No Just-Miss This Time for Champ Inland Lakes
June 17, 2017
By Perry A. Farrell
Special for Second Half
EAST LANSING – Indian River Inland Lakes didn’t want to leave Michigan State with that same feeling it had a year ago after falling 1-0 to Unionville-Sebewaing in the Division 4 Final.
This time around, the Bulldogs (35-5) combined extra-base power with more solid pitching to claim the school’s first MHSAA softball title with an 8-0 victory over Ottawa Lake Whiteford on Saturday.
Senior pitcher Cloe Mallory struck out the first five Bobcats batters.
“I voted her all-state in our division for a reason; she just kept us off-balanced,’’ said Ottawa Lake Whiteford coach Kris Hubbard. “They had the experience. They’re a junior-senior laden team. We’re seven sophomores. She controlled us, and I think we had a little bit of sophomore-itis.”
Mallory (who will continue at Central Michigan) handcuffed the Bobcats with 12 strikeouts and never pitched in a stressful situation. Left-fielder Sydney DePauw had three hits and scored two runs to pace the offense.
“It definitely was motivation all year, losing in the Finals last year, 1-0, gave us the motivation to get back here this year,” Mallory said. “I mixed up my pitches and mostly threw rise balls. Moving left to right.
“It means so much. Just in the past three years. You see it in the little children. You can see we’re going to have some good players come through the program, and it all started here.’’
Added coach Krissi Thompson: “To come so close so many times. … Even through Little League they got so close but just came up a little short. We wanted to put an exclamation point on it this year. We put up 460-some runs against our opponents, who scored just 65. These girls have busted their butts all year.’’
The Bulldogs put together their first threat Saturday in the third inning when Makayla Henckel walked and DePauw singled her to third.
Henckel scored on a wild pitch and Precious Delos Santos singled in another run to make it 2-0.
Mallory was hit by a pitch with two out, and cleanup hitter Vanessa Wandrie came through with a run-scoring single to make it 3-0 at the end of three. The Bulldogs tacked on another run when DePauw led off the fifth inning with a double and scored on an error.
Inland Lakes then blew it open in the sixth inning.
Henckel tripled to score a run, and DePauw and Braund followed with run-scoring doubles into the center field gap to open up a 7-0 lead. Delos Santos came through with a run-scoring single to make it 8-0, and redemption was all but complete with only the final three outs left to get.
“Oh my God, it felt so good to hit the ball,’’ said DePauw. “(Friday) we did pretty well, but to come out and just put it on them.
“We lost 1-0 last year, and to come back and just open it up like that was great. We came back with a vengeance. We played really hard last year, but we didn’t want to go out like that. We wanted to get it this year. Cloe is awesome. I can’t say enough about her and the team. We are family.’’
Whiteford, playing in its first Final since 1994 after also making the Quarterfinals last spring, ended at 33-7.
“We’ve had a great season,” Hubbard said. “I started seven freshmen last year, and we went a little further this year. Hopefully, we can get back here again.’’
PHOTOS: (Top) Inland Lakes raises its first softball championship trophy Saturday. (Middle) A Bulldogs runner is tagged out trying to get back to third base.
Saline Earns 1st Trip to Finals, South Lyon's Bissett Makes Most of Semifinal Return
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
June 12, 2025
EAST LANSING — Saline head coach Rebecca Suiter said her team hadn’t been in a situation where it had to rally during its last at-bats much this season.
But that didn’t stop her from feeling confident when the situation arose in Thursday’s Division 1 Semifinal against Hudsonville.
“This team, they stay composed and they don’t get nervous,” Suiter said. “Before that inning, I told them, ‘Let’s fight. Let’s do what we do for the seniors. This is our last chance.’”
Saline made good in that last chance, scoring two runs in the top of the seventh inning and then holding off Hudsonville in the bottom of the inning to earn a 5-4 victory and a meeting with South Lyon in Saturday’s championship game.
In the top of the seventh, Saline put runners on second and third base with one out and tied the game on a sacrifice fly to center field by sophomore Gracelyn Waldrop.
