2012 Girls Basketball Finals in Review
April 3, 2012
Mathematically speaking, the 2010 MHSAA Girls Basketball Finals were just a bit closer than this season’s, with a combined point differential of 28 over the four championship games.
But it's a decent argument to call this winter’s Finals the most highly-contested set, as a whole, since the late 1990s.
In three of the four championship games, the eventual winner didn’t take its last lead until the final five minutes of the fourth quarter. Two Finals came down to the final two minutes. Class A was decided by a fastbreak lay-up with six seconds to play.
Combine those with a pair of three-point Class A Semifinals and appearances by the reigning champions in all four classes, and it made for a highlight-filled weekend at Michigan State’s Breslin Center.
Here’s our wrap-up of some of the most memorable moments:
Four quarters
Much to overcome: First Grand Haven had to get past reigning Class A champion Inkster in a Semifinal, and did so 43-40. Then the Buccaneers were told in the locker room that a group of their classmates had been involved in a crash on the way to the game and hospitalized. Then Grand Haven found itself down 18 points in the Class A Final – and completed the third-largest comeback in MHSAA Girls Finals history in downing Grosse Pointe South 54-53 to win the Bucs’ first championship. Senior guard Shar’Rae Davis might’ve had the play of the weekend, a baseline to baseline drive and lay-in for the deciding points with six seconds remaining. (Read the full report.)
It’s our turn: Goodrich is a team many in the girls basketball community saw coming for a while. After being stopped by a number of state powerhouses over the years, the Martians solidified their status among them by advancing to their first MHSAA Final and beating Grand Rapids Catholic Central 60-53 in Class B. Goodrich trailed by five with 5:32 to play, but finished on a 9-2 run and ended the season a flawless 28-0. It was the Cougars' their third championship game appearance in four seasons. (Read the full report.)
Champions again: Morley-Stanwood’s Class C title was its first in girls basketball, but second for the school’s girls teams this school year after the Mohawks also won the Class C volleyball title. Two stars from that latter team came up big in these Finals as well – Bailey Cairnduff scored 28 points as Morley-Stanwood beat reigning champion St. Ignace 60-50 in the Semifinal, and Alexis Huntey had 27 points and 16 rebounds in the 61-57 championship game win over Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett. The Mohawks had to outlast the Knights and Miss Basketball winner Madison Ristovski, whose 42 points were the second-most in MHSAA girls championship game history. (Read the full report.)
No D-nying Lakers: Waterford Our Lady of the Lakes won its third-straight Class D championship with a 53-47 win over Athens on the strength of five players scoring between seven and 13 points. Senior Ava Doetsch and juniors Lexie Robak and Jessica Parry were members of all three championship teams. Athens, meanwhile, made its first title game appearance. (Read the full report.)
Numbers game
16,897: Total attendance for the 12 Semifinals and Finals, combined. Keyed in part by a giant Grand Haven student section, the biggest crowd attended the Class D and A Finals session Saturday morning – although Class B drew the most fans among the Semifinal sessions.
56: Percent of its shots from the floor made by Waterford Our Lady in the Class D Final. The Lakers’ five starters took all but one of the team’s 34 shots, and all five hit at least 50 percent of their attempts from the field – including 6 of 12 from 3-point range.
18: The number of points by which Grand Haven trailed Grosse Pointe South with 1:51 to play in the third quarter of the Class A Final. Only Farmington Our Lady of Mercy in 1982 (19 points) and Detroit Cass Tech in 1987 (20) made bigger championship game comebacks in winning titles.
42: Total points scored in the Class C Final by University Liggett’s Ristovski, on 15 for 29 shooting from the floor including 4 for 8 from 3-point range. Only Peggy Evans for Detroit Country Day in 1989, with 47 points, scored more in a girls championship game.
99: The number of wins over four-year varsity careers for Grand Rapids Catholic Central seniors Shellis Hampton and Tiesha Stokes, after their Semifinal victory, which tied them with two others for second-most in MHSAA girls basketball history.
