Country Day Two-Time Champ Moore Building Perennial Winner at Harvard
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
July 16, 2026
Carrie Moore says her high school sports experience in Michigan has “left a lifetime impression on me.”
Back in the early 2000s, Moore certainly had a fulfilling one while starring as a two-sport standout at Detroit Country Day.
In basketball, she was a four-year varsity performer for legendary head coach Frank Orlando, helping guide Country Day to Class B titles in 1999 as a freshman and 2002 as a senior. During the latter, she was a first-team all-state performer and scored a team-high 18 points in a Semifinal win over Flint Powers Catholic.
Moore also was a standout soccer player on that Country Day varsity powerhouse for three years.
“Who I am as a leader, as a competitor, and a team player is because of what I learned about the process in high school as a student-athlete,” Moore said. “The pursuit of excellence isn’t always easy, but I learned at such a young age that I can do hard things. I was challenged because I was surrounded by the best on the court and in the classroom, but ultimately it brought out the best version of myself and I was so prepared for what came next after graduation.”
Make no mistake about it, Moore has continued to do great things since graduating from Country Day in 2003.
She is currently the head women’s basketball coach at Harvard, where she just completed her fourth season and has amassed an 80-41 record with the Crimson. This past season, she helped guide her team to a 20-12 record and the Women’s Basketball Invitational Tournament.
Moore was a terrific college player at Western Michigan, finishing as the school’s all-time scoring leader with 2,216 points and earning Mid-American Conference Player of the Year in 2007 after averaging 25.4 points per game. But she initially wasn’t planning on being a coach once her time at Western was over.
After playing one season professionally in Poland and then being cut twice by WNBA teams during training camp, Moore had an opportunity to join the coaching staff at Princeton in 2010.
From there, the coaching bug bit her, so to speak.
“Being a part of that program allowed me to see the lasting impact I could have on young women in growing them as people and players, and ultimately, give back to the game that gave me so much,” Moore said.
Moore was on the staff for two seasons at Princeton, and then moved on to Creighton, where she spent five years as an assistant coach.
Following a second stint as an assistant coach at Princeton that lasted four years, Moore moved on to North Carolina, where she spent two years as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator for the program.
A native of Lathrup Village, Moore then briefly returned to her home state for the 2021-22 season, serving as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator for University of Michigan’s team that went 25-7.
After that season, the opportunity at Harvard came about, and Moore has proved she can be successful running a program as well.
In her first season, Moore set a program record for most wins by a first-year head coach (20). Two years later, she guided the Crimson to its first Ivy League Tournament title and back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 18 years.
Even to this day, Moore is influenced by her time at Country Day and in Michigan. She speaks regularly to Orlando, picking his brain for advice or an answer to any other question that might come up.
“I keep in touch with Coach O as often as I can,” Moore said. “He reaches out after big wins or tough losses and always reassures his belief in me as a leader of young women. His mantra ‘Believe It’ is living on within our program at Harvard, and I hope he feels deeply connected to it because of it. I will always honor him in any way that I can, as he has shaped me greatly as a human and coach.”
Moore hasn’t had a player from her home state on her Harvard roster. But she said Michigan is an important recruiting area, and she’s keeping an eye out for prospects.
“I’m very hopeful that it will happen one day,” Moore said.
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PHOTOS (Top) At left, Detroit Country Day’s Carrie Moore (33) celebrates with her teammates at the end of a Class B Semifinal win over Flint Powers Catholic in 2002. At right, Moore holds up the net after making the last cut this past season to celebrate Harvard’s Ivy League Tournament championship. (Middle) Moore enjoys a moment with her Crimson players. (Harvard photos courtesy of the Harvard athletic department.)
Lansing Catholic Closes Season With Memorable Victory Close to Home
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
March 18, 2023
EAST LANSING – The Lansing Catholic girls basketball team took a short drive to end a long wait.
