MHSAA Historian Picks 10 to Remember
August 9, 2016
By Rob Kaminski
MHSAA benchmarks editor
It sounded simple and fun, the theme for the MHSAA's spring issue of benchmarks: a history of MHSAA tournaments.
It certainly was the latter, but simple? Not so much.
There’s no way to do justice to nearly a century’s worth of history in some sports. Complicating matters was the abundance of information and photographs for some, and the scant amount of detailed data and images for others.
MHSAA historian Ron Pesch was given an equally challenging task: recount a “Top 10” list from his days covering various MHSAA Finals. He shares them here and, he adds, they are in no order of favorites.
The Shot: 1986 Class B Boys Basketball Final at Crisler Arena – Saginaw Buena Vista’s Chris Coles’ desperation shot, launched at the buzzer from well beyond half court, dropped through the hoop to give the Knights a 33-32 win over defending champion Flint Beecher in a rematch of the 1985 Class B title game. The shot was Coles’ first of the second half and his only points in the contest.
The Smurfs: 1986 Class A Football Final at the Pontiac Silverdome – The "Smurfs" – Muskegon Coach Dave Taylor's nickname for his small, quick swarming defensive linemen – limited heavily favored Sterling Heights Stevenson to four yards rushing and 73 yards of total offense in a 10-0 win. As a 1979 graduate of Muskegon High School, I was elated.
The Drive: 1989 Class B Football Final at the Pontiac Silverdome – I slid down from the press box into the stands at the Silverdome for the end of this one. With 2:20 remaining, the atmosphere was simply electric, as Farmington Hills Harrison’s lauded quarterback Mill Coleman took the reins with his team down 27-21 to DeWitt. The senior executed a flawless two-minute drill, guiding his team to the DeWitt 9 before scampering into the end zone for the tying points. Steve Hill added his fourth PAT for the lead, then secured the victory with an interception on the next series.
King Kool: 2005 Class B Boys Basketball Final, Breslin Center, East Lansing – David Kool was a flawless 20 for 20 from the free-throw line and scored 43 points as Grand Rapids South Christian downed Muskegon Heights 67-60.
The Parade: 2004 Individual Wrestling Finals, The Palace of Auburn Hills – In 2004, I traveled to Auburn Hills to watch the MHSAA Individual Wrestling Finals for the first time. The pageantry of the Grand March, the skills on display, the roar of the massive crowd, and the ensuing beauty and chaos of a wrestling extravaganza of this scale is truly a sight to see.
A Marathon: 2007 Division 3 Football Final, Ford Field, Detroit – East Grand Rapids and Orchard Lake St. Mary’s ended regulation tied 14-14, and this would turn into a five overtime battle that required an extra hour of play. No previous football playoff game, from Districts up, had ever gone beyond four overtimes. After exchanging field goals, touchdowns, extra points and two-point conversions, East Grand Rapids emerged with a 46-39 victory.
Tawana Towers: 1994 Class A Girls Basketball Final at Kellogg Arena, Battle Creek – Flint Northern, coached by Leteia Hughley and led by 6-4 freshman Tawana McDonald, defeated 1993 runner-up Detroit Martin Luther King, 46-32, for the Class A championship. McDonald batted down an MHSAA-record 10 shots, pulled down 13 rebounds and added five points and seven assists in a stellar performance.
Never Quit: 2008 Division 2 Football Semifinal, Spartan Stadium, East Lansing – Unbeaten, No. 1-ranked and heavily favored Muskegon trailed Davison by 22 late in the third quarter and 16 with less than five minutes to play. In perhaps the greatest comeback in playoff history, Muskegon recovered two onside kicks and scored 19 points in the final 4:31 to escape with a 38-35 victory and its third trip in five years to an MHSAA Final.
MHSAA Legends: 1998-2008 – For 10 years, the MHSAA showcased great teams from the past with their Legends of the Game series. From a historian’s perspective it was a chance to meet and learn more about folks I had often known only from the pages of microfilm. It was quite the treat to see years fall away as coaches, team managers and players reunited, in many cases for the first time after decades apart.
The MHSAA Record Books: Online, 1994 – One of my first efforts as state historian was to expand the record books beyond their primary focus on football, basketball, track & field and swimming & diving. With the arrival of the internet, an enhanced version of the record books was brought online. Coaches and fans were quick to respond with letters and e-mails, happily listing entries that had been “missed.” Soon, five category headings in a sport grew to 20, then to 50 and beyond.