Quotable
“It was a pretty emotional day (Friday), a lot of tears and a lot of crying. We tried to keep the kids focused on what we could control. I was exhausted, and I wasn’t even playing. I just think waiting for that Class D game to get done; it’s just a long two-day period here. But the kids, we were playing for them. The girls really wanted to do it for them and for this community, but more so for those kids that would not be able to be here.” – Grand Haven coach Katie Kowalczyk-Fulmer, on her team coming back strong in Saturday's Final after hearing about the Friday crash
“Our theme this year was ‘stay hungry.’ Two years ago we in the Quarterfinals, last year the Semifinals, and we knew we were a good team. We didn’t want to be in a situation where we expected to be here. We wanted to make sure we were still putting forth the effort. We have a lot of talent, maybe the most talent in the entire state right now. But we didn’t want to use that as the only thing that guided us all year.” – Goodrich coach Jason Gray
“I knew they were three special players at that young age, and I truly in my heart believed we could get down here. I told them all year, we don’t want to just get down there and get bounced out. We want to come down there and win it. And these three had a lot to do with that, obviously.” – Morley-Stanwood coach Bob Raven, on seniors Cairnduff, Huntey and Elyse Starck
“Throughout the year, we each had moments where we could be the last player to have the ball in our hands, who wanted it, and that’s what we needed.” – Waterford Our Lady junior Lexie Robak.
See you next year ...
Grosse Pointe South: The Blue Devils came from unranked to nearly Class A champion, and the team’s two leading scorers in the Final – freshman guard Cierra Rice and junior forward Claire DeBoer – should make the team a contender again when practice begins this winter. Junior Christina Flom also started in the Final, and freshman guard Aliezza Brown played 23 minutes.
Freeland: Although the Falcons fell 72-49 to Grand Rapids Catholic Central in their Class B Semifinal, it could end up as just another catalyst for a team that graduates no one this spring. Guard Tori Jankoska will sign with Michigan State this fall, and she’s got one more season after scoring 29 points in this trip to Breslin.
Concord: The Yellow Jackets will begin next season with four starters back from this Class C Semifinalist team, and without only three seniors who graduate this spring. Junior guard Megan Redman earned all-state recognition this season in helping Concord to a 26-1 record despite playing in a league that also included Class D Semifinalist Athens. Total, the Yellow Jackets had eight juniors who should contribute again in 2012-13.
Crystal Falls Forest Park: Four starters graduate from the team that made it to Breslin. But sophomore Alexis Gussert is only a sophomore, and could be the next elite player to emerge from the Upper Peninsula – her 34 points and 12 rebounds in the Semifinal loss gave a strong first impression. All four players Forest Park brought off the bench should be back next season as well.
Link up
To watch all 12 games and press conferences after each, click on MHSAA.tv.
PHOTOS courtesy of Terry McNamara Photography.
Leland's Glass Childress Selected as 11th Michigan Inductee Into NFHS Hall of Fame
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
March 9, 2026
More than two decades have passed since Alisha Glass took her final swing at a volleyball in a Leland High School uniform, and yet her accomplishments for her small-town school in Northern Michigan remain among the most notable in that sport’s history not just statewide, but at the national level.
Glass, now Alisha Glass Childress – who went on to star on three Penn State national championship teams and help the U.S. national team to a bronze medal at the 2016 Olympics – will have her record-setting high school career enshrined this summer as one of 12 honorees announced today as this year’s inductees into the National High School Hall of Fame by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).
Childress will be inducted as part of the 43rd Hall of Fame class at a ceremony during the NFHS summer meeting June 29 in Salt Lake City. The rest of the class is made up of four more athletes, three coaches, two game officials, one former state association administrator and one former fine arts educator. Childress was nominated by the Michigan High School Athletic Association.
She will become the Hall of Fame’s 11th inductee from Michigan, joining the MHSAA’s first full-time Executive Director Charles E. Forsythe (inducted 1983), River Rouge boys basketball coach Lofton Greene (1986), Warren Regina athletic director, softball and basketball coach Diane Laffey (2000), Fennville basketball and baseball standout Richie Jordan (2001), Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett boys and girls tennis coach Bob Wood (2005), Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook hockey standout Jim Johnson (2007), Owosso football, basketball and baseball all-stater Brad Van Pelt (2011); Vermontville Maple Valley baseball national record holder Ken Beardslee (2016), retired MHSAA Executive Director John E. “Jack” Roberts (2022) and Dearborn Heights Robichaud football, basketball and track & field star Tyrone Wheatley (2024).
“My high school career at Leland, surrounded by such an amazing support system and community, was the essential first chapter of my story. It cultivated the grit and the fundamental love for the game that allowed me to reach the highest levels of athletics,” Childress said. “I’m proud of every medal and trophy, but I’m just as proud of the roots I planted back in high school that made them all possible.”
