North Branch Cousins Carry on Family Tradition with Record-Setting Throws
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
April 16, 2025
Aubree Deshetsky wasn’t able to be there last week when her cousin, Eli Bickel, broke the 30-year-old North Branch discus record.
She was there, however, when the former record holder, her dad Daniel Deshetsky, got the call.
“I was with my dad at a volleyball tournament in Louisville,” Aubree Deshetsky said. “We wanted (Eli) to break the record. It was cool to see him do that.”
Bickel not only knocked his uncle off the Broncos’ record board with his throw of 160 feet, 4 inches on April 11 at Davison, he joined Aubree as the school’s all-time leaders in the event. She had thrown 131-5 two days earlier, breaking her own school record.
The similarities go well beyond that. Both have committed to Division I universities in other sports. Deshetsky will be playing volleyball at Wofford (South Carolina), while Bickel has committed to play football at Michigan State.
And they’re both still juniors.
“I think for both of them, they’re not done,” North Branch athletic director and throwing coach Al Margrif said. “They’re both really motivated to be able to make their best marks this year. Eli, he puts in a lot of study. He watches a lot of film. He has a cousin that he talks to that’s a (collegiate) throws coach. He’s more technical and a student of discus. Aubree, she’s a super-fast learner. She’s just so athletic, and it just comes out so much.”
Deshetsky is a two-time Finals champion in volleyball, winning titles her freshman and sophomore seasons. She’s also a returning all-state thrower, having taken fifth in the shot put and sixth in the discus at the Lower Peninsula Division 2 Finals a year ago.
That’s despite never really being solely focused on throwing. During her freshman year, she ran the 200, 400 and 800 meters, multiple relays and also high jumped along with her throwing events.
As a sophomore, she cut back on some of those races and the high jump, but was part of North Branch’s 400-meter relay team, which qualified for the Division 2 Finals.
And all along, she’s been playing high-level club volleyball, which takes her around the country.
“I kind of (started throwing) because my dad threw in high school,” she said. “It’s just something my family has done. I was really a big high jumper and 800 runner in middle school and early high school, but once volleyball ramped up more, it was harder to train for those, so I focused more on the throwing side. I got serious into discus last year. But my coach, he literally puts us in events at the meets to get us the most points, so I just do whatever he asks and hope for the best.”
She threw 127-1 at the Blue Water Area Conference championship meet a year ago to claim the school record. That came last May, so to be well ahead of that right now in early April is a good sign for what she wants to accomplish this season.
“I was actually very surprised,” she said. “That meet was my first time throwing outdoors this year. We’ve just been practicing inside, but something that’s helped this year, our school has these foam rings and with rubber discs, I can basically do a full throw into a divider in the gym. But I honestly did not expect to throw that far. I’m kind of aiming for the 140 mark this year. I think starting out at 131 is a good starting point.”
Bickel, who will play on the offensive line at MSU, has been more focused on throwing since middle school. He started tagging along to throwing practices when his sister Natasha, a 2023 North Branch graduate who was Deshetsky’s volleyball teammate, began competing in high school, and realized pretty quickly he had a future in the sport. So much so that he originally thought throwing could be his path to becoming a college athlete.
All along, he had his uncle’s record in his sights.
“It’s been a goal of mine,” Bickel said. “I knew I could do it. Last year was a frustrating year, because I hit that mark so many times in practice, but I never could in a meet. This was my first meet this year – I got cleared on Tuesday (after recovering from a torn meniscus), then the next day I threw 151 and felt good. Then Friday came and my first two throws, I was over-excited, but my next throw, I really connected.”
Bickel is a four-sport athlete at North Branch, as he wrestled and played basketball this winter. Even though he did get injured in January, he said the MSU staff has been supportive of him continuing to branch out.
“They actually encouraged it,” Bickel said. “They wanted people who could stay moving and be athletic on the offensive line.”
His football commitment could mean this is his final track season, however, as there’s a chance he will enroll early at MSU. That put some more urgency into breaking that record this season and getting back to the Division 2 Finals to make up for a disappointing finish a year ago.
He’s certainly on track to do that, as his record-breaking throw is currently the best in Division 2 this spring.
The best throw for Division 2 girls, meanwhile, belongs to Deshetsky.
It’s fitting for cousins who have had simultaneous success for so long.
“Our family is very close together,” Bickel said. “We actually do 4-H in the summer, and they show pigs out of our barn. I go to every one of her volleyball games that I can make it to. On the track side of things, there are times on a Saturday afternoon where I’ll ask her if she wants to go practice throwing, and she’ll do it.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Cousins Aubree Deshetsky, left, and Eli Bickel take a photo together during a successful day last season at the Goodrich Invitational. (Middle) Deshetsky unwinds during a discus throw. (Below) Bickel holds up his discus and shot put. (Photos courtesy of the North Branch athletic department.)
Football Future Awaits, but Mayne Focused First on Finishing Track Finals Sweep
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
April 22, 2025
LAWTON — One inch. One lousy inch.
That was the difference between a championship and second place for Mason Mayne in the shot put at last year’s MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 3 Track & Field Finals.
One year later, it is still fresh in the mind of the personable Lawton senior as he begins his quest for more hardware.
“That one hurt,” said Mayne, whose best attempt finished second to a 60-foot, 2-inch toss by Pewamo-Westphalia’s Gavin Nurenberg.
“That really burned. You start to wonder, did they measure it wrong? What if I just literally put a little more into it? It drove me to work harder toward it.”
