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.)
Goals Grow as Gladwin's Klein Seeks to Follow School Record with Big Finish
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
April 24, 2024
Logan Klein wanted to leave his mark on Gladwin athletics – and one could argue, as a starting offensive lineman on the 2022 Flying Gs football team which won the Division 5 title, he had already done that.
But Klein was looking for more, so that spring, he switched from baseball to track & field, and went after it.
“Really, I mean, I wanted a school record,” Klein said. “I had played baseball for freshman and sophomore year, and I knew I wasn’t getting it in baseball. I was good, but I wasn’t that good. I did (track & field) in seventh grade, and I was pretty good. I was really close in junior high (to school records) but then in eighth grade, we had COVID.”
In his first year back in the sport, Klein achieved his goal, setting the Gladwin school record in the shot put and throwing his way to a third-place, all-state finish at the 2023 Lower Peninsula Division 2 Finals.
Now, with a little more seasoning under his belt, he’s looking for even more.
“The big goal is to be a state champ,” he said. “The second goal, with how I’ve been throwing in the (discus) lately, I think I can be all-state in both events. That’s a really big one for me, too.”
Klein’s immediate success as a thrower didn’t come as a total surprise, as he really was quite good in seventh grade. He’s also a 6-foot-3, 270-pound athlete who, as mentioned, was a starter on a state championship-winning football team. The baseline was there.
He also had a willing teacher in teammate Logan Kokotovich, a 2023 Gladwin graduate who was a captain and Klein’s teammate in football, and the Gs’ top thrower prior to Klein’s arrival.
“(Klein) threw in junior high and he was pretty good, and then last year he started off real strong,” Gladwin boys track coach Buddy Goldsworthy said. “After lots of work on just technique stuff, he realized all the things he was doing wrong, then he just started throwing 50 footers. One person that helped make a good transition was Logan Kokotovich – he was good at football, too, and good friends with Klein. He showed Klein how to do a couple things better.”
On May 5, 2023, at the Nike Trax Invite at Meridian, Klein first threw over 50 feet in competition. Five days later, at the Jack Pine Conference meet, Klein had his school record, throwing 51 feet, 9 inches, smashing the old mark of 50-5 set in 1988.
“I was starting to get up into the 50s, and I knew it was going to happen in the next meet,” he said. “I had been on a PR streak.”
He broke it again in his next meet, the first of four times he has eclipsed his chart-topping mark – which now stands at 55-4¼.
“He’s a big, strong kid, and he loved throwing in junior high,” Goldsworthy said. “We knew that he could be that guy. Now, we didn’t know he would be that guy so quickly. That was a pleasant surprise for us. He loves throwing. He spent a lot of time during the summer saying, ‘Hey, can we go up and throw? Can I take a shot or disc home this weekend and just throw?’ ‘I know you’re going to be gone on vacation, but can I have a shot to work on throws?’ He’s a real student of the game.”
Klein said he’s fallen in love with throwing, and there is certainly a part of him that wishes he had started as a freshman, knowing the massive leap he’s taken in such a short amount of time.
But his being so new to the sport makes him a very intriguing prospect for college coaches, if he chooses to go that route. There has been some communication, but Klein hasn’t decided yet if wants to follow up on throwing at the next level or go into the workforce by becoming an electrician, something that is waiting for him if he wants it.
“I was definitely not planning on (throwing in college),” he said. “I was actually a four-year starter for football, so that’s what I thought I was going to do. I’ve only been doing this for two years now, and I definitely can grow a lot more. A couple colleges have talked to me, and that’s what they were saying, that I really have a lot more potential.”
While he mulls over that decision, he’s working toward reaching those end-of-year goals he’s set, and also bringing along the next wave of Gladwin throwers.
“We talk about it a lot,” Goldsworthy said. “You want to leave a legacy. If you’re a jerk, no one’s going to remember, or they’re going to remember you not in the ways you want. He’s really taken that to heart and he’s the person that people want to be around. He’s going to be remembered that, yeah, he threw 60 feet, but he helped (junior Jacob) Hurst, he helped (freshman Harvey) Grove, he helped (freshman Nick) Brasseur. They’ll remember, ‘We wouldn’t have been as good if we didn’t have Klein around.’”
Klein said coaching also is in his future, whether that’s next year as he starts his career, or later down the line if he chooses to go to college.
With his mark already firmly left on Gladwin athletics, he wants to make sure others can do the same.
“I just like seeing my teammates grow,” he said. “We’ve got a freshman right now that’s really good. I told him, ‘I don’t care if you beat my record. I just want to be there to coach you through it.’”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Gladwin’s Logan Klein prepares to launch during a turn in the shot put circle. (Middle) Klein has high aspirations in both the shot and discus this spring. (Photos courtesy of the Gladwin athletic department.)