Then junior Madison Bellus came to the plate, and after a lengthy battle, delivered an RBI triple to the wall in left field to make it 5-4 Hornets.
“Lately, I’ve been working on outside pitches and fouling them off because that’s what I’ve struggled with sometimes,” Bellus said. “That at-bat, I was just focusing on my pitch, and when I got it, to swing all the way through. Yeah, I had to make something happen there.”
It will be the first title game appearance for Saline (38-3-2).
The Hornets did a good job limiting a powerful Hudsonville offense that entered the Semifinal having scored a combined 26 runs over its previous three games. Abigail Curtis allowed four runs over five innings before junior Ainslee Tomaszewski pitched two scoreless innings to close it out.
“We watched a ton of film this week, and we knew their hitters were aggressive hitters,” Suiter said. “We knew they were going to chase outside. I talked to my pitcher and catcher and said, ‘Let’s start outside and see if we can chase.’”
Saline broke a scoreless tie in the top of the fourth inning, plating two runs on RBI singles by senior Ava Stripp and junior Jessica Phelps.
Hudsonville responded in its half of the fourth, tying the game at 2-2 with a solo home run to right-center by freshman Kamryn Stankus and on a Saline infield error that plated another run.
The Hornets regained the lead at 3-2 in the fifth inning, scoring on a Hudsonville throwing error.
Hudsonville answered again, this time taking a 4-3 lead in the bottom of the fifth on a 2-run home run with two outs by senior Ava Gardner, who hit a rope over the wall in left-center.
Last year’s Division 1 champion, Hudsonville finished its season 35-4.
South Lyon 1, Utica Ford 0
This was quite a 180-degree turnaround for South Lyon junior pitcher Havanna Bissett.
Last year during a Division 1 Semifinal game, Bissett pitched on the rubber at Michigan State’s Secchia Stadium, but it was under unfortunate circumstances.
She had to come in during the second inning for injured ace Ava Bradshaw, being thrown into the fire for five innings in what turned out to be a loss to Lake Orion.
But Bissett returned Thursday to the Secchia Stadium rubber for the first MHSAA Division 1 Semifinal against Utica Ford, this time as the team’s ace and fully comfortable after her experience last year.
“I definitely felt a lot less nerves than last year,” Bissett said. “This year, I was ready to go and ready for anything. No matter what, I was throwing. So I was ready.”
Bissett certainly was, as she tossed a 2-hit shutout to lead South Lyon to a 1-0 win and its second appearance in a championship game over the last five seasons.
Mixing a rise and a changeup beautifully all game, Bissett struck out four and walked only one.
“It definitely gave her experience,” first-year head coach Jerry Shippe said of what Bissett experienced last year. “Knowing it was her game to pitch and she was going to do it from the start, it definitely gave her the confidence.”
Utica Ford head coach Matt Joseph said Bissett did a masterful job of keeping his lineup off-balance.
“She was mixing in that changeup,” he said. “I thought we were anxious today and a little bit excited. We never really settled down. We sat out on that front foot and hit fly balls and popups.”
South Lyon (32-7) got the only run it needed in the top of third inning on a 2-out RBI single by sophomore Isabella Bracali, who blooped a hit in front of the centerfielder.
The Lions collected nine hits, with Izzy Nooe, Avery Bourlier and Bracali each producing two.
Unranked when the playoffs started, South Lyon hopes to cap its improbable run by duplicating the Division 1 title it won in 2021.
Ford ended its season at 30-11-1, but caught fire after starting 10-8 to make its first Semifinal trip since 2014.
“This team has come miles,” Joseph said. “At the start of the year, we were not a very good team, I will tell you that. I think our seniors started it with a lot of leadership, grit and determination. We got contributions from a lot of different players.”
PHOTOS (Top) Saline's Madison Bellus, right, slides toward the plate as the ball bounces away during her team's Division 1 Semifinal win. (Middle) South Lyon's Havanna Bissett (4) makes her move toward the plate.