John Raffel
Sports Scene
A coach who has a very challenging job this season is Midland High’s Steve Witt who has some very talented players to replace.
“Last year’s team featured a high powered offense with a young defensive corp,” Witt said. “We lost 3 All State players in Brendan Witt, Greg Landis and Luke Trombley which is tough to replace. They were great leaders, great students and great athletes.’
Key returnees for Midland are senior forwards Matthew Gross, Tom Pritchett, and Dylan Sirrine who provide senior leadership while defenseman Noah Eller and goalie Liam Grady provide stability on defense.
“Newcomer Matthew Babinski will be a prolific goal scorer along with freshman Tanner Squires and goalie Luke Buza,” Wit said. “We can surprise some teams down the stretch. We have two solid lines that can play with anyone and have strong and steady defense.
“Our goaltending is more mature and solid. We need to spread out the goal scoring The key for this team to have success we must out work the other team in the defensive zone and minimize turning the puck over.
Who expects to make splash during second half of season
Retuning state champions are Brighton in Division 1, Birmingham in Division 2 and Warren De La Salle in 3. Runner-ups were Detroit Catholic Central in 1, Forest Hills Northern in 2 and Calumet in 3.
Big Rapids was a state quarterfinalist and despite having only four seniors, the Cardinals have started out at 6-3-1. They beat Sault Ste. Marie 4-0 on Dec. 21.
“I thought it was an unbelievable effort,” Big Rapids coach Tim Blashill, brother of Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. “We have seven forwards and four defensemen but our kids competed the whole game. I was very proud of them.”
Hundersmarck has eight goals this season.
“Today we had a good D zone,” he said. “The wingers got the puck up to me. I just put one on net and good things happen when we put pucks on net.”
Area schools participating include Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook, East Lansing, DeWitt, Holt, Lansing Catholic, Grand Ledge, Lowell and Rockford in one, Bay City Central, Midland Dow, Midland High, Rochester Hills Stone Creek. Swan Valley in Division 2 and Big Rapids, Freeland, Saginaw Heritage and Okemo in 3.