Jackson Area Efforts Net New Officials
February 16, 2016
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Recruitment of new high school officials to eventually take the reins from those currently conducting MHSAA events is a challenge faced all over Michigan.
The Jackson Area Officials Association is working to restock its ranks by recruiting directly from local schools and developing them with help from veteran mentors.
Eight new officials – ages 15 to 24 – who worked a series of youth and middle school games together earlier this month, are among those who have been introduced through a program that begins with a meeting at the end of the high school basketball season between JAOA official Bill Walker and local athletic directors, coaches, fellow officials and other young adults he’s made contact with over the course of a season. From that meeting, Walker builds a list of potential candidates to become officials and then invites them to the annual JAOA Legacy Camp in June.
The camp includes two days of scrimmages between local teams, plus classroom and mechanics teaching. Similar to the MHSAA Legacy program, new officials are paired with veterans, and clinicians evaluate their work during scrimmage play. Walker then keeps in touch with the new officials during the rest of the summer, plugging them in for local youth tournaments and scrimmages, and uses as many as possible while assigning officials for youth tournaments over the winter.
All eight officials who worked the event this month are part of the JAOA legacy partnering, and some of the group already are working games at the junior varsity level – with one, a 19-year-old, recently completing his first varsity game. They come from a variety of Jackson-area schools – Parma Western, Napoleon, Jackson Christian, Michigan Center, Concord and East Jackson. Walker said the recruiting effort has a 60 percent success rate so far. (This June’s legacy camp will be the third.)
“By next season, all (eight) will be official MHSAA registered officials,” he said, noting most currently are registered. “It’s great to have these schools support this program. We all benefit from added, good officiating.”
Passing it forward
Our Battle of the Fans trip to Charlotte on Friday included a conversation about a Feb. 2 game between the Orioles and Mason, which has a pair of athletes fighting cancer. The Charlotte student section dressed in blue that night in support of junior Storm Miller, and during halftime passed buckets to raise money for Miller’s GoFundMe account set up to help pay for his care.
Mason, in turn, provided support Friday to an Owosso alum, 2012 graduate Cody Greger, who remains hospitalized at University of Michigan’s hospital with injuries sustained during a house fire in November. Fans and students collected donations to assist Greger’s family with his care.
“This event was yet another example of the values that school sports teach young people,” Owosso athletic director Dallas Lintner wrote on the school’s website. “And it stands as a testament of the integrity of the young adults that represent our schools and the (Capital Area Activities Conference.)."
100 years of hoops
A decade before the formation of the Michigan High School Athletic Association, Eastern Michigan University – then known as Michigan State Normal College – hosted what is believed to be the first organized high school basketball tournament in state history.
EMU will celebrate this anniversary Saturday in conjunction with the Eagles men’s basketball game against Toledo. Game time is noon at EMU’s Convocation Center, and during a break in play the athletic department will recognize the 12 schools that took part in that 1916 tournament – Marine City, Dundee, Milan, Mancelona, Farmington, Elkton, Royal Oak, Middleville, Lansing, Mount Clemens, Wayne and Saline.
More history, courtesy of EMU:
The game of basketball was developed by James Naismith in 1891 at Springfield College in Massachusetts. As a means of promoting the game throughout the country, physical education professor and EMU's first athletic director Wilber Bowen asked his good friend Naismith to bring the game to the Michigan State Normal College (now known as Eastern Michigan University).
The first basketball game west of the Allegheny Mountains was played at Michigan Normal in 1894 to recognize the new physical education program and to dedicate the new gymnasium on campus.
Then in 1916, Bowen, along with instructors Elmer Mitchell and Lloyd Olds (who was also credited with the introduction of the striped referee jersey), organized the first high school basketball tournament in Michigan. A total of 300 invitations were sent out to all Class B schools in the state. Twelve schools responded, and the first high school boys tournament was held on the Ypsilanti-based campus on March 23-25, 1916.
Entrance to the tournament was free and (the event was) played at the Michigan State Normal School Gymnasium. However, expenses related to transportation, room, and board had to be provided by the participating schools. The MSNC's Physical Education Department made it easier for schools to participate by making arrangements with local residents to provide food at 20 to 25 cents a meal and lodging at 25 cents a night for each player.