That harder work paid off during the second event that day as Mayne defeated the then-senior Nurenberg 166-6 to 165-11 in the discus to claim Lawton’s first-ever track & field state championship in that event.
Besides taking home that Finals title last year, Mayne holds school records with an indoor-season shot of 62-6 and outdoor of 60-9, as well as a discus toss of 178 feet.
An all-state football player and outstanding student as well, Mayne had opportunities to continue his athletic careers in both sports before signing with Northwestern University. But he also made the decision to compete for his high school one more time this spring instead of graduating early to begin his college career – much to the delight of Lawton track & field coach Mike Meyer.
“He’s been nothing but a joy ever since his freshman year,” Meyer said. “He’s a good, hard worker, obviously a great athlete. All his talent is definitely a nice problem to have.
“He’s been a two-year captain for us, so a good leader, (he) does everything and more than what we ask. That’s why he has the success that he has.”
All-around talent
Mayne said coaching is one big crossover from football to track & field.
“Listening to someone tell you what to do and then do it, I think that’s a super big part of throwing,” he said. “If someone tells you how to do something better in your throw to make it technically better, and you can’t do it, then you can’t get better.
“Playing football for so long, I’ve had so many coaches tell me to do this just a little bit different. And being able to flip that and make that change and adjustment, that’s what makes me able to get better at throwing.”
Mayne said hurling the disc takes more finesse than the shot.
“Technical-wise, the shot put (12 pounds) is easier because I can base it more on how much muscle I can put into it,” he said. “Discus is lighter, (3.5 pounds) but you also have to use your technique a lot more.
“Also, you have to push your body to a point of really stretching it back, allowing it to create a lot of torque into the disc to be able to throw it far enough for it to be worth anything.”
As for those windy days competing in field events, “A lot of people think that the wind behind you helps you,” Mayne said. “That’s actually not true.
“It actually bats the disc down. In the discus, as a right-handed thrower, you want the wind to come across a little bit from your left to throw into. Think of it as an airplane wing, holding up the airplane, the air coming into it. With the shot, it doesn’t matter. It’s just throwing it.”
Lawton’s athletes who specialize in field events also compete in some running competition. Mayne has run the 200 this season and took a turn running the 100 last spring as well.
“We usually have our throwers run the 200,” Meyer said. “We like athletes instead of just specializing in just one or two things for the (Southwest Athletic) Conference.
“We have all of our kids run two, three and sometimes four events. It can be a long day at a track meet if your events are done and you have nothing to do.”
Mayne is not only an accomplished athlete, but carries a 4.19 grade-point average.
“With the way my mom (Pat) raised me and my brother (Carter) both, she’s a teacher at Paw Paw in the elementary,” he said. “She raised us with the idea that academics are very important. That’s where I’m academically driven.
“She might get mad at me for saying this, but if I miss an assignment, I’m getting a picture on my phone with a circle around it of the assignment missing in my grade book. It’s very important to me.”
That emphasis motivates Mayne’s advice for freshmen who play sports.
“Stay on top of (academics),” he said. “For so many years my mom kept me on top of things. Now I’m able to stay on top of things better myself.
“Your freshman year is the make-or-break it. Having an older brother helped a lot because without him, he wouldn’t have told me that and I wouldn’t have stayed ahead of it.”
Tough decisions
Mayne’s outstanding performances in throwing events last year attracted several college scholarship offers for track in addition to several he’d received previously for football. Choosing a college was not an easy decision for the defensive lineman, who is a two-time Kalamazoo Gazette Dream Team selection in that sport.
“It’s funny because I was really, really considering track for a while,” said the 6-foot-3, 275-pound Mayne. “After my sophomore year when I had a very successful track season, I started to lean toward track.”
But a trip to the Big House to watch University of Michigan play tilted the scale to football.
“I was watching and I realized I just couldn’t give it up,” he said. “I love both sports, but something about football, the team atmosphere, just sitting in the stadium gets me antsy, that atmosphere and that vibe. That’s really what flipped me into the football aspect. That electricity from the fans and the guys around you. I haven’t experienced any other sport like it.
“It was a very tough decision. I was sad that I couldn’t go multiple ways. Many fantastic coaches recruited me. It’s unfortunate that you have to tell coaches you can’t go to their program because you’re choosing a different program.”
Mayne said he had specific criteria in mind when choosing a college. “Academics is a priority here,” he said. “I also want to play football at a very high level, and then the last is a family aspect.
“Northwestern just checked all the boxes.”
Before the season, Meyer thought he might lose Mayne to early graduation since “he’s a very, very good student. We chatted and he said, ‘Coach, I definitely want to be throwing. I love throwing,’ and he’s a man of his word.
“Once he told me that, I was more excited for the season.”
At one point, Mayne did indeed consider leaving high school to enroll early at Northwestern, which would have meant missing his final spring throwing season.
However, “my mom wasn’t ready for me to leave, which I’m fine with,” he said. “I understand that. I’m her youngest child, I get it.
“Also, you get to start throwing indoors and it’s like, ‘I don’t want to give this up, either.’”
Pam Shebest served as a sportswriter at the Kalamazoo Gazette from 1985-2009 after 11 years part-time with the Gazette while teaching French and English at White Pigeon High School. She can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Calhoun, Kalamazoo and Van Buren counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Lawton’s Mason Mayne begins to unwind while throwing the shot during a meet. (Middle) Lawton track & field coach Mike Meyer. (Below) Mayne stands tall on the football field. (Action photos courtesy of Mason Mayne; headshot by Pam Shebest.)