Logo

High 5s: 5/15/12

May 15, 2012

This week's honorees include arguably Michigan's top distance runner, top lacrosse player, and a baseball team looking to assert itself at the top while representing the state's largest city.

Lauren Hooker
East Grand Rapids senior
Lacrosse

(Updated May 19) Hooker, who plays attack, led the Pioneers to a 20-0 start. She's scored 101 goals -- already third-most for a single season in the MHSAA record book, and more than 25 percent of her team's total. Add in her 33 assists, and her 134 total points are fifth in MHSAA history for one season. East Grand Rapids is ranked No. 1 both in Division 2 and regardless of division based on the computer rankings supplied by LaxPower.com. Hooker also was the low scorer on the Pioneers golf team that finished eighth at the fall's Division 3 Final, and she missed the individual top 10 by only two strokes. She's signed to play lacrosse at Marquette University next season.

Scoring touch: "I don't try and dodge all the time. I don't like to work my way through people to score. I just try to find an opening."

Up next: "I'm not exactly sure yet (what I'll study), probably something in the sciences. Maybe something like criminology. I always wanted to be an FBI agent when I was growing up."

I learned the most about lacrosse from: "Two of my best friends play for the University of Oregon (Jana and Jess Drummond). And Coach (Jeff) Oates has spent a lot of time with me, talking to me, helping me during the offseason."

Different strokes: "I love the intensity (of lacrosse). I love the team aspect. It's competitive, but fun at the same time. Everyone on our team loves it together. ... In golf, I like how you're still part of the team, but an individual. To help the team, it's on you. It's a good contrast to lacrosse." 

Garret Zuk

White Lake Lakeland senior

Track and Field

Zuk, the reigning MHSAA Division 1 cross country champion, ran career bests of 9:09.2 in the 3,200 meters and 4:16.92 in the 1,600 to take first in the former and second by two hundredths of a second in the latter at Saturday's Kensington Lakes Activities Association championship meet at Pinckney. But his best moment might've come when he finished second on purpose -- to Walled Lake Northern's Devin Kimberlin in the 3,200 last Tuesday after pacing the sophomore through the race to a career-best time, and then letting him win at the end. (Click to read more). Zuk was an MHSAA Scholar-Athlete Award winner this winter and is the co-salutatorian of his class with a 4.22 grade-point average. He will run this fall at Michigan State University.

"I've done it for kids on my own team. Normally, I'm in a position where things are still hanging in the balance and we need the points to win. But the way this meet was ... there was no way we could win. I saw the kind of effort Devin was trying to put in, and there was no reason not to help out."

Up next: Zuk will run both cross country and track at MSU, as is the norm at the college level. He's planning to study mechanical engineering, with an eye on the aerospace field -- think NASA, Boeing, etc. Not surprisingly, math is his best subject.

I learned the most about running from: Retired longtime Lakeland coach Randy Wilkins and current cross country coach Joe Verellen. "The combination of those two (taught me) a lot of what I know and what I practice in my running.

I look up to: "Every American distance runner has to look up to Steve Prefontaine at one time or another. What Pre stood for, the way he went about running; it's inspiring to everyone."

Detroit Western International baseball

The Cowboys are 22-4 and winners of 11 straight heading into Friday afternoon's Detroit Public School League Tournament semifinal. They are the top seed after finishing the league regular season undefeated, and have their sights set on a trip to Battle Creek this month after coming within an out of the MHSAA Semifinals a year ago. Of 16 players on this spring's team, 14 were on last year's as well. Click to read more.

This spring's previous honorees

Detroit Cass Tech’s baseball program takes a post-championship photo after winning the Detroit Public School League city title

Cass Tech Hopes PSL City Championship Next Step in Emergence as Diamond Contender

By Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com

May 30, 2025

DETROIT — Juan Torres said it was a completely different feeling walking the halls of Detroit Cass Tech last week. 

Greater DetroitA junior baseball player for the Technicians, Torres knows full well to what extent Cass Tech is a football school, especially since it won the Division 1 title in the fall and produces Division I college talent every year. 

But after Cass Tech won the Detroit Public School League baseball city championship on May 19, there was plenty of pride and attention paid to what the school had achieved on the diamond.

“It’s pretty tough because we are a football school,” Torres said. “Being able to show up to school (the day after) and to say that we won something, it felt really good. We can compete. That was a really good feeling.”

For Cass Tech head coach Melvin Jackson, earning a 6-1 win over Detroit Western in the PSL final at Comerica Park was a moment he had waited for and built toward since taking over the program eight years ago. 

Western had won the last 15 PSL championships and in general has been the gold standard for baseball in the league. But Cass Tech has been inching closer in recent years. 

Last year, the Technicians beat out Western out for a PSL division title, but lost to the Cowboys in the playoff championship game. 

Cass Tech wasn’t denied this year, with starting pitcher Kyle Terry pitching 5 2/3 innings and Jordan Spencer registering the last four outs to start a jubilant celebration. 

The offense was keyed by Torres, who had three hits and three RBI. 

“This year, I kind of felt like we were ready,” Jackson said. “They have been really hungry for this moment.”

While rivals, Jackson said the reason he wanted to defeat Western was because the Cowboys had been an inspiration and measuring stick for his program. 

Jackson and Cass Tech hope topping Western for the PSL title can be a sign of continued growth for high school baseball in the city. 

“You want to bring baseball back, and these are the things that will help bring baseball back to another level in the city,” he said. 

Cass Tech and other programs in the city face challenges that many suburban schools do not. Cass Tech technically has a home field on Belle Isle, but just about every nonleague game is played away on someone else’s field. 

Detroit Edison, the Division 3 runner-up three years ago and a semifinalist last year, is in a similar boat having to play most of its games on the road and conduct practices on the school’s turf football field. 

“When you go out to some of those schools and you see those kinds of facilities, it makes you think, ‘What if?’” Jackson said. 

But much like Edison, Cass Tech forges on and makes the best of it. Just like Western was an inspiration to get to the top of the PSL, what Edison has done is motivating the Technicians to make a deep run in the MHSAA Tournament. 

“We want to build a program like theirs,” Torres said. “We want to build toward something where we can compete every year and be in those important games.”

Jackson insists that his team can achieve things this year beyond the PSL title. 

Cass Tech could very well run into Western again today since they are in the same District, and Jackson feels winning that bracket could be a great springboard for his team.

“There’s more baseball to play,” he said. “If we can get past them, the sky is the limit. The kids I have right now, my seniors and my juniors, they are hungry.”

Keith DunlapKeith Dunlap has served in Detroit-area sports media for more than two decades, including as a sportswriter at the Oakland Press from 2001-16 primarily covering high school sports but also college and professional teams. His bylines also have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Boston Globe. He served as the administrator for the Oakland Activities Association’s website from 2017-2020. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.

PHOTO Detroit Cass Tech’s baseball program takes a post-championship photo after winning the Detroit Public School League city title. (Photo courtesy of Cass Tech coach Melvin Jackson.)