That first tournament saw Marine City defeat Dundee in the championship game, 23-22.
The winning team was awarded a silver shield mounted on an oak base. Second prize was a silver cup, and the third place team received a banner. Individual participation awards to all players were also provided. The Ypsilanti Press at the time felt the Normal School "went first class with the awards."
For tickets to Saturday’s game and event, which will be followed by the EMU women’s team taking on Northern Illinois, call the EMU Ticket Office at (734) 487-2282 or visit EMUEagles.com/tickets.
Following up
• Second Half’s Chip Mundy this fall wrote a story on the emergence of Ida’s football team on the way to making the Division 5 Semifinals and finishing its best season ever. A theme of that story was Ida’s philosophy of building “brick by brick,” coined by defensive line coach Gary Deland, who himself was building back after emergency triple-bypass heart surgery.
“From that very first practice in the summer to the last game as a senior, everything is built brick by brick,” Deland said for that story. “I can draw a correlation between that and my recovery, what I’ve gone through. It’s the same thing. It’s brick by brick.”
Kim Farver sent along this photo of Deland holding up a brick after the team’s 43-20 Regional Final win over Buchanan.
• We released the last batch of this year’s MHSAA-Farm Bureau Insurance Scholar-Athlete Award winners today, and one of the highlights during the 27 years of the contest came two years ago when we caught up with some of our winners from the first 25 years – including Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood’s Abby Cohen, who has gone on to co-found a company and help develop a smartphone application, Wing, to help asthma patients monitor their lung function.
Here’s a look at a video describing the technology she’s helped create:
Preview: Reigning Champions Seeking Repeat Performances at Midland Tennis Center
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
May 26, 2026
As with the MHSAA boys championship tournaments this past fall, the Lower Peninsula Girls Tennis Finals over the next two weeks will have a new look – although familiarity reigns as last year’s four team champions are the favorites again in their respective divisions.
Northville, Birmingham Seaholm, Detroit Country Day and Ann Arbor Greenhills will look to maintain their supremacy all at Midland Tennis Center, beginning with Division 4 today and Thursday, followed by Division 1 this Friday and Saturday, and then Division 2 on June 3 and 4 and Division 3 over June 5 and 6.
Below are details on those top-ranked teams and more contenders to watch during all four Finals:
Division 1
Top-ranked: 1. Northville, 2. Utica Eisenhower, 3. Novi.
Northville is the reigning champion, and Utica Eisenhower has finished second the last two seasons and is seeking its first title. Northville claimed last year’s team trophy by just a point, and third-place Novi was only four back of the lead and also enters this weekend seeking a first Finals championship.
Northville: The Mustangs will pursue a repeat with six seeded flights and potentially powered by doubles with juniors Sravya Doppalapudi and Francine Ong seeded first at No. 2 and senior Michelle Lee and junior Emma Murphy seeded first at No. 4. All four doubles pairs are seeded third or higher, as is sophomore Grace Xu at No. 3 singles. Doppalapudi and Ong were champions at No. 3 doubles last season, Murphy was part of the No. 4 champion, juniors Lucia Lachapelle and Aadya Pullalarevu were runners-up at No. 2 and are second-seeded at No. 3 this time, and junior Emmi Dober is part of the third-seeded No. 1 pair after finishing second at No. 3 singles in 2025.
Utica Eisenhower: The Eagles just missed a first title last year, and they are loaded especially at singles with six flights total seeded for the weekend. Senior Gabriella Sadowski is seeded second at No. 1 singles after winning the flight as a sophomore and finishing runner-up a year ago. Sophomore Morgan Emerick is seeded first at No. 2 and the reigning champion in that bracket, and senior Sofia Gardner is seeded second at No. 4. Sadowski and Emerick are undefeated this spring. Senior Alexis Gabriel has been part of No. 1 and No. 2 doubles champions over the last two seasons and is seeded fourth at No. 1 this time with junior Kara Lu.
Ann Arbor Pioneer: The Pioneers were ranked No. 4 in the most recent poll and seeded to make a move after finishing seventh a year ago. They are seeded at all four singles flights and two doubles flights, with sophomores Maryn Etheridge and Ayla Altinsel the top seed at No. 3 doubles.
