3-Sport Standout Sluss Gives Lenawee Christian All-State Boost for Every Season
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
January 11, 2023
ADRIAN – Avery Sluss picked up a golf club for the first time her freshmen year at Adrian Lenawee Christian. Now she’s an all-state golfer.
Sluss started playing basketball because it was a way for her and her older brother, Gavin, to connect. She’s now the leading scorer on the Cougars basketball team a year after receiving all-state recognition.
Everything she touches seems to turn to gold. She will return to the soccer field in the spring already with her college plans in place. She signed recently to play goalkeeper at Indiana Wesleyan University.
“I’ve learned so much from sports,” Avery said. “It teaches me a lot about life.”
Her coaches call her a self-motivated athlete, quiet leader and someone dedicated to her faith, her teammates, and academics. She is a 4.0 student and has played four years of varsity golf, basketball, and soccer. She’s earned all-state recognition in all three sports.
“She is very self-motivated,” said first-year Lenawee Christian girls basketball coach Emilie Beach. “She doesn’t miss workouts or practices. She pushes herself hard. She forces others to rise (around her).”
Sluss is in her fourth season on the Lenawee Christian varsity basketball team. This year her role changed from mostly a defensive specialist to scorer.
Beach said Avery hasn’t changed her positive attitude with the changes in her role on the team. She has a high basketball IQ, Beach said, which helps her on the court.
“It can be tough and frustrating, but she comes in with a great attitude each day and leads her teammates,” Beach said. “She is a quiet leader who leads by example. She is hardest on herself, and that’s where a lot of her motivation comes from.”
The Cougars have had great success on the basketball floor the last several years, and Sluss has been part of it. She’s played alongside all-staters and played at the Breslin Center. She started and played 20 minutes in last year’s Semifinal loss to Plymouth Christian Academy.
This season she’s averaging 14.5 points a game, with 16 3-pointers, and has scored at least 17 points four times.
“It’s very different, but I like the role I’m in now,” she said. “Now, it’s like you have to score. I’ve accepted it. I’m just trying my best to fulfill that role for my teammates.”
Sluss sat out the fall travel soccer season while she was recovering from a slight back injury. But she was able to hit the golf course. She shot a two-day total of 186 at the Lower Peninsula Division 4 Final, helping the Cougars finish second as a team. A year earlier Sluss shot an 89 and 87 and helped the Cougars finish fourth overall.
Not bad for someone who didn’t pick up a golf club until just a few years ago.
“Golf was new to me my freshman year,” she said. “Some of my friends said I should try it, so I did. I went to the range maybe one or two times before I started to play. I’ve loved it.”
As far as sports goes, soccer was her first love. She started playing at the age of 4 when a neighborhood dad gathered a few girls together and formed a team.
“We started playing in the back yard,” she said. “I’ve been playing soccer ever since. My first travel team was when I was 7.”
Sluss first started thinking about playing college soccer when she was in kindergarten.
“I’ve always wanted to play soccer in college,” she said. “I’ve dreamed about that. I’ve spent so much time on the sport that it would be silly not to. I want it to pay off with college.”
She used to play multiple positions but turned to goalkeeper at the age of 12.
“It’s a lot of work,” she said. “There are a lot of little things. The mental part of being a goalkeeper is important.”
After being named to the coaches association all-state third team last year, Sluss is primed for a big season this spring, especially with her college choice behind her.
“It is a strong Christian college, which was important to me,” she said. “It’s a lot like Lenawee Christian. Everyone on the soccer team was great when I met them, and the girls are so nice.”
Sluss has become adept at mixing sports with academics and life.
“Balance is a big issue,” she said. “It’s a lot of work, especially doing two at a time.
“My whole family, my parents (David and Kristen), they always push me to be the best I can be. I owe them a lot. Even my little sister (Addie) pushes me to do my best.”
Avery’s family moved from Toledo to the Adrian area several years ago, and the two perfectly complement to each other.
“Lenawee Christian has been a great fit for me,” she said. “All of the people are awesome, and I have grown in my faith here.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Avery Sluss gathers up the ball while playing keeper for Lenawee Christian’s soccer team. (Middle) Sluss puts up a shot during last season’s Division 4 Semifinal at Breslin Center. (Below) Sluss plants a chip on the green. (Photos courtesy of the Lenawee Christian athletic department.)
Suttons Bay Goals, Assists Record-Setter U'Ren Savoring Memories from Every Season
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
June 12, 2026
Megan U’Ren knows full well there’s no guarantee the best-played soccer ball for a scoring chance will find the back of the net.
