Young Grass Lake Grows Into Contender
March 2, 2019
By Doug Donnelly
Special for Second Half
GRASS LAKE – Some coaches go a whole career without ever knocking off a No. 1-ranked team.
The Grass Lake Warriors and head coach Andrea Cabana have done it twice in a month.
“And, we are just babies,” Cabana said of her youthful squad. “I think it really boosts our confidence. It gives us an idea of what we are capable of.”
The Warriors, who have been sneaking higher and higher into The Associated Press Division 3 rankings all season, are capable of just about anything with the MHSAA Tournament beginning this week. They have won 16 consecutive games since a December loss to Division 3 No. 1 Michigan Center. Included in that streak is two wins over a solid 14-5 Manchester squad, a rematch win over Michigan Center on Feb. 1 and a 64-53 win over Division 4’s No. 1 Adrian Lenawee Christian last week.
“It’s exciting,” said Cabana. “We are playing very well right now.”
On Thursday, the Warriors took care of business quickly, racing out to a 31-2 lead over Addison in a game that would clinch the Cascades Conference outright championship. Grass Lake won 64-36 to put the lid on a 19-1 regular season.
Success is certainly nothing new for Grass Lake. But this season’s rise to 19-1 can be considered somewhat of a surprise since the team, coming off an 18-5 season, had just one player returning with a lot of high school basketball experience – sophomore Abrie Cabana. She’s surrounded by two freshmen, a fellow sophomore and a junior.
“We’re not babies at this time of the year,” Coach Cabana said. “We’ve grown up.”
The Warriors have done it with a solid combination of lock-down defense and a high-powered offense. They average 56.4 points a game and allow just 29.6 a contest. The defense has allowed 20 or fewer points in a game seven times this season, and one opponent didn’t reach double figures. On the other end of the court, the Warriors have 11 games scoring above 60 points.
Lenawee Christian won the Class D championship a year ago and has been the No. 1-ranked team in Division 4 most of the season. The Cougars lost to Michigan Center to start the season and Grass Lake last week for their only two losses. Head coach Jamie Salenbien said Grass Lake has all of the pieces to make a long tournament run of its own this year.
“They have a high basketball I.Q.,” Salenbien said. “They are balanced with kids who can shoot it deep, and they get to the basket. They are well-coached and have a lot of weapons.”
Cabana called that win a total team effort.
“Lenawee Christian is a great team,” she said. “They have a handful of great players. We knew it was going to take a great effort. We went in real focused, and things went our way in the end.”
Abrie Cabana, the 5-foot-10 daughter of Coach Cabana, leads the team in scoring and most statistical categories. Although just a sophomore, she verbally committed to play college basketball at Grand Valley State University last fall. She had other offers, including from the Division I level, but chose the Division II Lakers over them all.
“She’s probably our vocal leader,” Cabana said of her daughter. “She’s played a ton of travel ball. She’s the most experienced high school player on the team.”
Her backcourt running mate, Lexus Bargesser, is only a freshman but already plays at a high level.
“She’s almost identical to Abrie,” Cabana said. “She’s a little smaller, but she’s quick and gets to the hole quick. She’s a very sound player. We are very strong at the guard position. They are both strong outside the 3-point line and inside. They are hard to handle.”
Freshman Gabrielle Lutchka (6-0) is also an imposing figure at both ends of the court for Grass Lake.
“She’s been our game changer,” Cabana said. “She handles the other team’s big player. When she is playing well, we play well.”
In the win over Lenawee Christian, Lutchka scored 13 points and grabbed seven rebounds. She also drew the primary responsibility of guarding LCS’s Bree Salebien, the reigning AP Class D Player of the Year.
Other Warriors, such as Amber Boomer, Faith Patania and Lauren Pongracz, play big roles as well.
“They do a real nice job of playing to their roles, playing to their strengths,” Cabana said.
While young, Cabana said, the girls already have played a lot of basketball.
“A lot of our girls play travel ball,” Cabana said. “They are very experienced players. They’ve played a lot of basketball.”
Cabana is from the Jackson area but has lived in the Grass Lake district for about 20 years. She got her start coaching her oldest daughter – now a sophomore on the Spring Arbor University team – when she was in the third grade. The Warriors are 55-13 during her tenure, and the future keeps looking brighter.
