10 to Remember: Spring 2013

June 25, 2013

By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor

Nine teams won their first MHSAA championships this spring. Birmingham Brother Rice's boys lacrosse team won its ninth in a row. 

And those are only among the toppers of the long list that made memorable moments during this season's Finals, which finished up the school year two weekends ago.

Locking down the 10 most significant performances is impossible. But endeavoring to do so, here are one person's guess at those that will continue to be discussed most in the years to come. 

Among those that just missed this list: Brother Rice boys lacrosse, St. Ignace's girls track and field team after winning its fourth straight team title, Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett's baseball team after its extra-innings Final win over Beal City, Grandville Calvin Christian's girls soccer team after winning a rematch of last season's Division 4 Final and Port Huron Northern's girls tennis team after it emerged from a loaded field to win the Lower Peninsula Division 1 title.

Sami Michell Shines Once More

In her final high school meet, Reed City senior Sami Michell won four more MHSAA Finals individual titles to finish her career with 12 – two more than the previous Lower Peninsula record. A year after becoming the second female to win four events at one Finals meet, she did so again by finishing first in the 100 and 300-meter hurdles, the 200 dash and the long jump. She scored 40 points to claim the team runner-up trophy for her school. Click to read more.

Best Class of All-Time?

That could be the argument for this season’s girls track and field seniors, as twins Hannah and Haley Meier and Erin Finn joined Sami Michell, Detroit Country Day's Kendall Baisden and a host of others in finishing their careers. The Meiers already are members of a national record-holding relay (which set its milestone in 2012), and Hannah won two more Division 1 individual titles (setting all-Finals records) while Haley placed in the same two races and joined her sister on two winning relays. West Bloomfield’s Finn, considered as well one of the nation’s top high school distance runners, finished third to the Meiers in the Division 1 1,600 before cutting nine seconds off her 2012 time in setting an all-Finals record in the 3,200. Click to read more.

Warriors Earn First Title for Winning Coach

Bay City Western’s baseball team strung together two 1-0 shutouts by pitchers Brett Adcock and then Connor Foley to claim its first MHSAA baseball championship – and the first to go with coach Tim McDonald’s other 563 wins over the last 21 seasons. The 1-0 championship game victory over Brother Rice was Western's 35th straight of the season; Western finished 42-2. Click to read more.

Gull Lake Soccer Makes Mark

Richland Gull Lake hadn’t played in a girls soccer Final since 1999, but survived two overtimes against reigning champion Bloomfield Hills Marian to win the Division 2 championship game 1-0. The title was Gull Lake’s first since 1992 and came against a program that not only won in 2012, but three of the last five Division 2 championships. Click to read more.

Upper Peninsula Ace Shoots Record Round

Snow and rain put a damper on a good portion of the girls golf season in the Upper Peninsula this spring. But no U.P. female golfer has ever finished as strongly as Marquette’s Avery Rochester. She claimed her second straight individual Finals championship with a U.P. Finals-record 69, which was three under par at Portage Lake Golf Course in Houghton. Her score also was just one more stroke than the all-Finals record of 68 shot by Grandville’s Stacy Snider in 1998. Click to read more.

7 ... 2 ... 1 ... Champion Tecumseh

Tecumseh entered the MHSAA Tournament after finishing the regular season an honorable mention in the Division 2 softball coaches poll. But the Indians defeated No. 1 Stevensville Lakeshore in the Quarterfinal, reigning champion and No. 2 Livonia Ladywood in the Semifinal and No. 7 Saginaw Swan Valley in the Final to claim their first championship since 2008. Click to read more.

Bishop Foley Sets Baseball Bar

Madison Heights Bishop Foley claimed its third straight Division 3 baseball championship to become the first in MHSAA baseball history to win that many consecutive titles. Bishop Foley is 112-8-1 over the last three seasons and finished 35-2-1 this spring. The Ventures outscored their Bailey Park competition by a combined 18-5 over Finals weekend – getting junior Garrett Schilling to 15-0 for this season and 31-0 for his career with a 6-0 Semifinal win. Click to read more.

Done Deal for Dundee

The Dundee softball team eliminated two-time reigning champion Clinton on the way to Bailey Park this spring, and then beat three-time champion Unionville-Sebewaing in the Division 3 Final to claim its first MHSAA championship in the sport. In the process, Dundee finished 45-1 – setting an MHSAA record for wins in a softball season. Click to read more.

Troy Moves Up to No. 1

After two-straight Division 1 runner-up finishes, Troy earned its first girls soccer championship since 2003 with a 2-1 Final win over Grandville. The Colts had been outscored a combined 3-0 in the last two MHSAA Division 1 Finals, and began this season 3-6-2 before rattling off 15 wins and a tie on the way to claiming the championship. Click to read more.

