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High 5s: 11/14/12

November 19, 2012

All three of this week's honorees have achieved some sort of first-time stardom this fall, either individually or as a team. And both Carli Snyder and Alex Grace will be back next fall to continue building on these accomplishments. 

Carli Snyder
Macomb Dakota junior
Volleyball

(UPDATED 11/19) Snyder, a 6-foot-1 outside hitter, was an all-stater her first two seasons of high school. But she will be remembered even more for leading Macomb Dakota this fall to its first MHSAA championship in any girls sport. The Cougars defeated Temperance Bedford in three games in Saturday's Class A Final at Kellogg Arena. Snyder unofficially finished this season with 913 kills, good for seventh in the MHSAA record book since the beginning of the rally scoring era in 2004-05. Her 31 kills against Bedford were third-most for a Final during that time. Snyder already has committed to sign with the University of Florida next year. She likely will be among frontrunners for next fall's Miss Volleyball award. 

Title talk: "We wanted this thing so bad. Every girl on this team wanted it so badly. Megan (Manierski) was setting the ball perfectly. She made it very easy to get kills. ... Just talking about this moment, this gym, it makes you just want to play harder than you ever have."

Winning recipe: "We've been a competitive team in practice and in games all year, so I think that helped us at that moment (in three close Finals games) when we just didn't want to lose. We refused to lose. ... We support each other no matter what. And we hustled so hard."

Shake it up: "We have some secret handshakes with other people, but mine are very complex. I don't know how we went about that. Megan and mine is from "Parent Trap," and then Megan Downey and mine, we just made it up at team dinner. We make it a bit more complex than it needs to be, but it's fun. And it's a great thing to calm us down for a game when we've played a bad one before."

Had to be a Gator: "I like warm weather. I love the coaches. I actually called Florida for my recruiting phone call because I was kinda bored one day at home and I was like, 'I got a letter from them.' I fell in love with the coaching staff, and I told my mom that I needed to go on a visit down there. It's incredible, and when I went down there I was even more in love. Even on the phone, I knew this is where I would end up. It's just that feeling. You know when you get that feeling, and it's incredible."

Click to read more.

Alex Grace
Saginaw Swan Valley sophomore
Football

The Vikings' leading rusher is also one of the leading rushers in the state this season heading into Saturday's Division 4 Semifinal against Detroit Country Day. Grace has gained 2,091 yards plus run for 27 touchdowns, and needs only 109 yards and three more scores to make the MHSAA record book in both categories. He ran for 182 yards and three scores in the Vikings' Regional Final win over Croswell-Lexington. Grace took over as Swan Valley's running back this season after the graduation of his brother Johnathan, who rushed for 1,790 yards last season and now plays at Michigan Tech. Both brothers ran on Swan Valley's 400-meter relay that finished runner-up at the Lower Peninsula Division 2 Track and Field Final in the spring. Alex is 6-0 and 185 pounds and runs the 40-yard dash in 4.5 seconds.

I'd like to run like: "Even my brother. I like to look at myself as close to him. Professionally, (Minnesota Vikings back) Adrian Peterson. He's a tough runner, fast. He's strong."

Underdogs again: "The last game against Croswell, they were the No. 2 team and we were predicted to lose. But we came back and beat them. I use that underdog feeling to work harder each day."

Best brotherly advice: "Work hard, and if there are doubters, don't let them get you down."

Science and math: (My favorite classes are) biology and economics. They just come easy to me. I enjoy it."

Click to read more. 

Flint Beecher football

The Buccaneers, coached by former Michigan State and NFL standout Courtney Hawkins, were one of the final teams selected for the playoffs, at 5-4 after a 3-4 start. But Beecher advanced to this week's Division 7 Semifinal against Detroit Loyola by eliminating reigning champion Saginaw Nouvel, 19-15, in last week's Regional championship game. Beecher, now 8-4, has made the playoffs six straight years. The first of that run came in Hawkins' second as coach and after 12 straight losing seasons. 

Click to read more. 

Previous 2012-13 honorees:

Detroit Cass Tech’s baseball program takes a post-championship photo after winning the Detroit Public School League city title

Cass Tech Hopes PSL City Championship Next Step in Emergence as Diamond Contender

By Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com

May 30, 2025

DETROIT — Juan Torres said it was a completely different feeling walking the halls of Detroit Cass Tech last week. 

Greater DetroitA junior baseball player for the Technicians, Torres knows full well to what extent Cass Tech is a football school, especially since it won the Division 1 title in the fall and produces Division I college talent every year. 

But after Cass Tech won the Detroit Public School League baseball city championship on May 19, there was plenty of pride and attention paid to what the school had achieved on the diamond.

“It’s pretty tough because we are a football school,” Torres said. “Being able to show up to school (the day after) and to say that we won something, it felt really good. We can compete. That was a really good feeling.”

For Cass Tech head coach Melvin Jackson, earning a 6-1 win over Detroit Western in the PSL final at Comerica Park was a moment he had waited for and built toward since taking over the program eight years ago. 

Western had won the last 15 PSL championships and in general has been the gold standard for baseball in the league. But Cass Tech has been inching closer in recent years. 

Last year, the Technicians beat out Western out for a PSL division title, but lost to the Cowboys in the playoff championship game. 

Cass Tech wasn’t denied this year, with starting pitcher Kyle Terry pitching 5 2/3 innings and Jordan Spencer registering the last four outs to start a jubilant celebration. 

The offense was keyed by Torres, who had three hits and three RBI. 

“This year, I kind of felt like we were ready,” Jackson said. “They have been really hungry for this moment.”

While rivals, Jackson said the reason he wanted to defeat Western was because the Cowboys had been an inspiration and measuring stick for his program. 

Jackson and Cass Tech hope topping Western for the PSL title can be a sign of continued growth for high school baseball in the city. 

“You want to bring baseball back, and these are the things that will help bring baseball back to another level in the city,” he said. 

Cass Tech and other programs in the city face challenges that many suburban schools do not. Cass Tech technically has a home field on Belle Isle, but just about every nonleague game is played away on someone else’s field. 

Detroit Edison, the Division 3 runner-up three years ago and a semifinalist last year, is in a similar boat having to play most of its games on the road and conduct practices on the school’s turf football field. 

“When you go out to some of those schools and you see those kinds of facilities, it makes you think, ‘What if?’” Jackson said. 

But much like Edison, Cass Tech forges on and makes the best of it. Just like Western was an inspiration to get to the top of the PSL, what Edison has done is motivating the Technicians to make a deep run in the MHSAA Tournament. 

“We want to build a program like theirs,” Torres said. “We want to build toward something where we can compete every year and be in those important games.”

Jackson insists that his team can achieve things this year beyond the PSL title. 

Cass Tech could very well run into Western again today since they are in the same District, and Jackson feels winning that bracket could be a great springboard for his team.

“There’s more baseball to play,” he said. “If we can get past them, the sky is the limit. The kids I have right now, my seniors and my juniors, they are hungry.”

Keith DunlapKeith 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 Detroit Cass Tech’s baseball program takes a post-championship photo after winning the Detroit Public School League city title. (Photo courtesy of Cass Tech coach Melvin Jackson.)