“There was an opening in the middle school, and I coached that for three years,” Cabana said. “Then there was an opening as the JV head coach and I did that for two years, and this is my third year with the varsity.”
Grass Lake will open District play with Lenawee County Athletic Association champion Brooklyn Columbia Central. Looming on the other side of the Napoleon bracket is the likes of Michigan Center and Manchester.
“This time of the year,” Cabana said, “nothing is easy.”
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) Grass Lake’s Abrie Cabana pushes the ball upcourt against Manchester this season. (Middle) Teammate Lexus Bargesser looks for an opening. (Photos courtesy of the Grass Lake girls basketball program.)
Russell Twins Set High Bar Standing Tall Together for Mona Shores Sports
By
Tom Kendra
Special for MHSAA.com
April 16, 2026
Maddie and Laynie Russell have been such a big part (literally) of Muskegon Mona Shores girls sports over the past four years that it’s difficult to imagine the Sailors without them.
Opposing basketball and volleyball coaches certainly won’t miss them, as figuring out a way to handle the “twin towers” was Job 1 when playing Shores.
Laynie (6-foot-3) and Maddie (slightly shorter at 6-2½) are fraternal twins and four-year varsity players in both volleyball and basketball, having entered the starting lineup four years ago as 14-year-olds. Both made an immediate impact and progressed to become Muskegon All-Area “Dream Team” volleyball players the past two years.
“They looked like grown women, but they weren’t,” said Mona Shores girls basketball coach Mike Phillips, who met with the family to talk about moving both girls up to varsity when they were still just 13 years old.
“It would have been easy for them to crumble under that kind of pressure, but they handled themselves unbelievably well.”
And the twins, who are both near the top of their class academically with weighted GPAs greater than 4.0, are not quite done helping Shores sports.
Currently, Maddie is an attacker in lacrosse and Laynie is playing No. 1 doubles in tennis. Both will graduate in June with 11 varsity letters.
Then they will have a few months to enjoy their summer passions for jet skis and water skis, before heading in different directions.
Laynie has committed to play volleyball at Northern Michigan and is undecided about her field of study. Maddie will play volleyball at Indiana Tech, where she plans to major in pharmacy.
Intense Maddie
Maddie is more emotional and expressive and wears her heart on her sleeve.
She was “super tenacious” way back in youth soccer and in another one of her loves, swimming, where she was a state champion in the breaststroke at age 7.
Then it appeared for some time that softball would be “her thing,” excelling as a power hitter at the plate and with her long stretch playing first base.
“Sports has always been our life, and it’s just natural for us to go from one sport to another,” said Maddie, who didn’t start playing volleyball until middle school.
“I love being a part of different teams because you meet different friends in each one. Plus, I think it has helped me physically and to avoid injuries because I wasn’t just doing the same thing over and over.”
Maddie made her mark in basketball as a dominant inside force, particularly as a defender and rebounder. In volleyball, she was an outside hitter who could move around and was an excellent passer, finishing her career with 681 kills and 166 blocks.
Her favorite memory is winning four straight city volleyball titles and then helping her team break through and win a Division 1 District volleyball championship her junior year, as the team finished 32-10.
She believes her busy high school experience has prepared her for college. In addition to being a three-sport athlete at Shores, she also played travel in three sports (volleyball, basketball and softball), took AP classes, was a member of National Honor Society and worked as a lifeguard and babysitter.
“I don’t know how she did it some of those days,” said dad Mike Russell, shaking his head. “But we were lucky because both girls are very self-motivated. We didn’t have to get on them very much.”
Poker-faced Laynie
Laynie is more even-keeled and keeps her emotions in check, and it’s hard to tell whether she is having a rough game or is going off for 31 points, which she did in an early-season basketball win last season.
Laynie, who was born two minutes after Maddie on Aug. 14, 2008, was bigger at birth (she was 7 pounds, 4 ounces and Maddie was 5 pounds, 7 ounces). Then Maddie shot up and was taller in elementary school, they were about even in middle school, and now Laynie is about a half-inch taller.
