2b
• June 9, 2016 • Oceana’s Herald-Journal
Improved Falcons stay close Tigers’ Keaton Inglis qualifies for state golf finals with Brethren in semifinal loss By Greg Gielczyk
By Andy Roberts
Shoreline Media
Herald-Journal Writer
SCOTTVILLE — Shelby junior golfer Keaton Inglis is headed to the state tournament as one of the top individual qualifiers after shooting a 79 at Thursday’s regionals at Lakeside Links. Inglis had the top individual qualifying score outside of the three team qualifiers, edging out Cheboygan’s Adam Jeannotte and Tri-County’s Marcus Hall by a shot for that honor. He was fourth place among all players. As a team, Shelby took sixth place with a 354, only 13 shots behind Houghton Lake, the third and last state-qualifying team from the regional. Big Rapids won the title, with Manistee second. Following Inglis, the Tigers got scoring performances from Jeff Beckman, Andrew McCo-
• Contributed photo
Shelby golfer Keaton Inglis (right) and coach Rick Zoulek pose for a photo. Inglis advanced to the state finals with a 79 at Thursday’s regional tournament.
nnell and Danny Beckman. Jeff Beckman and McConnell each shot 90s, and Danny Beckman had a 95. Chris McConnell was directly behind Danny Beck-
State track
formances in the 3,200 highlighted a great day for Hart girls track, which took sixth place as a team with 25 points, tied with Benzie Central. Albus also earned some points for Hart by taking third place in the 1,600-meter run. Her time of 5:04.86 was a personal best and was less than a half-second away from a runner-up position. “I was pretty proud of Alayna and Sierra,” Adelyn Ackley said. “(Sierra) got third in the mile and then came back and got sixth in the two-mile. Alayna getting fourth (in the 3,200) is pretty awesome too.” The Pirates’ Lexi Gale also shined in the pole vault, breaking her own school record in the event yet again. Her vault of 10-0 was good enough to finish in eighth place. Hart’s 3,200-meter relay team of Albus, Alayna Ackley, Kassidy Baum and Adelyn Ackley took 11th place at the state meet, with a time of 9:59.52. Jacob Hoebecke, the only Pirates’ boys qualifier, ran a personal best time of 23.38 seconds in the 200-meter dash to finish in 23rd place. Panthers’ trio place high at state
COMSTOCK PARK — Hesperia athletes Arik LaFave, Nate McKeown and Hannah Sperry each earned at least one top-8 finish at Saturday’s Division 3 state finals track meet. LaFave was the Panthers’ top finisher, earning a third-place finish in the 1,600-meter run. LaFave capped his decorated high school career with a time of 4:23.15 in the event. McKeown, who entered the meet as the defending state champion in the high jump and the top seed in the event this year, settled for fifth place Saturday with a mark of 6-3. It was the first time this year McKeown did not win a high jump event he’d entered. The contest was close, with just five inches separating the three jumpers who tied for ninth place from the state champion, Saranac’s Joe Conley. The senior McKeown also medaled in the long jump, taking sixth place with a leap of 20-8.25. The long jump was also a tight competition, with only 9.5 inches between seventh place and state champion John Mitrzyk of Standish-Ster-
man. It was the final varsity outing for the veteran Chris McConnell, as it was for the Beckmans in their first year of varsity golf.
from Page 1b
David Bossick • Shoreline Media
Above, Hart’s Lexi Gale begins her ascent while competing in the pole vault at Saturday’s Division 3 state finals track meet at Comstock Park. Gale set a new school record in the event and finished in eighth place. Below, Hesperia’s Arik LaFave (2) races with a pack during the 1,600-meter run. LaFave placed third.
