High 5s - 3/6/12
March 6, 2012
Every Tuesday, Second Half honors 2-4 athletes and a team for its accomplishments during the current season.
Have a suggestion for a future High 5? Please offer suggestions by e-mail to [email protected]. Candidates often will have accomplished great things on the field of play -- but also will be recognized for other less obvious contributions to their teams, schools or the mission of high school athletics as a whole.
Nathalie Kenny
Manistee senior
Skiing
Kenny finished her high school skiing career with her sixth and seventh top-10 MHSAA Finals finishes, including her second straight Division 2 championship in giant slalom in a two-run time of 59.79 seconds. She also finished runner-up in the slalom (1:13.31), her third runner-up finish over the last four seasons. Her Manistee/Traverse City St. Francis team finishined fourth, but won the meet when she was a freshman. Kenny also swam in the fall, and plays center midfielder for the soccer team.
Up next: Kenny hopes to earn her bachelor's and master's degrees and eventually a doctorate as well, and has applied to St. Olaf's (Minn.), Dartmouth, Harvard and Middlebury (Vt.), as well as to the U.S. Air Force Academy. She'd like to continue skiing competitively, but at what level -- NCAA, intramural or not at all -- will depend on where she attends college. She's planning on a career in science. "I am interested in a plethora of concentrations including, but not limited to, biology, environmental science, law and medicine."
Some day, I will be: "When I was younger I would have answered: the President. But now, I find myself leaning towards a lawyer, researcher, scientist, physician or world traveler. However, I will still just be me; my job won't define who I am."
I learned the most about skiing from: "Dan Janowiak. I have worked with Dan for about six or seven years now, and I don't know many others with the ski racing knowledge that he has. From technique to tactics, visualization to preparation, Dan has stuffed my brain. Without him, I would not be the skier I am today."
I look up to: "My coach's daughter, Lyndee Janowiak, has always been a role model for me in skiing. She has natural talent, and I admire her hard work and passion for the sport. She is very fast and has had a successful career that recently came to an end when she graduated college. When she isn't busy racing herself, she is always giving tips and helping me improve. She believes in me and has helped me become a better skier. That is something that I will always be grateful for."
I love skiing because: "... I love the speed, and the adrenaline rush that pumps through my body when I fly down the hill. I love the feeling of carving my edges into the snow and making angles so big that I feel as if my butt will touch the ground. And I love the challenge that it presents. Between the speed, gravitational forces, use of energy, and complexity of a seemingly simple turn, skiing is one of the most difficult and technical sports there is. The list never ends, and neither does my hunger to improve."
Paige Arrington
Gibraltar Carlson senior
Competitive Cheer
Arrington, a four-year member of the squad, helped the Marauders to their third MHSAA Division 2 championship of her high school career. Carlson posted the meet's highest scores in both Round 1 and Round 2, and then tied for the high score in Round 3 to finish with a total of 807.3944 points, 2.9 ahead of runner-up Dearborn Divine Child.
"It's absolutely mind-blowing. I'm so happy to leave my senior year with three state championships and two of them being back-to-back. It is absolutely an amazing feeling, and I wouldn't trade it for the world."
Up next: Arrington will attend Oakland University and study nursing. She also expects to join the Oakland cheer team.
I learned the most about cheer from: Shumate Middle School coach Marissa Mousouleas.
I look up to: "All my coaches. Danielle (Jokela), Christy (Wilson), everybody. They just do so much for us and help us so much. It's hard to pick one."
I'm motivated by: "Winning. I just love to win, so (I) work hard to do it."
My career highlight was: "Probably winning states my freshman year. Sending out our seniors with their back-to-back championships. I felt good because I helped do that. And then this year, my freshmen helped send me out with back-to-back state championships, and that's amazing."
To those who say cheer isn't a sport: "First off, I would laugh. And then I would say ... we even had one practice that was 10 hours long to everything perfect. We've been with each other six days a week since November. We put everything into this sport and we flip around, jump around, hit things tight. And it has to be perfect. It's a sport."
Jordan Thomas
Greenville wrestling
Senior
Thomas, who will wrestle next season at the University of Michigan, won his third-straight MHSAA championship Saturday, in Division 2 and 189 pounds. Thomas defeated reigning champion Gabe Dean of Lowell 5-1, giving him two wins over Dean this winter and a final record of 45-0 -- and 217-3 for his high school career. Thomas and St. Johns senior Taylor Massa led the opening wrestlers march onto The Palace of Auburn Hills floor. Massa is the only wrestler who has stopped Thomas in an MHSAA Final -- he beat Thomas 5-2 in the 145-pound Final when both were freshmen.
"I knew (Dean) was thinking overtime. I thought I had one more good shot in me. With 12 seconds (left), I go after it. I got a good shot off, strong finish. It felt good."
Up next: Thomas hopes to redshirt his first season at Michigan plans to study business. "I love math."
I learned the most about wrestling from: Thomas thanked Tom, Doug and Ben Bennett, Rodger and Taylor Massa, and his Greenville coaches.
