Wolverton Thriving At Plate, In Circle as Howell Aims High
By
Tim Robinson
Special for MHSAA.com
May 18, 2021
HOWELL — Avrey Wolverton is quietly having another outstanding season for the Howell softball team.
As a pitcher, she has 261 strikeouts in 114 innings, with two 20-strikeout games and another with 19 strikeouts. The latter was a perfect game, one of two no-hitters this season. She has a 19-1 record in 22 appearances.
At the plate, she’s hitting .435, with eight homers and 40 RBI for the Howell softball team through May 16. She plays first base when not in the circle.
With a month to go in the season, Wolverton, Howell coach Ron Pezzoni, and her teammates say she hasn’t gotten hot at the plate yet.
“That’s the scary part,” Pezzoni says. “She’ll get hot. I haven’t felt like she’s gotten into one of those grooves. She’s strong and hits the ball hard, but she hasn’t gotten into one of those streaks where you can’t get her out. I’m looking forward to it. Hopefully, she’s saving it for June.”
Wolverton is one of several key players on a Howell team looking to get back to the Division 1 Final this spring. The Highlanders (26-4-1) got there in 2019, but lost to Warren Regina 3-2 in eight innings.
Wolverton hit 17 home runs that season, earning her first-team all-state honors for the second year in a row. Pezzoni has no doubt she’ll get a third all-state nod this year, too.
“We’ve got one of the best hitters and pitchers in the state in the same person,” he said.
Wolverton’s most recent 20-strikeout game came on a cool and cloudy day at Canton in a 12-0 victory. Canton managed only one hit, in the top of the seventh inning, before Wolverton struck out the side to end the game.
Catcher Meghan Farren had an inkling something special was going to happen during warmups.
“You can tell if she’ll be on or off,” Farren said. “You can tell by the spin of the ball, and sometimes it comes in hotter than others.”
Wolverton was Howell’s second pitcher in 2019 behind Molly Carney, who now pitches at Notre Dame.
“I’m just pitching more and able to accomplish more,” Wolverton said of her success this spring.
“She moves the ball around really well inside and outside,” Farren said. “She works the ball well on both corners, and she knows how to bring it up and down.”
And Wolverton rarely misses her spots.
“She does miss sometimes,” Farren said, “and we laugh about it, and she says ‘My bad.’ It’s good.”
That pinpoint accuracy has kept hitters guessing this season. She’s held opposing hitters to a .145 average.
“I see the looks in hitters’ eyes, where they don’t know how they missed a pitch,” Pezzoni said. “I don’t know how they missed it, but they just keep missing them. She gets so many swings and misses.”
Wolverton accomplished what she did May 10 despite not getting a lot of sleep the night before.
That performance came after a late night coming home from Greenville, S.C., where she was visiting Furman University for the weekend. She got home around midnight and got up early to go to school, then pitched.
“I thought she might be a wreck, or tired,” Pezzoni said.
Wolverton plans to major in psychology at Furman.
“I’ve always been interested in what causes people to act the way they do,” she said.
In the meantime, she plans to write a successful final chapter to her high school career in a sport she’s been playing since age 8. She’s been pitching since she was 11.
“I saw everyone else doing it, and I thought it was cool so I wanted to try it,” Wolverton said.
She is mostly a quiet leader for the Highlanders.
“She doesn’t say a whole lot,” Pezzoni said. “Just takes care of her business, and that’s the kind of leader I like. You see some try to be (vocal) leaders, but to me it’s like, take care of your business (on the field) and people will follow you.”
All the way, the Highlanders hope, back to East Lansing.
PHOTOS: (Top) Howell’s Avrey Wolverton steps into a pitch this spring against Canton. (Middle) Wolverton makes her move toward the plate during her 20-strikeout performance. (Photos by Tim Robinson.)
Grass Lake, Clare Do Double Damage to Earn Spots on Championship Day
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
June 13, 2025
EAST LANSING — Hitting balls to the gaps has been the backbone of Grass Lake’s offense all season.
So it was fitting that was the case again during the first MHSAA Division 3 Semifinal on Friday.