ling. Sperry placed seventh in the 400-meter dash, her best event this year, with a time of 1:00.13. She was less than a second away from the top four. Sperry also took 19th place in the 200 dash, with a time of 27.49 seconds. Hesperia’s 1,600-meter relay boys team of Logan Eaves, Ryder Helms, LaFave and McKeown placed 18th with a time of 3:33.76. Shelby’s Spencer Brown was the only Tiger to participate in the Division 3 state finals track meet, and he did well to tie for 12th place in the high jump. Brown’s leap of 5-11 put him alongside seven other competitors in 12th. Falcons’ Hall leads D-4 athletes
GRAND RAPIDS — Pentwater’s Julia Hall concluded a spectacular freshman season at Saturday’s Division 4 state finals track meet by taking fourth place in the 100-meter dash, one of her three events at the finals. Hall barely slipped into the event finals as the eighth qualifier following the prelims, but
crossed the line in the finals in 12.81 seconds, just over a half-second behind the state champion, Concord’s Lindsey Lehman. The Falcons’ freshman also competed in the 200-meter dash, where she finished in 10th place with a time of 27.04 seconds, setting a new school Hall record. In the long jump, Hallwas 13th with a leap of 15-2. Other Falcons to compete Saturday were Grace Alvesteffer, who placed 21st in the shot put with a throw of 31-6.5, and Brianna Adams, who was 23rd in the 400-meter dash with a time of 1:10.37. Kirstin Sibley carried the banner for Walkerville at the state finals meet, posting an impressive 13th-place finish in the shot put, second-highest among all freshmen competing. Her throw was 33-5.75.
ONEKAMA — Few could have imagined the Pentwater Falcons baseball team making such dramatic improvement in just a couple of weeks, but that’s what happened. The Falcons went from a team that struggled in the field and at bat early in the season to one that could stay with one of the top two teams in the West Michigan D League. With a berth in the district championship game in the balance, Pentwater hung with the Bobcats all the way in a game marked by superlative defensive plays and outstanding pitching that quieted both team’s offenses. The Bobcats eventually prevailed, 4-1. “We made a couple of minor mistakes, I think,” Falcons’ head coach Rick Magrath offered after the game. “We had to be flawless. We knew that. We made a couple of mental mistakes here and there, but all four runs I think were unearned (in fact, three runs were not earned). “Overall, I think we did okay. We grew as a team this year, which is remarkable. I’m so proud of them. We had a couple of people on base. We could not get them across the plate. That was it.” Brethren took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning as Pentwater freshman righthander Glenn Miller struggled early, plunking Bobcats’ leadoff hitter senior Kyle McLeod. McLeod got into scoring position with a steal and scampered home easily thanks to a double off the bat of senior Josh Riggs. Miller got out of the inning without further damage by striking out Brethren junior Jacob Cook. The Falcons plated their only run of the game in the bottom of the first to tie the score, 1-1.
Shelby’s Spencer Brown leaps over the high jump bar during the Division 3 state track finals Saturday at Comstock Park. Brown finished in a tie for 12th place.
Pentwater’s Billy Sproul (14) steals second base against Brethren in a district semifinal baseball game Friday afternoon in Onekama, beating the tag of Bobcats’ second baseman Jake Riggs (5).
Sophomore Billy Sproul beat out an infield single to lead off the inning and reached second on a throwing error. Sproul advanced to third on a wild pitch by McLeod. After the next batter struck out, the Bobcats committed another error, this time when the shortstop bobbled Miller’s grounder, allowing Sproul to score. Brethren ended the inning with a double play. Pentwater put two runners on with one out in the second inning on a walk to junior Phillip Stone and when freshman Max Stoneman was hit by a pitch. But the Falcons left them stranded on the bases thanks to a pair of strikeouts. Brethren struck for two runs in the top of the third inning on a run-scoring single by McLeod and an error. The Falcons threatened again in the bottom of the third when Sproul led off with a single. He was erased on a fielder’s choice on a grounder by sophomore Iain Stewart, who then stole second. Miller was hit by a pitch, but again the Falcons stranded both runners. Stoneman singled with two outs in the fourth but nothing came of that, either.
Emily Gebhart, the only senior on the team, worked her way on with a walk to lead off the Falcons’ fifth. But she was forced at second on a fielder’s choice, a runner was picked off first and the last batter struck out. Magrath was impressed with Miller’s performance. “Glenn did an amazing job. He has really grown so much this year,” the Falcons’ skipper said. “He and (fellow freshman) Jake (Veine) worked really well as a tandem, mixing up pitches, keeping them off balance, which is what we knew we had to do. “So he did a nice job mixing fastballs and off-speed (pitches), and that worked. It kept them off the board and that was good.” With everyone but Gebhart coming back, Magrath is looking for big things out of this group next year. “I had a lot of ninth and 10thgraders out there, and a couple of juniors in the outfield,” the skipper said. “We were so close this year. You could taste it. Couple of hits in the right moment and we would have been okay.”