I look up to: Ever since I was little, people asked me do you look up to Cael Sanderson, do you look up to Brent Metcalf? I think those guys are great. But I try not to look up to anybody. ... I want to make my own path, do something nobody else has done. Obviously, I can't have an undefeated career. Cael already had that undefeated college career. I want to do something else for the first time. It doesn't matter who you look up to. There's a lot of people I think are great. I just pick up little things from everybody."
Richmond Competitive Cheer
The Blue Devils improved from third place at the Division 3 Final in both 2009 and 2010, to second last season and finally finished first Saturday at the Grand Rapids Delta Plex.
Richmond won all of its events this winter, and scored the meet high in each round on the way to its first MHSAA championship.
NorthPointe Making Good on Potential with Chance to Keep Promise Up Next
By
Dean Holzwarth
Special for MHSAA.com
February 20, 2025
GRAND RAPIDS – Ashlyn Bey felt uneasiness as she entered Montabella High School for last Saturday’s Division 4 Competitive Cheer District.
It was a return to the spot that abruptly ended her season a year ago.
“I definitely thought about it as we were driving there,” the Grand Rapids NorthPointe Christian junior said. “I was thinking that this is when my season stopped last year, and just being at the same school didn’t help.
“I psyched myself out a lot when I went back there, but honestly it was a lot better than I thought it would be.”
Bey suffered a broken left hand in last year’s District while performing a tumble during the team’s Round 3 routine.
“It was interesting that it was at the same place,” NorthPointe Christian coach Sue Smith said. “She had to walk past the athletic trainers’ door when we were going on the mat, where she was in so much pain. She said that it was hard to go in and remember all of that, but she did great. It didn’t faze her on the mat, and she did fantastic.”
Bey’s injury required two surgeries and kept her off the mat for nine months.
“It was definitely pretty tough because I spend a lot of time on (competitive cheer), and I was upset that I couldn’t work on it and get better,” Bey said. “But I also think it was good for me to step away a little bit.”
Bey, the team’s top flyer, has helped the Mustangs emerge as one of the top contenders in Division 4 this season. NorthPointe is seeking a Finals berth this weekend.
“It was really exciting to come back because I could start new, but it was also a little irritating because I was back to square one,” Bey said. “It’s been going pretty good, and I feel like I’m where I was before and doing even better.”
Smith also has been thrilled to have one of her team leaders back in the fold.
“She didn’t get cleared until right before the season, and she's really gone through a lot with the two operations,” Smith said. “She’s phenomenal, and one of the best athletes I've ever worked with.”
Both Bey and her team have motivation for a triumphant comeback story.
The Mustangs have fallen short at Regionals the past three years. They made three consecutive appearances in the Final from 2019-21, placing sixth during their most recent trip.
They missed out on advancing last season by eight hundredths of a point, placing fifth at the Regional, while also finishing two points shy of the top four in 2023.
Smith said the team made a commitment to fulfilling a promise after last year’s disappointing outcome.
“They were on the mat afterwards and they were all crying, but they all said that they were going to work really hard and they were going to get it next year,” Smith said. “Instead of being upset, they were motivated, and I thought that was awesome. And this team has done amazing things.”
The near-misses from the past two seasons have fueled the Mustangs’ desire, and success has followed with the return of several key returners.
They finished second to Division 2 Fruitport in the Ottawa-Kent Conference Silver and finished runner-up at their District. They’ve also broken several school records.
“I feel like this team is doing so well and I feel like we are going to do great at Regionals,” Bey said. “We had a lot of motivation from last year, and we’ve been so close so many times that I feel like this is the year. I think we are going to make it to state.”
NorthPointe Christian’s small roster of 10 athletes will need to finish among the top four Saturday at West Catholic High School in order to advance to the Division 4 Final.
“We’re really hoping to make it this year with basically the same girls from last year and I think this team can do it, but there is really good competition out there,” Smith said. “We are working hard this week and our goal is the top four and making it to state. We would love to win, but that would be a bonus. I think they can do it.”
The last few years has been a rebuilding process for Smith, whose numbers dwindled in 2021 due to COVID-19 even though the Mustangs still qualified for the Final that season.
It’s been a steady climb back as improvements have been made across all three rounds in an attempt to raise scores.
“We’re pretty solid in every round, but my favorite is Round 3,” Smith said. “We’ve developed their tumbling over the years, and it's one of our biggest strengths. It’s an exciting, fast-paced round with something always going on, and I love it.
“The girls told me that Round 2 was their favorite, and we’ve made it more of an actual routine with every single skill having a new formation. We’ve had our best scores in Round 2, consistently over 200, and it’s been exciting for them.”
The Mustangs’ roster also includes Lindsay Ulstad, Riley Paulk, Addie Bey, Bella Barnett, Marlo Harrall, Emily Vander Woude, Evie Bast, Genesis Bradenburg and Issabell Barr.
Dean Holzwarth has covered primarily high school sports for Grand Rapids-based WOOD-TV for five years after serving at the Grand Rapids Press and MLive for 16 years along with shorter stints at the Ionia Sentinel and WZZM. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Allegan, Kent and Ottawa counties.
PHOTOS Grand Rapids NorthPointe Christian competes this season at Grand Rapids Northview. (Photos courtesy of the NorthPointe competitive cheer program.)