Playing just three miles from their high school, the Cougars defeated Frankenmuth 43-29 Saturday at the Breslin Center to win the MHSAA Division 2 Final. It was the first Finals title for the program since 1995.
“It felt like homecourt advantage a little bit,” Lansing Catholic senior guard Hannah Pricco said. “Our bus trip wasn’t super long. It just kind of felt like we were coming to our own court.”
The Cougars treated it that way, dominating from the beginning of the matchup in their first Finals trip since that 1995 title. They scored the game’s first 11 points and never looked back.
“This is, as you can imagine, extremely surreal,” Lansing Catholic coach Kacee Reid said. “You’re going through literally every emotion on the bench, especially in a game like that. Frankenmuth is making such a great comeback, and we knew they were going to fight to the end. To go through the anger and sadness and happiness, and now it’s over and we’ve won it. It’s just been a rollercoaster of emotions, and I can’t describe the pride I have in these girls.”
It was the second meeting between the two teams, with Lansing Catholic taking the first 74-42 on Feb. 2. But Reid wasn’t going to let her team come in overconfident.
“They didn’t get here by accident,” Reid said. “They’re in the state championship because they’re playing their best ball of the year. We played them a month and a half ago. … We’re a totally different team, and we knew they were a totally different team. We knew they had been playing some really good basketball, and it didn’t matter at all what that first outcome was. We knew this was going to be a battle.”
Lansing Catholic (24-5) never trailed, and led by as many as 17 points in the third quarter. Leah Richards led the Cougars with 16 points and nine rebounds, while Anna Richards had 14 points. Gabby Halliwill added seven.
The Cougars were spurred by their defense throughout, holding Frankenmuth to 9 of 36 shooting from the field and forcing 13 turnovers.
“For us, defensively, we had to switch it up,” Reid said. “We had to keep switching up between man and zone. They were making adjustments and we couldn’t really sit in one thing for too long; they got comfortable. That’s a credit to their coaching staff always making adjustments. We had to continue to switch things up defensively and try to hopefully make their shooters second-guess their shot, or maybe not know where we were coming from.”
Frankenmuth (25-3) didn’t go away, despite trailing by double digits for the majority of the game.
That was helped by Lansing Catholic shooting 1 of 11 from the field in the third quarter, and going scoreless for the final 5:26 of the frame.
The Eagles cut the lead to seven with 2:45 to play on a steal and layup from Clare Conzelmann, but never got closer.
“There was always belief no matter what detriment we got ourselves in,” Frankenmuth senior Lexi Boyke said. “I wouldn’t want to choose any other girls to play with and be in with at that point. I think we fought back and really prided ourselves on, ‘We can still do it.’ We didn’t stop fighting until the end.”
Lansing Catholic always figured Frankenmuth would make a run to get into the game, but was ready when it came.
“We knew they were going to make runs, we knew we weren’t going to hold them to seven points the whole game,” Anna Richards said. “We knew in the third quarter they were going to score, so we just had to stay composed, work the ball around on offense to get the good shots that we wanted.”
Boyke, who scored Frankenmuth’s first 10 points and was its only scorer well into the third quarter, finished with 16. She also reached 1,000 career points in the game, and had six rebounds, while Izzy Bernthal had seven.
Frankenmuth was making its first Finals appearance since winning the Class C title in 1996, one year after Lansing Catholic.
“That’s a really good Lansing Catholic team, and you’ve seen that from their postseason run and beating an undefeated West Catholic team, and tonight finishing their season off with a state championship. So, congratulations to them,” Frankenmuth coach Joe Jacobs said. “I’m super proud of our kids. They didn’t quit tonight. They could have. … Fun experience, one that we want to treasure forever, but the motivation to come back again is here after tonight’s loss.”
PHOTOS (Top) Lansing Catholic celebrates its Division 2 championship Saturday night at Breslin Center. (Middle) The Cougars’ Anna Richards (10) attempts to get a shot up over Frankenmuth’s Lexi Boyke. (Below) Tessa Roe (12) works to get past Clare Conzelmann and to the basket.