Their height came as no surprise as Mike is 6-5 and their mom Jennifer is 6-1.
The tallest member of the Russell family is older brother Donovan, a 2022 Mona Shores graduate who is 6-8 and plays on the Michigan State men’s club volleyball team. “Dono” will graduate in May with a civil engineering degree.
Like her sister, Laynie is happiest when bouncing from sport to sport. She remembers briefly considering not playing a spring sport as a freshman.
“I didn’t do anything for like a week after basketball season and I was so bored,” said Laynie, who is serving her school this year as the National Honor Society chapter president. “That’s when I knew I had to be doing something, so I went out for tennis.”
Basketball was her favorite sport for many years, and she certainly left her mark on the hardwood, finishing as the 12th-leading scorer in school history and setting the school’s single-season rebounding record her junior year. Laynie, who could handle the ball like a guard and made 38 3-pointers during her career, was a two-time Ottawa-Kent Conference Green all-league selection.
It wasn’t until the past couple years that volleyball became her clear focus. Laynie is a dominant hitter and blocker at the net, finishing with 711 kills and 224 blocks.
Her most memorable games both came during her junior year, and both were big wins in front of rowdy crowds at the Sailor Center – a volleyball victory over No. 6-ranked Jenison, which featured a wild 38-36 win in the final set, and then a basketball upset of rival Muskegon.
But she said her most meaningful memory is time spent volunteering at youth volleyball and basketball clinics.
“We always worked a ton of youth camps, and I always loved that,” said Laynie, who is considering becoming a teacher and coach someday. “It’s fun seeing how excited (kids) get when they figure something out. And now some of those girls have grown up and they’re going to be taking our place.”
Separate ways
The “Russell twins” will, in many ways, truly will become Maddie and Laynie for the first time this fall.
Maddie will journey 216 miles south to Indiana Tech, which is in Fort Wayne, and Laynie will venture 417 miles in the opposite direction to Northern Michigan in Marquette.
“It’s going to be hard, for sure, but I’m trying to focus on what a unique opportunity it will be for both of them,” said Jennifer Russell. “For the first time, they will each have their own separate life, and I am excited for that.”
One thing is for certain: mom’s day-in, day-out Google calendar will free up immensely.
Right now, it’s somewhat comical when she calls up her color-coded family calendar on her phone (Maddie is purple, Laynie is pink, Dono is green, etc.) and it looks like a rainbow, with a crazy blend of school activities, school sports, travel sports, family obligations and work.
Dono will graduate from MSU next month, the twins will graduate from Mona Shores in June and then they will head off and begin their college journeys in August.
Mike and Jennifer, both 1988 Shores graduates and high school sweethearts, will be empty nesters, but at least will still have the family’s two dogs, Scout and Coco. The biggest challenge will be finding a way to be in two places at once – with the twins playing volleyball 633 miles apart.
About one mile away from their home at Mona Shores High School, the Sailors girls sports programs will need to replace two standouts who gave everything they had to their school – as individuals, teammates and role models for little girls in the community.
“Maddie and Laynie always put their school and their teammates above themselves,” said Phillips, whose three daughters played with and became friends with the Russell twins. “Their focus was, how can I help my school? In the spring it was, how can I help another one of our teams?
“What I will remember most about them is the great people and teammates that they were. I will be forever grateful to them for that.”
Tom Kendra worked 23 years at The Muskegon Chronicle, including five as assistant sports editor and the final six as sports editor through 2011. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Muskegon, Oceana, Mason, Lake, Oceola, Mecosta and Newaygo counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Senior twins Laynie Russell (left) and Maddie Russell (right) have left their mark on the Muskegon Mona Shores athletic program as standout three-sport athletes. (2) Laynie (left) and Maddie are all smiles for a much earlier photo. (3) Maddie (left) and Laynie (right) are dominant forces at the volleyball net, shown here going up for a double block. (4) Jennifer, Maddie, Laynie and Mike Russell pose for a photo with the Sailors' Division 1 District championship trophy Nov. 7, 2024, at Coopersville. (Top photo courtesy of Billinghurst Photography. Family photos courtesy of Jennifer Russell. Action photo by Eric Sturr.)