Special Year Thanks to No Specialization
August 7, 2015
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
As we embark on another sports-filled school year Monday, we can look to a recent Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central grad for the value of a school year filled with sports.
As specialization at the highs school level continues to be debated, Bryce Windham will start his college baseball career this fall at Division I Old Dominion University – after playing baseball but also football and basketball for the Falcons.
The MHSAA has long advocated athletes taking on as many sports as they have interest instead of focusing on just one in pursuit of a college scholarship – a position that’s received plenty of public backing of late, be it from stars of the U.S. women’s soccer team after their World Cup championship run or former Lansing Waverly multi-sport athlete John Smoltz during his enshrinement in the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame.
Enter Windham – who easily could’ve been excused for focusing on baseball, or even basketball as his dad is the St. Mary’s varsity boys coach. Instead, Bryce quarterbacked the football team to last season’s Division 6 championship – breaking Ithaca’s national-best 69-game winning streak in the Final – before being named Class C Player of the Year by The Associated Press in basketball and earning a Most Valuable Player honor at the baseball state coaches association all-star game at Comerica Park this spring.
All three of Windham's teams reached at least the MHSAA Quarterfinals.
“His participation in football and basketball helped land a Division 1 baseball scholarship to Old Dominion. They were able to see his athleticism in basketball and toughness in football, and ODU’s coach loved it,” dad and hoops coach Randy Windham said.
“He probably would’ve given up football, and that ended up his greatest memory by winning a state championship.”
Click to read about Windham’s multitude of accomplishments as reported last month by the Monroe Evening News.
Honors Abound
National coaching honors were bestowed on a trio of Michigan coaches over the summer:
- Retired Trenton ice hockey coach Mike Turner – the winningest hockey coach in MHSAA history with a record of 629-126-52 from 1974-81 and then 1995-2014 – was named National Coach of the Year in Special Sports by the National High School Athletic Coaches Association. His teams won 11 MHSAA titles and finished runner-up four times. “I was there when the MHSAA added hockey as one of their sanctioned sports and crowned their first MHSAA state championships in 1975. At that time there were 60-70 high school teams participating, and now there are 170,” Turner said. “It has been great to be a part of the advancements made in the sport of high school hockey, with more teams participating, more player development, and more opportunities that exist for players after high school.”
- Traverse City Central boys track and field and cross country coach John Lober won his second national coaching honor of the 2014-15 school year, named the NHSACA Coach of the Year for track and field to go with a previous honor earned in January from the National Federation of State High School Associations. He has coached the Traverse City Central boys track and field team since 1977 and also the boys cross country team since 1989. His 1992 track team won the Class A championship, and he has coached 17 individual MHSAA Finals champions. He was inducted into the Michigan Interscholastic Track Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2006.
- Ann Arbor Pioneer assistant girls swimming and diving coach Liz Hill was named the Assistant Coach of the Year for all girls sports by the NHSACA. Hill, a former All-American at the University of Michigan and standout sprinter at Pioneer, began assisting her husband Denny Hill in 1983 before becoming his fulltime assistant a few seasons later. Together they’ve led the Pioneers girls to 15 MHSAA team titles, the last two as co-head coaches.
Michigan Mourns
Fremont and the high school athletic community statewide mourned the death July 21 of longtime coach Rich Tompkins, who led Fremont’s boys cross country teams to six MHSAA cross country championships including three and a runner-up finish during his last decade of coaching before retiring in 1997.
The Muskegon Chronicle reported that his boys and girls cross country teams and boys track and field team combined for 45 league championships, with his boys cross country team winning 116 straight duals from 1977-88. Tompkins was executive director of the Michigan High School Coaches Association for more than a decade and served on its board for more than two decades.
Click to read more from the Chronicle on Tompkins’ legacy.
Officials in the News
The Monroe County Officials Association took to the county fair to encourage passers-by to “Be the Referee” – and received 47 sign-ups from people interested in the avocation. Visitors to an MCOA booth at the fair were told in some detail what is involved with being an MHSAA official, and those who then signed up to find out more about officiating football, basketball, baseball or softball (sports the MCOA trains for and schedules) will be invited to an orientation session where they will become eligible for one of 20 complimentary registration fees for this school year.
The West Michigan Officials Association marked a decade of support at the start of this summer for the Visually Impaired Sports and Activity Day, sponsored by the Helen DeVos Children’s Foundation. The WMOA has contributed nearly $18,000 to the event over the last 10 years as well as taking part in the event, which includes a number of sports and other activities.