The Warriors hit a pair of gap shots that ended up producing three runs in a 4-2 triumph over Algonac in a matchup of teams both looking to make their first championship game appearance.
Grass Lake entered the game with 93 doubles on the season, tied for 23rd most in state history.
“They are so comfortable taking those short, compact swings and finding the gaps,” Grass Lake head coach Roger Cook said of his players. “I think that has helped us a lot with the doubles.”
The first big hit to the gap came in the third inning courtesy of senior Nadene Hubbard, who laced a 2-run double to right-center that drove in two runs and made it 2-1 Grass Lake.
The Warriors took a 3-1 lead in the fourth inning on an RBI single by Bree Salts, and then with a runner on first and two outs in the sixth, junior Leilah Smith hit a line drive to the gap in right-center that ended up scoring senior Emily Brown from first base.
Grass Lake (40-4) also got a good pitching performance from junior Morgan Conrad, who allowed single runs in the first and seventh innings, but nothing in between. Conrad struck out 11, walked two and allowed four hits, saying her curve ball and rise ball were on point.
“Just keeping (their lineup) off-balance, trying to go out and then try and bring it back up,” she said.
Things did get a little uncomfortable for Conrad and Grass Lake in the bottom of the seventh inning.
The Muskrats (24-15-1) made things interesting by scoring a run on a wild pitch to make it a 4-2 game, then putting runners on first and second base with one out.
But Conrad got out of the jam with a strikeout and a popup to end it.
“I just kept taking deep breaths and telling myself, ‘Have fun. It’s OK,’” Conrad said. “I just knew my team had my back and would get the outs. I was just trying to stay confident.”
Algonac took a 1-0 lead in the first inning on an RBI single by junior Ava Murray. The Muskrats couldn’t get anything going after that until the seventh inning when they nearly pulled off a rally.
“I feel like that’s kind of how our season has been going,” Algonac head coach Natalie Heim said. “We’ve been coming from behind, and we had the top of our lineup coming up. At the end of the day, somebody had to lose. Unfortunately it was us.”
Grass Lake finished with 10 hits.
Clare 2, Ravenna 1
Clare senior Morgan Campbell and head coach Shane Kelly disagree on whether Campbell was in a slump entering their team’s Semifinal against Ravenna.
But what can be agreed upon is that Campbell might have delivered the biggest hit in school history for Clare.
With two outs and a runner on first base following an error in the bottom of the sixth inning, Campbell blasted a double to left field to drive in what turned out to be the game-winning run.
Ranked No. 1 going into the MHSAA Tournament, Clare (39-2) advanced to its first championship game.
“I’ve been going through a slump, and that was my time to come out of it,” Campbell said.
Kelly feels a bit differently about Campbell’s “slump.”
“Morgan has never been in a slump,” he said. “She’s been hitting the ball hard, doing all the right things in practice and listening to the coaches. When she got up there, I said, ‘Morgan, she’s going to throw you a strike on that first pitch. Don’t miss it.’ She didn’t miss it.”
Campbell’s hit was the difference in a nice pitchers’ duel between Clare junior Kyley Wyman and Ravenna sophomore Natalie Rosel.
Wyman threw a three-hitter, striking out 11 and walking one. Rosel allowed just four hits, striking out four and walking one.
No. 4 Ravenna broke a scoreless tie in the fourth inning when junior Riley Homoly walked with the bases loaded. But Wyman kept the score at 1-0 by getting out of the inning via a popout and a strikeout.
In the fifth, Clare tied the game at 1-1 on a 2-out single to right by senior Alissa Brandon. That ended up setting the stage for Campbell’s heroics in the sixth.
Wyman pitched a 1-2-3 seventh to secure the victory.
Ravenna finished 34-5, but has a bright future with just two seniors on the roster.
“I feel good about this team,” Ravenna head coach Dave Sherman said. “Yeah, we lost this game. But they battled all season long and it was a great season. There are great kids on this team, and I love them all. We’ll be back.”
PHOTOS (Top) Grass Lake's Emily Brown takes a powerful swing during her team's Semifinal win over Algonac. (Middle) Clare's Kyley Wyman (2) drives a pitch Friday.