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.
Bedford Boys Lacrosse Continues Spectacular Rise with 1st Regional Title
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
June 17, 2025
Steve Ullery isn’t the president of a company or chief executive officer of a corporation. He doesn’t sit on any boards of directors.
However, what Ullery has done during his decade with the Temperance Bedford boys lacrosse program would make any CEO or chairperson of a board envious.
The Kicking Mules season ended against eventual Division 2 runner-up Detroit Country Day. But reaching the Quarterfinals for the first time in school history capped a monumental journey for the Bedford lacrosse program, that only this season climbed out of “club” status and became an official varsity sport at the southeast Michigan school.
“It’s been a long journey,” Ullery said. “And its not one that’s over. It’s one we are going to continue to try and improve on.”
Four or five years ago, Bedford was happy to go into halftime tied with Southeastern Conference opponents like Saline or Ann Arbor Skyline. Now, the Kicking Mules have won back-to-back conference titles.
“Eventually, we got better,” Ullery said. “The deficits got less. Maybe we were tied in the first quarter or we were winning the second half.
“About three years ago, we beat Saline for the first time. I think it was then that we started to realize, these teams aren’t invincible. That was the turning point of our program and the mindset of the players. We just need to go out and grab it.”
With back-to-back Southeastern Conference Red championship banners in hand, the Mules reached for another goal this season – reaching the MHSAA Finals.
A 16-1 win over Grosse Ile in their Regional Semifinal earned them a trip to the Regional Finals. A goal with 40 seconds left by freshman Kyle Burger sent the Mules to the Quarterfinals with an 11-10 win over Byron Center.
Country Day beat Bedford 19-1 in that Quarterfinal, but this still marked the greatest season in school history.
Ullery is from a small town outside of Dayton, Ohio. He played soccer, ran track and played basketball in high school. He attended Bowling Green State University in northwest Ohio and settled just across the state line in the Bedford school district. He was introduced to lacrosse when his oldest son came home one day with a sign-up sheet and said he wanted to give it a try.
“I picked this up by accident,” he said. “I didn’t know anything about lacrosse. My son wanted to try lacrosse, and they needed a coach. I was sort of volunteered to coach, jumped in and never looked back. It became a family endeavor. I have two sons and a daughter who played Bedford lacrosse.”
Ullery and another parent started watching YouTube videos about lacrosse to learn the technical side of the game to teach to youngsters.
“We tried to learn everything we could about the sport,” Ullery said.
He eventually moved up as a middle school coach and, as his own son reached high school, threw his hat into the mix to be the varsity coach. He was hired by the district.
Bedford athletic director Mark German said the program has taken off.
“Our boys lacrosse program revived the junior high team about four years ago … and we are now seeing the results of that feeder system,” German said. “At the high school level Steve Ullery and his staff, along with the players, just made the decision that they were no longer going to finish last in the SEC. They went to work and willed themselves to be champions.”
Although the program began in 2007, this is the first year boys lacrosse was funded by the school district. Prior to that it was considered a club sport by the district, although the school did allow the team to use the stadium and players to earn varsity letters and compete in the MHSAA postseason.
“We were privately funded,” Ullery said. “They took us under their umbrella this year.”
Coaching grew on Ullery, who surrounded himself with a mix of former high school and college lacrosse players and parents who wanted to be involved.
“Once we got a little bit of knowledge under our belt, we started developing a little bit of a culture,” he said.
As a coach, he said, he reflected on his own days as an athlete as well as a parent.
“Quite honestly, when I took the coaching position, I looked back and thought what are some things that used to drive me nuts about coaches and how can I be better than that,” he said. “The last thing I wanted to be was one of those coaches that other parents were hollering at, ‘Why is he doing this? Why is he doing that?’ From the onset, I tried to get as many parents into the team as possible. The more hands, the better.”
Ullery said he and the other coaches also wanted to build a well-rounded team.
“Bedford was never short on talented players,” he said. “The problem is they were never a talented team.”
In 2022, the Mules started six freshmen.
“We were a very young club,” he said. “We knew the odds were not in our favor, but we kept pushing. We promoted the assists over the goal. We promoted ground balls and takeaways, good defensive skills instead of only looking at goals and wins and losses.”
As head coach, he divided responsibilities among coaches for offense and defense and created a culture everyone wanted to experience. His assistant coaches this season – Josh Vislay, Aaron Kaun, Justin Burger and Romeo Ybarra – all played key roles.
“It was a good mix,” Ullery said. “We worked well together.”
Bedford, which finished 13-5, had a well-balanced team, although three of those 2022 freshmen (Blake Dlugosielski, Brady Weirich and Brennan McIntire) all finished their careers with more than 100 goals.
“We would have games where we might have seven or eight different scorers,” Ullery said. “That makes it hard for the other team to try and figure out who are we going to shut down.”
Bedford will lose nine seniors from this year’s team, but Ullery says the success of the program will keep rising as long as the feeder programs remain strong and keep things fun.
“It was busy, but I had the support of my family,” he said. “I would change nothing. It’s been an absolute joy and one heck of a ride. I’m humbled about where the team is and the successes we’ve been able to do as a group.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a news and sports reporter at the Adrian Daily Telegram and the Monroe News for 30 years, including 10 years as city editor in Monroe. He's written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. He is now publisher and editor of The Blissfield Advance, a weekly newspaper. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Bedford’s Noah Puccetti (15) brings the ball upfield during a Regional Semifinal win over Grosse Ile. (Middle) Kyle Burger considers his options with the ball in his possession. (Below) The Kicking Mules take a team photo with their Regional championship trophy at Ypsilanti Lincoln. (Photos courtesy of the Temperance Bedford boys lacrosse program.)