District softball
spearheaded a five-run fourth for Montague with a three-run triple with two outs. Chase Jancek would follow with a run-scoring double to make the score 8-5. In the top of the fourth, Hesperia played small ball, managing to get three runs across the plate without getting a ball out of the infield. That tied the score. Then a two-run single and an RBI double by Claire Rumsey put the Panthers in front, 11-8. Two more runs would follow, and Hesperia held a 13-8 advantage. The battle continued, though, as Montague got two runs in the bottom of the fourth to pull within three. In the fifth, disaster struck when Rice, Montague’s best slugger, stepped into the box and cracked a three-run home run to left center to tie the game at 13. Montague pushed across a run in the sixth on an infield single by Smith, but the Panthers never said die, and Lilah Majersky’s two-out single to left field would, with the help of an error, bring around the tying run. Neither team did much in the eighth. In the ninth, Kaecie Hornsby reached on an error, but was erased on a double play groundout. That set up the bottom of the ninth and Rice’s heroics. Rice had walked to begin the inning and reached second on an infield single by Courteney Lohman. The offenses ruled the day, with Montague collecting 19 hits to Hesperia’s 12. Each team also took advantage of walks, especially the Panthers, who got three free passes from Ceara Thomas and two each from Hornsby and Alexa Klemundt. Mariah Stitt pitched the majority of the game, going 8 1/3 innings while striking out four, though Klemundt stepped in a couple of times to relieve Stitt. Masen Majersky had three RBI to lead the Hesperia offense. Hesperia 12, Shelby 9
Jim Cherry • For the Herald-Journal
Greg Gielczyk • Shoreline Media
SHELBY — Hesperia advanced to the district finals by pulling off a 12-9 win over Shelby in an eight-inning shootout Saturday afternoon. The two teams began the game looking as though they would score even more runs than that. The Panthers ripped
from Page 1b
Andy Roberts • Oceana’s Herald-Journal
Shelby’s Sarajane Fortier (right) is able to catch a pop fly despite colliding with Tigers’ centerfielder Kendall Felt on the play during Saturday’s district semifinal game against Hesperia.
off four runs in the top of the first before the host Tigers (1720) responded with six in the bottom of the frame. Four of those runs came on three consecutive home runs by Kendall Felt, Tori Mussell and Jaelyn Love. Felt’s came with Sarajane Fortier on base. Ashley Frees and Sophie Clark added consecutive RBI groundouts later in the inning. The pace slowed down somewhat from there, and Shelby held a 7-5 lead going into the sixth inning, with Felt’s second home run of the game accounting for the Tigers’ addtion. Kaecie Hornsby delivered an RBI single in the sixth to make it 7-6, but Shelby came back with a run of its own when Frees reached on an error and managed to make it all the way around the bases on the play, making it 8-6 Tigers. Hesperia was seemingly dead in the water with two outs in the seventh, but the Tigers avoided facing Claire Rumsey by walking her, putting the tying run on first base. It was Rumsey’s third walk of the game. Alyssa Miller capitalized on her chance, ripping a two-run double before being thrown out at third base. Shelby nearly scored the gamewinning run in the bottom of the seventh, but Mariah Stitt threw Fortier out at home plate on a tag play to send the game to extra innings. In the eighth inning, Hesperia got the first two runners on base and went on to load the bases. Ceara Thomas coaxed a bases-loaded walk to give her
team a 9-8 lead, then two more runs came across on consecutive wild pitches. A sacrifice fly then made the score 12-8. Shelby didn’t go quietly, scoring a run on a bases-loaded hit by pitch against Olivia Mussell, but Mariah Stitt, who had come on in relief in the inning, struck out Sarajane Fortier and Felt to give Hesperia the victory. Stitt had five hits in the game, and Felt had three to lead the Tigers. Montague 12, Hart 2
SHELBY — Hart entered Saturday’s district semifinal game against two-time district champion Montague hopeful for an upset after having split with the Wildcats in the regular season. However, Montague shut the door on that thought quickly and rolled to a 12-2 win over the Pirates. Montague held Hart off the scoreboard until the sixth inning of the game, and by the time the Pirates finally broke through, Montague had nine runs in the books. Alison Altland put Hart on the board in the sixth, lining a single off pitcher Courteney Lohman to score Miranda Unger, cutting Montague’s lead to 9-1. However, in the seventh inning, the Wildcats would add three more runs. Hart pushed across another run in the seventh inning on an RBI infield single by Unger, but it was too little, too late for the Pirates. Hart, which improved tremendously from the previous several seasons, concluded the year with a record of 13-17.