Tie-Breaker After Heart-Breaker

The Battle Creek Lakeview boys golf team had finished one stroke behind Birmingham Brother Rice at the 2012 Lower Peninsula Division 1 Final, and found itself tied with Plymouth this month after the final round was complete. But thanks to a fifth-player tie-breaker, Lakeview claimed its first MHSAA championship since 2008. Click to read more.

All-Time Leading Scorer Allen Ready to Set Pace for Wayne Memorial's Title Pursuit

By Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com

February 20, 2026

WAYNE — Jaylohn Allen insisted making such history wasn’t one of his goals when he started his varsity basketball career as a freshman. 

Greater DetroitGiven that, it made the moment all the more special last week. 

During a game against Harvey Thornton (Ill.) on Valentine’s Day, Allen and the Wayne Memorial community loved seeing a 30-year-old record broken by Allen, who became the boys basketball program’s all-time leading scorer.

Allen surpassed the 1,748 career points scored by former Michigan State player Lorenzo Guess, who finished his career in 1996. 

“To be the all-time leading scorer at Wayne Memorial High actually wasn’t one of my goals coming in as a freshman,” Allen said. “And honestly I didn’t really think I was going to pass it because 1,700 points is a lot of points, per se. To do that as a kid who grew up with many accomplishments and dreams I wanted to have was a joy. I thought 1,000 points was surreal, but the record meant so much more.”

Signed to play in college for Toledo, Allen certainly has meant a lot to Wayne Memorial over the past four years, and he hopes to make even more history for the Zebras over the next few weeks. 

Allen is averaging nearly 23 points a game this season and is determined to try and get Wayne Memorial back to the Division 1 championship game, where it loss last year to East Lansing. 

When the Zebras accepted the Finals runner-up trophy, they obviously had immediate reason for optimism given Allen and fellow backcourt mate Carlos Medlock – a Michigan State signee – were only juniors. 

But Medlock threw a major wrinkle into Wayne Memorial’s title ambitions when he decided over the offseason to transfer to a prep school in Missouri. 

“I found out maybe a week before he posted on social media,” Allen said of Medlock’s decision. “There were rumors about it, but I didn’t really think he was going to leave. It was a shock, but I was still ready to attack the senior season regardless of what happened and look forward to the senior season with or without him.”

Allen has certainly done that and more.

Teammates help Allen up from the floor during the Zebras’ Semifinal win.Instead of pouting or looking to leave himself, Allen treated Medlock’s departure as a chance to prove he was a worthy Mr. Basketball Award candidate this winter.

Over the summer, he worked to get in terrific shape and continued to not only hone his on-court talents, but became an even more vocal leader to younger players coming back.

“It put me into a bigger role and let people see I can score the ball even more than I’ve been doing the past three years,” Allen said. “It put a fire in me and some motivation that I could be more of the man with the ball.”

One person not surprised that Allen adapted so well without Medlock was Wayne Memorial head coach Steve Brooks.

“He’s pretty much always been the man; he just hadn’t been the leading scorer all the time,” Brooks said.

Allen said there were adjustments playing without his running mate of the last three years, especially when trying to get out in transition.

“Being on the floor and not seeing (Medlock) on the other side of the court and being able to swing it to him — it was just a connection in transition or any other core set that we had,” Allen said. “(The adjustments were) just realizing he’s not on the court and having to utilize my other teammates and making sure they are getting everything they need.”

There was a major scare in December, just before the holiday break, when Allen left a game with a knee injury after he took a charge.

“We thought he was lost for the year,” Brooks said. 

But the injury was only a bone bruise, and Allen missed just 13 days and has been an unstoppable force since. 

To Brooks, it’s obvious who should be Mr. Basketball. 

“Mr. Basketball traditionally is for what you’ve done for your career and not just for a season,” Brooks said. “Over his career, he’s at 19 points a game. Him and Medlock both had 1,000 career points before Christmas of their junior year.”

While Mr. Basketball would be nice and the scoring record is an honor, there is one main purpose for Allen, and that is to get another shot at the Division 1 title that eluded Wayne Memorial last year. 

The Zebras enter tonight’s Kensington Lakes Activities Association championship game 18-3 and carrying a 10-game winning streak. 

“I want them to get there more than me,” Allen said of his teammates. “I want them to show me how much they want to be there so when it comes down to it, we’re ready for it.” 

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.

PHOTOS (Top) Wayne Memorial’s Jaylohn Allen (5) makes his way through his teammates during introductions before last season’s Division 1 Final at Breslin Center. (Middle) Teammates help Allen up from the floor during the Zebras’ Semifinal win.