The Saginaw Athletic Officials Association sent along this photo of five members who worked 2013-14 MHSAA Finals, from left: Mark Jarlock (baseball), Tom Behmlander (softball), Scott Helmka (football), Dale Brown (softball and football) and Mark Schoenow (football). The Baseball Final was Jarlock’s first; the other officials had worked Finals in the past.
PHOTO: (Top) Monroe St. Mary quarterback Bryce Windham unloads a pass during last season's Division 6 Final win over Ithaca at Ford Field.
Puzzle Coming Together as Goodrich Aims to Claim School's 1st Girls Soccer Title
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
May 6, 2026
Baylor Lauinger just can’t get enough of winning at Goodrich.
The junior has earned a pair of Finals titles with the Martians, as part of the Division 2 girls cross country champion in 2024 and the Division 2 girls basketball champion this past March.
Now, Lauinger and her Goodrich soccer teammates are looking to add to the school’s overflowing trophy case.
“I mean, it’s hard not to do all three of them when all three teams are very successful,” Lauinger said. “That’s just something that you want to be part of when you have a winning culture like we do. If you see a team having that success, I feel like other girls would want to join that. And it makes us push harder when we see all these other teams in our school that are winning.”
Behind a strong core of returning players in the midfield and back end who have been joined by a talented group of newcomers up front, Goodrich is off to a 10-2-1 start to the season and ranked No. 1 in the latest Michigan High School Soccer Coaches Association Division 3 poll.
That combination of talent and the depth of his roster have Goodrich coach Josh Back excited about the opportunities ahead.
“I always say I have all my puzzle pieces,” Back said. “This is the fifth year I’ve had (the program), and I have lots of puzzle pieces that I get to play with.”
Lauinger leads that returning group as an attacking midfielder. She’s already dished out 13 assists despite missing four of the Martians’ 13 matches, including both of their losses (Clarkston and Oxford).
“Last year, she was our goal scorer,” Back said. “She’s an awesome leader. These younger kids that come in, it doesn’t faze her one bit that the other girls are doing the scoring. She just wants to win.”
She’s finding success playing the ball forward to a completely new starting front line for Goodrich, which features freshmen Elliana Back and Sydney Place, as well as sophomore Bristol Cook.
Back has 18 goals and eight assists already, while Place has added seven goals. All three have years of club experience.
“This is the most soccer-savvy group I’ve had,” Josh Back said. “At times, there’s a learning curve with freshmen, but this year, they’ve stepped right in. They have that savviness and understanding of the game at the highest level. We lost our whole offense last year, and those two came in with our sophomore (Cook). As young as they are, the experience is there.”
The varsity experience is behind them, particularly at center back where Goodrich starts a pair of seniors in Lily May and Kaylee Eickhoff. They lead a defense in front of sophomore keeper Abigail Gagnon, who Josh Back called a “rockstar who doesn’t get enough praise,” who has allowed just eight goals through 13 games and has eight shutouts.
“They’re very important,” Lauinger said. “They’re the foundation of our back line, and they keep us ready. I think those two have been playing together for a long time now. Honestly, their defense really helps us with the goals, too. Their defense translates to offense.”
The pieces didn’t have much time to come together before being thrown into the fire. Not only were the newcomers asked to get up to speed early, but six members of the basketball team – Lauinger, Eickhoff, May, Place, junior Olivia Millerd and freshman Katerina Frederick – were playing in the season opener two days after claiming their Finals title at the Breslin Center.
And it wasn’t exactly a warm-up.
The Martians opened against Pontiac Notre Dame Prep, the No. 6-ranked team in Division 3, and followed that up with a trip two days later to Troy Athens, which is ranked No. 13 in Division 1.
They came out of their opening week 1-0-1, defeating NDP 6-0 and playing Athens to a 1-1 draw.
“I just think those two games were kind of like a wake-up call to show what we can do,” Lauinger said. “It shows how we can compete with high-level teams and shows the state what we are able to do. It definitely gets us ready for later.”
Later is coming up quickly, as the District tournament begins May 26 at Lake Fenton. Goodrich has won four straight District titles after not having won one since 2004. But Josh Back knows this team is capable of taking the next step, as all of the last four years ended with Regional losses, including shootout defeats against DeWitt both of the past two years.
“Hopefully this could be the first state title for Goodrich (in girls soccer),” he said. “But we have to get through the Districts and Regionals first – just one game at a time. The kids, they’re focused on the next one up. They just worry about tomorrow’s game. But I still think our goal of a state title is well within reach.”
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) Goodrich’s Baylor Lauinger (4) leads a rush downfield during a game this season against Ortonville Brandon. (Middle) The Martians’ Elliana Back (4) makes a move toward the net. (Photos by Tonya Wyczalek.)