Paying Tribute with Diamond Donation
May 14, 2014
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Rochester Adams and Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood baseball players and coaches both had loved ones on their minds when they took the field at Comerica Park earlier this month.
And they paid tribute to those loved ones over their hearts and across the backs of their jerseys.
Together, the teams raised more than $3,500 for the Coaches vs. Cancer research initiative.
Instead of its usual brown and yellow, Adams wore jerseys of light blue with a green ribbon as the middle “A” in its name across the front in honor of those suffering with lymphoma, including 2011 graduate and former standout Matt Williams.
Cranbrook-Kingswood wore dark blue jerseys with a pink ribbon as the “A” in Cranbrook and with lime green writing on the back as the Cranes remembered longtime coach Jack Sanders, who died in 2012 after also battling lymphoma.
Sanders’ was among names adorning the backs of jerseys, along with other cancer victims the players and coaches knew.
Adams won the May 1 game, 18-3. Click to read more from the Oakland Press’ Keith Dunlap, who leading up to the game detailed both Williams’ fight and Sanders’ longtime contributions.
Net finder
Lake Fenton’s Jordan Newman will finish her high school soccer career later this spring as the top goal-scorer in MHSAA girls soccer history.
The Blue Devils’ senior forward broke the career record on April 28, scoring her 169th goal against Perry to pass the mark set by Newaygo’s Jaleen Dingledine from 2004-07. Newman also is a four-year varsity player.
Click to read more on her record run from the Flint Journal's Eric Woodyard.
5 K, 1 IP
The MHSAA doesn't keep a record for most strikeouts in an inning. But if it did, there’s a great chance Brighton’s Garrett Russell would top the list.
Against Ann Arbor Pioneer on April 5, Russell struck out five batters in an inning.
Yes, five.
Here’s how:
Russell struck out the first two batters of the inning swinging, leaving one out to get. He then struck out that third batter as well, but that batter reached first base because the third strike turned into a wild pitch.
The fourth batter of the inning was the only one to not strike out – he walked, putting runners on first and second base with two outs. Those runners advanced to second and third base, respectively, on a wild pitch thrown to the fifth batter of the inning.
That fifth batter then struck out swinging (which made it four strikeouts in the inning), but that third strike turned into a passed ball – and that batter ended up on first base, loading them for the sixth hitter of the inning.
But Russell found enough for one more K, striking out that sixth hitter swinging on a 2-2 pitch.
His line for the inning: 0 hits, 0 runs, 1 bases on balls, 5 strikeouts.
Brighton went on to sweep the doubleheader 12-4 and 11-1.
Family ties
Basketball clearly runs in a pair of families who have come through Corunna High School.
This winter, brothers M.J. and Mikhail Myles both scored their 1,000th career points – M.J., a senior, on Jan. 3 and Mikhail, a junior, in the team’s District Semifinal on March 5.
On Feb. 18, senior Payton Birchmeier became the fifth player in girls program history to score her 1,000th point – despite scoring only four points as a freshman before suffering a season-ending knee injury in her first high school game. She became the first Corunna girl to score 1,000 since her sister Megan finished accomplishing the feat in 2010.
Payton Birchmeier went on to play her final three seasons also on varsity, and M.J. Myles also was a four-year varsity player. Mykhail Myles has played three on varsity with next season still to play. The Myles' stepsister Klarissa Bell this winter finished an outstanding career at Michigan State University and won the Miss Basketball Award as a senior at East Lansing High School in 2010, and stepbrother Devlin Bell also was a Trojans standout.
PHOTOS: (Top) Rochester Adams players congratulate each other during their May 1 game at Comerica Park. (Middle) The Adams' first baseman and a Cranbrook-Kingswood base runner await the next pitch. (Photos courtesy of Rochester Adams baseball.)
Gift of Bowling Keeps Giving as Eisenhower's Harnden Pursues Championship Repeat
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
January 30, 2025
Birthday parties usually feature the best gifts for the person celebrating the birthday. But in this case, the best gift might have ended up going to one of the party’s attendees.
Back when he was in fifth grade, current Utica Eisenhower senior bowler Dylan Harnden was invited to a birthday party at Shelby Lanes in Shelby Township by friend and current Eisenhower bowling teammate Kingston Corpuz.
That day, they celebrated Corpuz – and Harnden received the gift of being introduced to bowling.
“That was his first time bowling, and he basically got the bug that he wanted to bowl,” he said Dylan’s father and current Eisenhower coach Mark Harnden. “From that point forward, he just kind of wanted to get better and better.”
The last couple of years, it can be argued that there’s been no better high schooler in the state.
Last year as a junior, Harnden captured the Division 1 Singles Finals title after also winning his Regional. Naturally, he was named to the all-state Dream Team by the Michigan High School Interscholastic Bowling Coaches Association.
This season, Harnden completed a unique career trifecta by winning the individual title at the Macomb County championship.
“I can say that I’ve won that tournament along with other great Macomb bowlers who have won that tournament,” he said. “It was great to see myself winning it.”
In addition, Harnden is sporting a 222 average — one pin below his average last year — and has scholarship offers in tow from two prestigious college bowling programs, St. Ambrose University in Iowa and Trine University in Indiana.
Not bad for someone who didn’t know anything about the sport until that birthday party invite roughly seven years ago.
“It only took me maybe about a half year to a year to get the hang of everything and get really good,” Harnden said. “It was interesting at first.”
In addition to winning the state title last season, Harnden as a sophomore in 2023 finished first out of the qualifying block at the Division 1 Final but ended up falling to eventual champion Brendan Riley of Waterford Mott in the quarterfinal round.
This year, Harnden’s big objective has been continuing to master mental aspects of the game.
“A lot of things this year compared to last year is the same stuff, except for trying to expand my knowledge,” he said. “Knowing how to transition better, knowing what balls to go to and trying to hit different shots. Just expanding knowledge mainly from last year to this year just so if I encounter new scenarios, I can use it better.”
Mark Harnden said Dylan when he was younger tried a one-handed bowling style, but quickly discovered that going with the two-handed style was a better fit for him.
“It allowed him to bowl with a heavier bowling ball,” he said. “As you know, heavier balls don’t tend to deflect off the pins.”
This year, not only could Dylan Harnden be a contender to win another Singles Finals title, but he has a decent shot of being part of a team champion thanks to a merger.
The Utica and Eisenhower bowling programs joined forces as one this year, something Mark Harnden said was talked about for a while due to low participation numbers experienced by both programs.
“We’re trying to really allow two programs to survive in the downside until more kids get interested in bowling,” he said.
What the merger has created is a pair of powerful combined Utica-Eisenhower programs.
The girls team now features contributors from last season’s Macomb Area Conference Red and White champions joined together as one, with returning all-state bowlers Ava Mazza (sophomore, Utica) and Sophia Matheson (senior, Eisenhower) atop an incredibly deep lineup.
For the boys, what was the outstanding duo of Harnden and Corpuz has turned into a terrific trio, with sophomore Marco Mazza joining the fray. Ava and Marco Mazza are twins whose father, John, bowled professionally.
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.
(Photo of Dylan Harnden courtesy of the Harnden family.)