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.
1st-Time Semifinalists Walled Lake Northern, Grand Haven Earn Championship Chance
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
June 11, 2026
EAST LANSING — When Walled Lake Northern senior ace pitcher Lyla Turmell faced Northville in a tournament at New Baltimore Anchor Bay on April 25, things didn’t go as planned in a 6-3 loss.
Getting another chance at Northville in a Division 1 Semifinal at Michigan State’s Secchia Stadium on Thursday, Turmell said there were plenty of mental notes to recall from that first meeting.
“We played them earlier in the season, so I kind of knew some of them,” Turmell said. “I knew the hitters, (that) I had to move the ball out more or in more. It 100 percent helped.”
It certainly did, as Turmell limited a powerful Northville offense to just five hits in a 2-1 Northern victory.
In doing so Turmell, who has signed with Toledo, also helped guide the Knights to their first state championship game, where they will meet Grand Haven at 10 a.m. Saturday.
Northern head coach Kristen Woodard said she didn’t offer any special advice to Turmell before the game – other than to just be herself.
“To hit her spots, and I know she’s tough and can do that,” Woodard said.
While Turmell led the Knights in the run-prevention category, sisters Aubrey Kresbaugh and Makenna Kresbaugh provided the offense.
A sophomore, Aubrey Kresbaugh opened the scoring, leading off the game with a home run to right field to give Northern a 1-0 lead.
Northville countered with a run in the bottom of the first inning, tying the game at 1-1 on an RBI single by sophomore Jocelyn Burns after senior Kendall Heron had tripled.
It was the predictable pitcher’s duel from that point between Turmell and Northville senior ace Mary Gugala, until Northern broke through in the sixth.
With Aubrey Kresbaugh on third base and two outs, Makenna Kresbaugh hit a liner to right that ended up dropping for an RBI single that gave the Knights a 2-1 lead.
Northville got its leadoff hitter on base in the seventh inning on an error, but a double play on a popped up bunt, plus a strikeout, ended the game.
Gugala was just as brilliant in defeat for Northville, tossing a four-hitter and striking out 10.
The Mustangs (35-5-1) were making their first Semifinal appearance as well.
“That’s been Mary Gugala for three-plus years,” Northville head coach Scott DeBoer said. “She’s been somebody that just digs deep, and things don’t bother her. She’s only 5-foot-3, but she’s got a heart that’s bigger.”
Grand Haven 8, Macomb Dakota 3
It’s not a formula that Grand Haven head softball John Hall coach wants to consistently follow, but it has sure worked for his team thus far in the MHSAA Tournament.
The Buccaneers have consistently fallen behind in games, but rallied for victories, which happened again against Dakota in the first Division 1 Semifinal.
Grand Haven spotted Dakota a run in the bottom of first inning, but once again roared back in advancing to its first championship game.
“To me, we’re the hunters,” Hall said. “We were down 1-0 to Reeths-Puffer. We were down 4-0 to Rockford. We were down 1-0 to Hudsonville, we were down 1-0 to Traverse City Central and came back to win every game. It wakes them up. I’m not saying we want to go down 1-0 in every game. But it fires them up and wakes them up.”
After Dakota took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning on an RBI single by senior Kiley Phelan, Grand Haven responded with a run in the top of the second on an RBI groundout by senior outfielder Claire Sova to tie the game at 1-1.
The Buccaneers then plated two runs in the third inning on an RBI sacrifice fly by senior Lorelei Chiciuk and an RBI single by junior Makenna VandenBrink. Grand Haven then broke the game open in the fifth, scoring four times to take a 7-1 lead. VandenBrink had an RBI single and Sova another RBI groundout during the rally that was aided by a Dakota error.
The run support was more than enough for Chiciuk, the team’s ace who settled down after a rocky first inning.
Chiciuk didn’t allow a hit in the second, third and fourth innings and pitched out of some trouble, most notably in the sixth when she got out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam with two strikeouts. Sova also made a diving catch to end the fifth inning and save a run.
Chiciuk finished with 15 strikeouts as she moved toward 400 on the season.
“I’ve noticed through every game, the first inning is always the ice-breaker where I go through rocky stuff,” Chiciuk said. “There’s going to be something that happens. But it’s the comeback that happens.
Grand Haven (34-7-1) collected 10 hits.
“We hit all our metrics today,” Hall said. “We love 8 to 10 hits, we love to score four or five runs, and you need about one or two ESPN plays (defensively).”
Dakota made somewhat of an unexpected run in the tournament, with the signature win a 7-5 triumph over No. 2 New Baltimore Anchor Bay in a District Final.
The Cougars advanced to the Semifinals for the first time since finishing Division 1 runner-up in 2022.
“We applied pressure, we got runners in scoring position,” Dakota head coach Shelby Weeks said. “We just couldn’t come up with those key hits today. That’s just how it was for us. The girls fought the whole seven innings.”
PHOTOS (Top) Walled Lake Northern players celebrate after their Semifinal win over Northville on Thursday at Secchia Stadium. (Middle) A Grand Haven hitter drives a pitch during her team’s Semifinal victory.