Her perspective comes from being the passer and shooter the past four years for Suttons Bay High School.
“Goals and assists are almost equally as hard because you can set someone up perfectly and then they miss,” U’Ren said. “And then even my scoring chance … if I got set up perfectly … everyone misses.”
Enough perfect-like passes were finished though — to and from U’Ren. She just finished her career as the leading goal scorer in the school’s history as well as with the most assists ever recorded. U’Ren, who plans to attend Michigan State University in the fall, gives the lion’s share of credit to her teammates for the records.
“I wasn't really expecting to break any records,” U’Ren pointed out. “You can't really score without someone assisting you and then to get all these assists, my teammates had to score goals.”
While leading the Norse to a 13-5-1 record this spring, U’Ren toppled the marks of Sydney Deadman for career goals and Lauren Lints for career assists. She had already set the single-season assists school record a few seasons earlier, surpassing Paige Kohler.
U’Ren quite possibly would have walked away with the single-season scoring record this year too, but the Norse saw six regular-season games cancelled due to Northern Michigan’s rather miserable spring weather. She finished her shortened senior season with 17 goals and six assists.
But it’s not necessarily the goals or the assists headlining U’Ren’s legacy.
“I am proud, as a dad and a coach, to see somebody from a young age take something serious, and be willing to put hours and hours of work into it … lifting weights, going to the field on her own shooting balls and stuff,” recalled her coach and father Randy U’Ren. “The girls see it. They see what happens when you put in a lot of work.”
The graduating senior U’Ren has been around Suttons Bay soccer since her dad returned to coaching high school. Under Coach U’Ren, the Norsemen’s boys soccer teams picked up District and Regional titles on a pretty regular basis.
“Megan was a great example of you put in the work, good things are bound to happen,” Randy U’Ren said. “This girl has been working with that level for many years.”
With opponents like Leland, Elk Rapids and Harbor Springs often in the Suttons Bay’s District bracket, the record holder wasn’t able to experience the postseason runs the boys had under coach U’Ren.
Leland also was a thorn to the Norse in the Northwest Conference, winning the title all four of Megan’s playing years.
“Winning Districts was always a goal, but our District has been hard,” admitted U’Ren, an all-conference player again this season. “Every single year we had teams like Harbor Springs in it.”
The Norse fell to Harbor this season in the District Semifinals on the Rams’ home field, 3-0. The Rams went on to advance to the Division 4 Final being played today at Michigan State University.
The Suttons Bay coach pointed out the assists and scoring records are more of a reflection on all the players he’s coached the last four seasons, not just his daughter.
“It’s a testament to the whole program when you have any records that come,” Randy U’Ren said, noting he’s never focused much on individual stats. “It's more like if the team is doing well, the other stuff follows. It's kind of like in business too. If you do the right things in your business, then the money will come.”
Megan U’Ren, who hopes to play college club soccer, looks back at her freshman year as her high school favorite.
“Every year was special,” she said. “But my freshman year was my favorite, getting to play with Dani, my oldest sister.”
And Megan leaves with fond memories of all four years.
“The sophomore year … breaking the assist record, and having Lauren (Lint) — that duo — was special,” she recalled. “Junior year it was seeing that the records were reachable and possible. And then, senior year breaking the records and just graduating with all of my teammates who have played club with me for so many years.”
Winning was a bigger priority than records for both U’Rens.
“I liked doing whatever the team needed and working as hard as I can to help the team succeed,” Megan U’Ren said. “But scoring was really fun, especially in the harder games.”
U’Ren broke Deadman’s record late in this season, scoring two in a win over Kalkaska. The game was stopped as center referee Ed O’Brien delivered game ball to school officials for presentation to U’Ren after the game.
“It was an honor to be asked to remove the ball if she got the record,” O’Brien said, noting he’s never done anything like it in his 25 years of refereeing high school soccer. “Number 10 is such a great player, and she could have scored more. She gave up chances prior, choosing to pass the ball instead.”
Tom Spencer is a longtime MHSAA-registered basketball and soccer official, and former softball and baseball official, and he also has coached in the northern Lower Peninsula area. He previously has written for the Saginaw News, Bay County Sports Page and Midland Daily News. 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) Suttons Bay’s Megan U’Ren (10) works against a pair of Leland defenders this season. (Middle) Megan U’Ren, right, and her father and coach Randy. (Below) U’Ren creates space during another game this spring. (Top photo courtesy of the Leelanau Enterprise. Family and Glen Lake photo by Trudy Galla Photography.)