Powerful Pitching Sends Owosso, Marysville to Saturday
By
Jason Schmitt
Special for MHSAA.com
June 17, 2021
EAST LANSING — Something had to give Thursday morning.
And if Macy Irelan had anything to do about it, it wasn’t going to be her and her Owosso teammates.
Irelan threw seven stellar innings, striking out eight while allowing just a single run in the Trojans’ 2-1 victory over Gaylord in a Division 2 Semifinal at Secchia Field in East Lansing.
Prior to this season, the Trojans had never made it past a Regional. Now head coach JoEllen Smith’s team is a win away from the program’s first-ever Finals championship.
“Everything beyond Regionals is a first, first, first for us, and the girls are handling it unreal,” said Smith, who’s in her 38th year leading the program. “The girls are coming in upbeat, not nervous. Today we came in and knew we were facing a younger team, and we had to show them that we’re not nervous.”
In fact, it was Smith’s game plan to put all the pressure on the Blue Devils, who were also attempting to reach their first trip to the Final. Owosso did just that, scoring a pair of runs in the second inning.
Sophomore Jamie Maier and senior Karley Kincaid opened the inning with back-to-back singles. After a sacrifice bunt from junior Kendall Anderson moved the runners to second and third base, Maier scored on a wild pitch to make it 1-0. Sophomore Sydney Somers then had an RBI single, scoring sophomore Brielle Sovis who was on as a courtesy runner.
“We don’t usually score early. It usually takes us two, three times through the lineup,” Smith said. “That was huge for us to get those two runs.”
They proved to be more than enough for Irelan, who didn’t allow a base runner until the fourth inning and a hit until the fifth. The junior, who has committed to Kent State University, allowed just three hits while improving to 35-3 on the season.
The only run she allowed came in the seventh inning, when the Blue Devils had the game-tying runs on base with just one out. Kincaid, the Trojans’ catcher, threw out a runner at second base for the second out. Freshman Braleigh Miller scored on the play to make it a 2-1 game.
“The run didn’t mean anything,” Smith said. “We throw through, get the out and there’s two outs with nobody on. We don’t run that play too often. Karley doesn’t throw much, so that (play) is bigger than you think.”
Gaylord had also put two runners on in the sixth inning, but Irelan pitched her way out of trouble. Blue Devils freshman Avery Parker’s one-out bloop single got things going for her team. A two-out fielder’s choice error gave Gaylord runners on first and second base. But the threat came to an end when Owosso’s Reese Thayer pulled in a deep fly to left field.
“When I get a runner on, I get up. I’m more focused,” Irelan said. “I want to get the batter out. And I know the girls behind me will make the play. In pressure situations, I work hard for my team because I know they’re working hard for me. I don’t want to let them down.”
Somers finished with a pair of hits to lead Owosso (36-3), who will now face Marysville (30-6) in Saturday’s Division 2 Final. Senior Reyn Tuttle and freshman Lexi Hemker also had two hits each in their team’s win.
The future looks bright for Gaylord, which had six freshmen in its starting lineup. That group includes the pitching duo of Avery Parker and Jayden Jones, who each had earned-run averages under one and combined for a 28-2 record this season. The pair allowed just two runs while scattering nine Owosso hits. Parker and fellow freshmen Addison Wangler and Taylor Moeggenberg collected Gaylord’s hits in the loss.
“It was a great performance for seven innings, but the jitters showed up in the second inning,” Gaylord head coach Abe Cruz said. “We fought, we fought and we fought but we just couldn’t manufacture that run until the last inning. They were there for us, we just came up one short.”
The Blue Devils have no seniors on the roster and 11 of the 15 players are just freshmen and sophomores.
“We’re looking forward to coming back already,” said Cruz, whose team finished the season 41-2. “There’s going to be more years to come, where this stage isn’t as big as it was today. We’ll get used to it. They’ll grow with maturity and be ready to come back next year.”
Marysville 7, Chelsea 1
Marysville entered the Division 2 Semifinals as the only unranked team left in the MHSAA Tournament. But the Vikings put forth a brilliant display in all three phases of the game against eighth-ranked Chelsea and earned a spot in the Final.
Aided by a five-run third inning, senior pitcher Kirsten Smith pitched a complete game, three-hitter to help her team reach its first title game since 1991. Smith struck out 11 while walking just a single batter.
“She’s got the heart of a champion inside her,” Marysville head coach Ryan Rathje said. “She’s not afraid of challenging hitters. She works nice and fast, and our defense is ready behind her. When they did put the ball in play, our defense did a great job backing her up.”
