding year for us. We didn’t start out very well this season, but the kids really worked hard at their game.”
That hard work was evident on the first day of the tournament as the Titans totaled a 305. The Titans then finished with a 314 on Saturday.
Connor Maddalena led the way for the Titans as he finished third individually with a two-day total of 148. Dean Hitt finished in a tie for fifth place as he totaled 150 for the tournament. Jacob Anuszkiewicz and Henry Hitt both totaled 160 for the tournament.
“They played very well,” Swartout said. “They played well enough to win.”
Individually, senior Sam Weatherhead of Grand Rapids West Catholic defended his title as he claimed medalist honors for a second straight season. Playing on his future home course, the Michigan State University recruit won the title going away by seven strokes.
After shooting a 72 on Friday, Weatherhead turned his game up a notch and carded a 68 on Saturday to finish with a 140 total.
“It was a good way to go out my senior year,” Weatherhead said. “I was down a couple of strokes after the first round. I came back on Saturday and shot my first round in the 60s all season. It felt good especially after I was in the 60s a couple of times last year.”
Weatherhead credited his work on the green as being the key for his second-day charge.
“I had a lot of putts fall for me on Saturday,” Weatherhead said. “I was coming close and burning the edges on Friday, and on Saturday they were falling. I probably hit about the same amount of greens and fairways on Friday, but the 15-footers were falling for me and that was the difference on Saturday.”
Weatherhead built momentum early Saturday and kept it going throughout the day.
“I think I made six birdies and two bogeys,” Weatherhead said. “I had a couple of key up-and-downs coming into the last five holes. I thought the course set up well for me. It was a nice way to cap off the year.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Lansing Catholic's Brent Marshall watches a putt roll toward the cup on the way to his individual runner-up finish at Bedford Valley. (Middle) Grand Rapids West Catholic senior Sam Weatherhead won the individual championship for the second straight season. (Click to see more at HighSchoolsSportsScene.com.)
Powered by Transplanted Heart, Pioneer's Williams Relishing Return to Golf Team
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
May 16, 2025
Brady Williams knew something was wrong.
The then-freshman at Ann Arbor Pioneer was in class when he texted his parents that something wasn’t right. His mom, Tiffany, rushed to the school, got Brady into the car and drove straight to the emergency room in Ann Arbor.
His father, Greg, arrived a few minutes later.
“He was in heart failure,” said one of the doctors who was caring for Brady, then 14.
When he went home from C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital nearly six weeks later, Brady was the proud owner of a new heart.
“It was really random,” Williams recalled. “One day I wasn’t feeling good at school, so I left and went to the doctors. They kept me for a couple of days and told me I needed to get a heart transplant.”
It’s been an incredible journey for the Pioneer sophomore, who returned to school last fall and is now on the Pioneers junior varsity golf team.
“I can do basically everything now,” he says. “I’m back up to normal for sure.”
Normal is something Williams had rarely known. Even as a young boy he would occasionally get tired from doing simple things. As the family learned to deal with it, they decided at one point to seek more medical advice. After genetic testing, at the age of 7 he was diagnosed with a rare neuromuscular disease, known as limb-girdle muscular dystrophy.
“It basically makes the muscles weak, especially your heart,” he said.
As he got older, he was would sometimes struggle with the effects.
“We carried an AED (automated external defibrillator) with us everywhere,” Tiffany Williams said.
He tried playing sports, including basketball, and golfed regularly. In the months leading up to the heart transplant, though, Brady had slowed down.
“I was playing basketball and golfing four times a week,” Brady said. “Slowly I stopped playing basketball and even golf because I was getting really tired.”
Under the care of Dr. Mark Russell, Dr. Aaron Stern – a professor of pediatric cardiology at University of Michigan – and Dr. Kurt Robert Schumacher, the medical director for the pediatric heart transplant program at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, Brady at first had a temporary device installed in his heart, but it was quickly determined that a heart transplant was needed – and fast.
“They didn’t think it would be this bad, but it ended up hurting my heart so bad that I had to get a new one,” Williams said.
After the decision was made to move forward with the heart transplant, he waited only two days for the new heart.
“They put me at the top of the list, and they got it there quick, thankfully,” Williams said.
His passion for sports has always been a driving force. A football fanatic, he is a die-hard Cleveland Browns fan. His favorite quarterback, former Browns signal-caller Baker Mayfield, sent him a video message while he was recovering. Former Eastern Michigan University and current Las Vegas Raiders star Maxx Crosby also reached out to him.
In the hospital, Williams was glued to the television.
“Everyone took to Brady,” Tiffany Williams said. “He helped everyone with fantasy football teams while he was in the hospital, plus Michigan won the national championship. So that was a good year.”
His recovery included several months of physical therapy and doctor visits. At first, Brady had to attend school virtually, but returned to the halls of Pioneer in the fall.
“I feel like honestly better than I ever have,” Williams said. “This is a really good heart, a lot better than the one I was born with. This is like 100 percent. My old one, I never lived at like a 100-percent level. It was always low.
“I don’t even notice anything. It’s just normal all of the time.”
This spring he was cleared to golf after a physical. He is able to use a cart during his matches and tournaments, something he said helps him a lot.
“This is what I really wanted – just to join the team and get back to how I used to be – hanging out with friends and making new ones,” Brady said. “That’s the best part about being on a team.”
Being part of a team was at one point something Brady didn’t think he would get to experience. He knows how fortunate he is to have that opportunity again.
“I realize that everything can get taken away from you easily,” he said. “One second you can be at the highest point and the next you can be at the lowest. I’m definitely at the highest right now after making the golf team, being on it and having a lot of fun with it.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a news and sports reporter at the Adrian Daily Telegram and the Monroe News for 30 years, including 10 years as city editor in Monroe. He's written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. He is now publisher and editor of The Blissfield Advance, a weekly newspaper. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.