Pair Cracks Lineup, Clinches Seaholm Title
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
June 2, 2018
KALAMAZOO — A year ago, Charlie Kuchman and Sofia Manzo could not crack Birmingham Seaholm’s varsity lineup.
On Saturday, the duo’s three-set win at No. 4 doubles clinched the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 2 tennis team title for Seaholm, its first since 2015.
The Maples finished with 34 points, followed by Bloomfield Hills Marian with 27 and East Grand Rapids with 26.
“To win all four doubles says a lot,” Seaholm coach Casey Cullen said. “Five flight championships. Even where we lost, we fought hard.”
For the third-year coach, who played high school tennis at Seaholm, the title is extra special.
“In high school, I never won a team championship,” he said, adding, “I played at Western Michigan (University) so this is my backyard. It was meant to be.”
He said the team knew it had a chance at the title.
“They knew they had a good team; we knew we were something special,” he said. “The rankings would come out and they are No. 1 and they’re like, ‘Man, now we have a target on our back.’
“But they handled that really well. They continued to get better every day, and this is the result.”
Although Seaholm won five flights, the Maples did not have a player in the No. 1 singles final.
That individual title went to reigning champ Sloane Teske of East Grand Rapids, who defeated freshman Olivia Weiss of Royal Oak, 4-6, 6-4, 6-0, in the final.
Teske’s first lead of the match was at 5-4 in the second set.
“I just had a moment of realization and I looked around with all my family and friends supporting me,” the top-seeded junior said. “I just thought whatever happens, happens.
“I know they’ll support me and love me no matter what if I win or lose.”
Weiss, the second seed, was coming off another tough three-setter in the semifinal, with a hard-fought 1-6, 6-2, 7-6 (3) win over Holly’s third-seeded Taylor Barrett.
Weiss qualified for the Finals but her Royal Oak team did not, leading her to figure she would not be seeded at all, let alone second.
“We’re in a little lower flight in our region,” she said. “Our team works really hard and really good, but we just happen to be at a lower flight, and I didn’t think I’d be seeded at all.
“To be in the first singles seeds is an accomplishment in itself.”
Top-seeded Nicole Johnson of Holly ended her senior year with a 6-4, 6-4, win at No. 2 singles over Seaholm freshman Sofia Gryzenia, the second seed.
“This was my biggest goal for a long time,” said Johnson, who lost in the semifinals last year at the same flight.
“Being a senior didn’t matter. I have experience but she’s a very, very good player. I couldn’t have done it without (my team’s) support cheering me on.”
Gryzenia lost to Johnson earlier in the season.
“I think it makes me a little more nervous because I already think sometimes that I’m going to lose,” the freshman said.
“I think I just needed to keep more balls in against her because she has a really good backhand, so I tried to hit it to her forehand.”
At No. 3 singles, a pair of sophomores went against each other with second-seeded Halley Elliott of East Grand Rapids defeating fifth-seeded Marlo Hudson of Marian, 7-6 (5), 6-1.
Hudson upset top-seeded Mollie Judge, from Seaholm, 7-5, 1-6, 6-4, in the semifinal, a match watched by Elliott.
“They both played such a great match,” Elliott said. “I wasn’t expecting an easy match, but we both gave it our all.”
Although Elliott defeated Hudson earlier in the season, “definitely going into the tournament, I had a little more confidence, but when I saw her play Seaholm, she played so well, I definitely had to adjust my plan a little bit,” Elliott said.
At No. 4 singles, another pair of sophomores faced each other with a very animated Greta Albertie, also of Seaholm, defeating top seed Yana Semerly of Okemos, 6-1, 6-1.
“Last year, I lost in quarterfinals to my best friend (Marian’s Gigi Kalabat),” Albertie said. “I realized that you have to cheer for yourself. You are out on the court alone. You really have to support yourself, and that just really pushed me to win.”
Albertie not only had the crowd with her (“I’ve had like eight different teams cheering for me. I make friends with everyone,” she added) but the second seed was a dynamo on the court with fist pumps toward the crowd.
“Every single time I won a point, I screamed, ‘Yeah’ like that,” she said. “This was states, and I kinda just really stepped that up.”
While Albertie cheered for herself, she said her mother will not allow her to cheer for her twin sister — who plays No. 4 doubles for Marian.
“Me and my sister are close at home, but I just wanted to try something new and be different,” Emma Albertie said of choosing the all-girls school.
“She always tries to ask me ‘What are your weaknesses?’ And I’m like, ‘Ah, I’m not telling you.’ I try to ask her and she says ‘I’m not telling you.’”
As for the cheering, “My mom does not let me cheer for my sister,” Greta Albertie said. “I can’t be down there. It’s that serious. Whenever I cheer for the other team, my sister will start losing really bad.
“I got like grounded because I did that. It was terrible.”
Kuchman and Manzo were stunned to learn they had the team title-winning match.
“This whole team depends on each other, and it’s going to fall to somebody, and we really wanted to make the lineup this year and we made it,” Kuchman said. “We’re really happy. It was worth it. All our hard work paid off.”
The top seeds defeated Marian’s second seeds, sophomore Emma Albertie and freshman Kathryn Torak, 6-2, 6-7 (2), 6-4.
Kuchman, a sophomore, said their mindset heading into the third set was “it’s just like have fun because, honestly, nothing’s worth it if you can’t have fun. It’s the whole reason why I do tennis.
“I was trying to play to win before and it wasn’t working, but when I didn’t worry about it and tried to have fun, it was better,” Manzo said
The pair trailed 0-3 in the third set before turning things around.
“It was kind of hard,” said Manzo, a junior. “They were playing really well, and we were trying to figure out what to do differently because it’s hard when you’re in the finals and you’re down 0-3.
“I just looked at Charlie and said, ‘We have to get this.’
“We worked so hard for it. I think it’s more in your head, and our heads were in the right place.”
Cullen did not know at the time that his team had clinched the title but was not too surprised that Kuchman and Manzo did it.
“To win in their first year in the lineup says a lot about how hard they worked,” he said. “Obviously, it’s a team effort.
“They’ve been playing really well lately. They beat Midland Dow, which was undefeated, in the last week. So they were playing well at the right time.
“I was probably hardest on them because they had the most to learn being in the lineup. They totally took it and ran with it. It’s just awesome to see.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Birmingham Seaholm’s Greta Albertie volleys while helping her team to an MHSAA title Saturday. (Middle) East Grand Rapids’ Sloane Teske rockets a return during her repeat run at No. 1 singles. (Click to see more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
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.)