The Vikings scored one run in both the first and fourth innings, but it was a five-run outburst in the third that broke the game wide open. They had six hits in the inning, including RBI singles by senior Calle Perrin, juniors Kaitlyn Cain and Anna Oles and an RBI double by freshman Avery Wolters. Marysville stretched its lead to 6-1 and never looked back.
“The difference was that five-run inning,” Chelsea head coach Jeff Connelly said. “They did a great job. They put the ball in play, and their pitcher did a fabulous job of keeping us off balance all day. The shots we did hit, they were always right at people.”
Junior Kate Westmiller had three hits and Wolters and Perrin each had two to lead Marysville (31-6), which will face Owosso at 10 a.m. Rathje said he’s excited to have an opportunity to face the Trojans, but knows it’ll be a challenge for his team to face Owosso’s Irelan in the circle.
“Their pitcher is terrific,” Rathje said. “From everything I saw, they’re a really solid team at the plate, with a dominant pitcher and a great defense. We’re definitely looking forward to that matchup. You’ve got to be able to play all three phases of the game. We’re definitely looking forward to the challenge.”
Chelsea finished with a 37-5 record. Junior Margaret Olaveson collected a pair of hits to lead the offense.
“Our kids didn’t quit. We had one rough inning, or it’s a different game,” Connelly said. “We came in with the attitude that the girls have done as much in our community as we’ve done in 15 years. It was kind of our goal to get the program back, and the kids did it.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Owosso’s Macy Irelan winds up during her team’s Division 2 Semifinal win over Gaylord on Thursday. (Middle) Marysville’s Emma Curtis enjoys a moment during her team’s Semifinal victory.
Scislowicz Selected to MHSCA Hall of Fame After Decades Serving in Multiple Sports
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
September 18, 2025
Fran Scislowicz admitted he went back and forth about what to say in his speech as he was inducted into the Michigan High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame on Sunday.
But as the time approached to deliver it, he just harkened back to what was a principal trait during his coaching career: making sure everything was about others and not himself.
“It was a neat experience to be able to say thank you back,” Scislowicz said of what he primarily said in his speech in front of family and friends, including a brother who drove from Colorado for the ceremony. “I can’t find a head coach that doesn’t have that village behind them to support them in so many different ways.”
Scislowicz certainly had a big village throughout a long career in several sports at Rochester Adams. He was the head varsity softball coach for 37 years before retiring from that post in 2024, the head girls basketball coach for 23 years before retiring in 2013, the defensive coordinator on the varsity football team in the late 1980s and early 90s and this season is in his 28th year serving on the chain gang at Adams’ football games.
In this modern age, it’s not easy to find coaches who stick around one school in one sport for a great length of time. It should be noted that the two other coaches from the Detroit area who were inducted Sunday – Troy basketball coach Gary Fralick and Richmond softball coach Howard Stuart – fit that bill perfectly as well.
But having a coach stick around in several sports for such a long time is even rarer, which made Scislowicz an obvious choice to be inducted.
A retired elementary physical education teacher in the Rochester district, Scislowicz developed the dream to teach and coach as a youth while attending practices and games his older brothers were involved in.
“I go, ‘If I could be a physical education teacher during the day and then coach after school, that would be wonderful,’” he said. “I kind of had that passion and idea to do it really young.”
The highlight of his coaching career on the field came during the 1993-94 school year, when both his Adams girls basketball and softball teams made the MHSAA Semifinals. It was the only time those programs made the semifinals during his tenure, and they did so over a span of months.
“I was told back then by some wise, veteran coaches, ‘Fran, you don’t realize how hard it is to do what you just did, and you might never get back,’” he said. “And we didn’t.”
Scislowicz is listed among the state’s winningest coaches on the diamond with a record of 803-487 from 1988-2024. But if his original ambitions had played out, he wouldn’t have had long careers coaching softball and girls basketball at Adams.
While serving as the football team’s defensive coordinator under then-head coach Jack Runchey during the late 1980s and early 90s, he thought he was next in line to become the program’s head coach.
But in 1991, the girls basketball program was a blossoming state power in need of a leader, so Scislowicz gave up football to focus his fall seasons (girls basketball was played during the fall then) on hoops.
More important than his coaching on the court or field was his faith-based mentoring off of it.
Scislowicz to this day is actively involved in the area’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes organization and put together regular meetings before school for students and athletes to attend.
In the end, that’s what he hopes his biggest coaching legacy remains.
“We had a saying that you don’t have to be great to serve, but you have to serve to be great,” he said. “We really tried to give back to kids that way, by serving and doing that way. The wins and losses were going to take care of themselves. It’s the impact of seeing what kids are like at 30, 40 or 50 years old. As I’ve been around one community, trying to be a difference maker is what I enjoy most.”
Keith 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 courtesy of Fran Scislowicz.)