Childress graduated from Leland in 2006 with national high school career records of 3,584 kills, 680 blocks and 937 aces, and 296 aces for one season as a junior. Her aces records still stand, her career kills record stood until broken in 2024 by Shelby’s Navea Gauthier, and she remains third on the career blocks list. Glass continues to hold MHSAA records for single-season and career aces and also for her 48 kills in Leland’s 2005-06 Class D Final win over Battle Creek St. Philip. Childress also led Leland to a Class D runner-up finish in 2004-05 and the Semifinals in 2003-04. (All three tournament runs took place while girls volleyball was still played during the winter season before moving to the fall to begin the 2007-08 school year).
Childress earned the Miss Volleyball Award and Gatorade Player of the Year Award for Michigan as a senior, and her name is listed 19 times throughout the MHSAA girls volleyball record book. She also made Michigan's Class D all-state first team on the basketball court as both a junior and senior, averaging 18 points and 11 rebounds per game as a junior and 16 points, 10 rebounds and 3.7 blocked shots per game as a senior while leading her basketball team to Class D Quarterfinals both of those seasons.
“As our staff researched our first 50 years of female sports for our ‘Title IX at 50’ celebration during the 2021-22 school year, they told stories of several standouts who went on to collegiate, Olympic and professional stardom – and Alisha Glass stands out even among the greats,” MHSAA Executive Director Mark Uyl said. “Taking into account everything she accomplished individually and with her teams, and not just in volleyball but basketball as well, it’s a strong argument that Alisha Glass continues to set the bar as not only our state’s best female athlete all-time, but arguably the most accomplished volleyball player in national high school history. We are thrilled that she will be inducted into the National High School Hall of Fame.”
Also during high school, Childress played on the 2004 and 2005 USA youth national volleyball teams and helped the 2004 team to the North, Central America and Caribbean Volleyball Confederation (NORECA) championship, and was named Best Server at that event. After high school, she started all four seasons at national power Penn State and set the Nittany Lions to three straight NCAA championships, being named to the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) All-America first team twice and second team once.
Childress continued her career professionally and internationally, playing professionally in the United States and Puerto Rico, Italy, Turkey, Poland and Brazil and being named USA Volleyball Indoor Female Athlete of the Year for both 2013 and 2014. She led the U.S. national team to bronze at 2016 Olympics and was named Best Setter of the tournament, after being selected as an alternate for the 2012 Olympic team.
Most recently, Childress played for the Pro Volleyball Federation's Vegas Thrill in 2024 and 2025 and played in the league's first All-Star Match last season. She’s currently the head coach of the San Diego Mojo of Major League Volleyball and last summer also completed her first season as a coach with Athletes Unlimited. She previously served as an assistant coach with the Stanford University women’s volleyball program from 2019-21 – including during the team’s run to the Division I national title in 2019 – and also served as an assistant for the gold medal-winning U.S. national team during the 2018 Pan American Cup.
Childress is the daughter of Laurie Glass, who retired from coaching Leland after the 2023 season and ranks seventh in MHSAA girls volleyball coaching history for victories with a career record of 1,259-410-124. Glass led Leland to three Class D championships and five runner-up finishes. Childress’ grandfather Larry Glass ranks on the MHSAA girls basketball coaching victory list with a 388-110 record and led Leland to three straight Class D titles from 1980-82. He also coached the Northwestern University men’s basketball team for six seasons.
Additionally, Childress is married to past Stanford basketball star Josh Childress, who went on to play eight seasons in the NBA and several more overseas. They have three daughters, Maya, Mina and Amara.
The National High School Hall of Fame was started in 1982 by the NFHS. The 12 individuals were chosen after a two-level selection process involving a screening committee composed of active high school state association administrators, coaches and officials, and a final selection committee composed of coaches, former athletes, state association officials, media representatives and educational leaders. Nominations were made through NFHS member associations. Also chosen for this class were athletes Joe Carter (Oklahoma), Jordan Larson (Nebraska), Krissy Wendell-Pohl (Minnesota) and Patrick Willis (Tennessee); sport coaches Jan Barker (Texas), David Gentry (North Carolina) and Flo Valdez (New Mexico); game officials Burney Jenkins (Kentucky) and Mary Lou Thimas (Massachusetts), former state association administrator Steve Savarese (Alabama) and former fine arts educator Craig Ihnen (Iowa).
For more on this year’s Hall of Fame class, visit the NFHS Website.