Saline senior Emerson Jones: She’s the top seed at No. 1 singles and 18-0 in her only season playing high school tennis, with 11 wins (including her last four) by 6-0, 6-0 scores.
Clarkston junior Kayla Lemke: The third seed at No. 1 singles is 20-2 with her only losses to Saline’s Jones and Eisenhower’s Sadowski.
Rochester Hills Stoney Creek junior Larissa Yoshino/sophomore Yousong Choi: The top-seeded pair at No. 1 doubles is 19-1 with its only loss in three sets to Eisenhower’s Gabriel and Lu.
Division 2
Top-ranked: 1. Birmingham Seaholm, 2. Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern, 3. Farmington Hills Mercy.
Reigning champion Seaholm has won two of the last three titles and finished first or second the last four seasons. Forest Hills Northern most recently won this tournament in 2024 and owns three of the five championships in Division 2 this decade. Mercy finished runner-up to Seaholm last year and is seeking its first team Finals title in this sport.
Birmingham Seaholm: The Maples will be tough to catch with seven top-seeded flights – sophomore Devon Rusk at No. 2 singles, junior Sabrina Dunn at No. 3, junior Izzy Bloom at No. 4, senior Lucy Jen and junior Sophia Arndt at No. 1 doubles, senior Anna Olekszyk and junior Katie Joyce at No. 2, junior Cate French and senior Kate Crowley at No. 3 and junior Alina Villaire and senior Jacqueline Supancich the top-seeded No. 4 pair. Senior Jada Josifovski is the sixth-seeded player at No. 1 singles and won No. 2 a year ago. Olekszyk and Arndt won No. 2 doubles last spring, Crowley and French won No. 3, Joyce and Villaire won No. 4 and Jen was part of the runner-up at No. 1. Bloom was the runner-up at No. 4 singles in 2025.
Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern: The Huskies finished third a year ago and will make a run at the top spots led by four second-seeded flights – senior Harriet Ogilvie at No. 1 singles, sophomore Audrey Kowatch at No. 4, sophomore Hayla Messelink and senior Hailey Pfeiffle at No. 3 doubles and senior Maddie Decker and freshman Mercedes Acevedo at No. 4. Senior Ava Targosz and sophomore Sadie Wolfe are seeded fifth at No. 2 doubles after finishing runner-up at No. 4 last year.
Farmington Hills Mercy: The Marlins will look to make up seven points from last year’s runner-up finish with five flights seeded among the top three in their respective brackets. Seniors Alexa Dueweke and Scarlett Manchinger are second seeds at Nos. 2 and 3 singles, respectively, and sophomore Anna Naida and senior Gabby Owens are second-seeded at No. 2 doubles. Owens was the champion at No. 4 singles last season, and senior Keira Kirkland was the runner-up at No. 2 and is seeded third at No. 1 this weekend.
Ana Cheng, Mattawan senior: The top-seeded player at No. 1 singles is 24-2 with a win over Ogilvie just two weeks ago but a loss to Kirkland at the start of May. Cheng reached the quarterfinals at No. 1 last season as the seven seed.
Division 3
Top-ranked: 1. Detroit Country Day, 2. East Grand Rapids, 3. Bloomfield Hills Marian.
Country Day is seeking to run its latest championship streak to three, and East Grand Rapids in 2009 is the last team not Country Day or Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood to win the Division 3 title. The Pioneers are seeking to make a jump from sixth last season. Marian finished third a year ago and most recently won a championship in 2016 in Division 2.
Detroit Country Day: Five top seeds will lead the Yellowjackets’ pursuit. Sophomore Chloe Conniff is on the top line at No. 1 singles after finishing second at No. 2 last year, and sophomore Karishma Vakhariya is the top seed at No. 2 coming off the championship at No. 3. Junior Quinn Norlander and senior Helen Benjamin are top-seeded at No. 1 doubles and familiar with this stage as well; Benjamin has won two singles titles including at No. 4 last season, and Norlander was part of last spring’s No. 1 doubles runner-up. Sophomore Grace Kalkanis was part of the No. 4 champion last season and is seeded first at No. 2 with sophomore Zoe Bergg, and senior Jiya Gill and sophomore Zoe Grebinski are top-seeded at No. 4 this time. Sophomore Addie Grebinski is seeded third at No. 3 singles and senior Noor Mahmoud is part of the third-seeded pair at No. 3 doubles after they teamed up to finish runner-up at No. 2 doubles in 2025.