Kids: 2004 Football Finals, Pontiac Silverdome – (OK, this is No. 11 ... consider it an extra point). For the first time, my sons joined me for my annual excursion to Metro Detroit for a Thanksgiving Day football weekend. They got to see the Silverdome before the move of the MHSAA Football Finals to beautiful Ford Field. Future Big Reds, they also got to see their future alma mater win another title.
PHOTOS: (Top) An MHSAA boys basketball tournament game is played at Olympia Stadium in Detroit. (Middle) Flint Northern's Tawana McDonald blocks a shot during the 1994 Class A Final.
Lake Orion Serving Up Impressive Start as Boys Volleyball Takes Off in Metro Detroit
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
April 21, 2026
Lake Orion volleyball coach Tony Scavarda now has a little more to talk about when he has an information table at the high school's annual eighth-grade orientation each February.
“I’ve usually sat at the table for just girls volleyball, but now it’s also boys,” he said. “I’m trying to get boys knowing in middle school that this is something you can do next year.”
Indeed, as is the case with boys volleyball coaches around the state, Scavarda is trying to spread the word about the newest sport – debuting this spring – to have a postseason sponsored by the MHSAA.
The luxury Scavarda enjoys at Lake Orion compared to many other programs is that there already is a standard of success that can be boasted to players interested in coming out for the team.
In just its second season as a club program last year, Lake Orion advanced to the state semifinals, losing to eventual state champion Hudsonville in what was the final year of boys volleyball being conducted by the state’s coaches association.
Despite only one returner from that team, Lake Orion already looks like a threat to go on another deep run as one of the top teams in Metro Detroit this inaugural season, getting off to a 9-0 start without dropping any sets.
“We had three returners last year that kind of got people in the gym with them before the season to get them some reps and stuff,” Scavarda said. “We didn’t really have that much this year. So they’re more (young) on the court. We have played a lot of games in a short period of time, learning as we go. But they’re improving. It’s just a matter of are they going to improve enough to get us where our expectations are.”
The lone returnee from last year’s semifinal team is senior outside hitter Kuba Wolski, but the Dragons have a good combination of younger players new to the program and others who are performing well in expanded roles after sitting behind the top group last year.
Lake Orion also has an impact newcomer in senior Jan Ludvik, a foreign-exchange student from the Czech Republic who is a tall and powerful outside hitter.
Not only has the excitement of boys volleyball becoming an MHSAA sport buoyed the players this year, but so has last year’s run to the semifinals – making them hungry for more playoff success.
“I think we need to just stay motivated even through our hardships,” Wolski said. “We fell short in the (semifinal match), but this year we have players that are consistent and real and we can make it that far again.”
Lake Orion isn’t the only program off and running during the inaugural MHSAA-sponsored boys volleyball season, as other teams are similarly striving for success this year while trying to establish a foundation to build on in their communities.
“We don’t have any feeder programs going yet,” Scavarda said. “That’s the plan, to come up with some type of camp program or something to get kids, at least at the middle school level, interested in volleyball.”
One of the opponents Lake Orion defeated this season, Auburn Hills Avondale, is in its fourth year overall as a program and is also using this inaugural MHSAA spring to further get the word out.
Avondale head coach Jessica Stefanski said 25 players came out for tryouts and there was enough depth to have a JV program this spring.
“In open gym, there are new guys almost every single day,” Stefanski said. “Even at our middle school, word is getting out because middle schoolers are coming out to see what it’s like. It’s really big at the school.”
Stefanski added that because more boys knew that the sport was going to be MHSAA-sponsored this spring, younger players pushed this year’s group of seniors and made them better once tryouts began in March.
“I think some of them got a little scared,” Stefanski said. “The seniors we have, they’ve been playing for four years now and (younger players) hit a lot harder and faster, which they weren’t prepared for.”
But that has been a good problem to have.
Seeing strength in numbers and competition is all that programs such as Lake Orion, Avondale and first-year teams can ask for as seeds get planted for boys volleyball in the Detroit area and around the state.
“We’re going pretty fast here,” Stefanski said.
Keith 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) Lake Orion and Auburn Hills Avondale volleyball players battle at the net during a Thursday match. (Middle) Dragons junior Owen Dyer tracks down a loose ball. (Below) Avondale players break out of a timeout. (Photos by Keith Dunlap.)