East Grand Rapids: Seven of eight EGR flights are seeded, and all seven are seeded fourth or higher with freshman Evelyn Gingras leading the way on the top line at No. 3 singles. Sophomore Mia Owings also is forecasted to play for a flight championship as the second seed at No. 4 singles.
Bloomfield Hills Marian: Seven flights are seeded and with several championship match expectations. Freshman Gwen Slapak is the top seed at No. 4 singles, with senior Emerson Turkot and junior Stella Glorio the second seed at No. 2 doubles, freshman Emerson Villalba and junior Lexa Hindo second-seeded at No. 3 and juniors Lizzie Plunkett and Clare Reaume the second seed at No. 4. Glorio and Hindo were the champions at No. 3 last season.
Henley Honholt, Grand Rapids Christian sophomore: The second seed at No. 1 singles is 16-1 with her only loss to Country Day’s Conniff. Honholt reached the semifinals as the third seed last season.
Lilah Zaskowski, Ada Forest Hills Eastern junior: After reaching the quarterfinals last season as the sixth seed, she’s back as the third in the No. 1 singles bracket with three of her four loses to Honholt or Conniff.
Division 4
Top-ranked: 1. Ann Arbor Greenhills, 2. Pontiac Notre Dame Prep, 3. Allegan.
Greenhills has won the last four Division 4 championships, and Notre Dame Prep has finished second the last two seasons – which have been the Fighting Irish’s highest Finals finishes as they continue to pursue a first title. Allegan is seeking its first as well and has four runner-up finishes, its most recent in 2013 in Division 3.
Ann Arbor Greenhills: Junior Nina Malani at No. 1 singles and freshman Jahan Soofi at No. 4 are on the top lines of their respective brackets, and similarly seniors Danica Rakic-Dennis and Lauren Ye are seeded first at No. 1 doubles and senior Aoife Tang and sophomore Linnea Bengtson are the top seed at No. 4. The other four flights are seeded second or third in their brackets. Malani won No. 4 singles last season and sophomore Hazel Morgan is seeded third at No. 2 this time after winning No. 3 in 2025. Rakic-Dennis was part of the champion at No. 1 doubles and Ye part of the winning pair at No. 3 last spring with junior Alyssa Hong, who is joined by junior Jessica Lou on the third-seeded No. 2 doubles pair.
Pontiac Notre Dame Prep: The Irish will attempt to cut into Greenhills’ advantage led by sophomores Vanessa Artinian and Regina Carpenese holding down the top seed at No. 2 doubles and senior Nina Shanidze seeded second at No. 3 singles. Artinian was part of the No. 4 doubles champion last year – with sophomore Elena Vandieren, who is playing No. 1 doubles with sophomore Adriana Dedukaj – and senior Adriana Johnson was part of the runner-up at No. 3 and with freshman Adrienne Hofley is seeded sixth at that flight this time. Junior Ana Jarvis is playing No. 1 singles after finishing runner-up at No. 3 a year ago.
Allegan: The Tigers are seeded at six flights and especially powerful in doubles. Seniors Sophia Augustine and Emma Scheffler are the top seed at No. 3, with junior Ireland Dewey and senior Madison Cook the second seed at No. 1 and seniors Taylor Fuller and Hanna Kievit second-seeded at No. 2.
Sonya Jayakar, Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett sophomore: After opening this season with a pair of defeats – including the first to Malani – Jayakar has run off 12 straight wins. She reached the quarterfinals at No. 1 while unseeded as a freshman.
Eliana McClellan, Traverse City St. Francis junior: She finished runner-up at No. 2 singles last season, and her only losses this spring were during the first event – against Malani and Saline’s Jones.
PHOTO Detroit Country Day's Quinn Norlander gets to a ball near the net during the 2025 Division 3 Finals. (Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)