Monday, May 29, 2023
Since 1854 — News from Montcalm County and Ionia County, Michigan
If one were to sum up Ryan Binge’s high school academic performance in baseball pitching terms, the Montabella senior would have pitched a perfect game, earning his team the win and leading the club to a World Series.
The 17-year-old starting pitcher has been doing well on the mound for the Mustangs varsity baseball team this year. But it is in the classroom where he’s been most impressive, posting a pristine 4.0 grade point average throughout his high school career.
Carson City-Crystal’s boys track team won its first hosted track meet in four years with a Mid-State Activities Conference jamboree win on Wednesday at Community Field. The track teams from Montabella and Vestaburg showed some highlights in Wednesday’s meet with some personal records set and some big wins along the way.
On Tuesday, Montabella Athletic Director Derek Brown received notice from Lesa Lippert that she would be resigning from her position as varsity softball head coach, citing health reasons.
Lippert was in the midst of her second season as head coach. Brown wasted no time in attempting to find a replacement head coach for the season and one of his first phone calls was to the person who finished runner-up in the interview process for the softball coaching opening last year.
An epic basketball game for a district championship was sandwiched in between two local programs showing love and admiration for each other on Friday night.
The game started with smiles and handshakes for both the Montabella and Carson City-Crystal boys basketball team Friday night at Ithaca — it ended the same way. But at the start, those handshakes and smiles were going to be fleeting — only one team would walk away happy with the hardware.
No heartbreak this time for Lakeview’s wrestling team; no chance the Wildcats were letting Hesperia recreate the gut-wrenching loss from a year ago.
The Panthers came from behind to break the Wildcats’ hearts in the regional semifinal at their place last season. Lakeview has used the sheer sting of that loss as fueled motivation for this season and it ultimately led to Wednesday’s district final at Cook Gymnasium — the Wildcats’ noise-filled home.
Dakota Dykhuis grew up playing basketball and football.
He enjoyed the sports, he was good at them, he even saw success in them at the high school level.
Eight area wrestling teams are beginning their path toward postseason glory this week, first with the team district tournament on Wednesday.
Belding, Ionia and Lakeview are all hosting their districts while the other five are on the road for their respective tournaments — including Central Montcalm heading to Belding and Montabella heading to Lakeview.
Leading, 42-21, Montabella senior JT Smith brought the ball down the floor and set up the Mustang offense. The crowd was just waiting to explode for a special experience on Thursday in the Montabella Student Events Center against St. Charles.
Smith, teetering on the precipice of 1,000 career points, was feeling the scoring bug Thursday night in the Mustangs’ home opener. He felt it even before the game began. He knew going into the game exactly what he needed — 20 points.
Last season for the Montabella boys basketball team will go down in the record books as a success.
An 18-4 record, a shared conference title — the first in 10 years for the program — and a district finals appearance. That being said, the players on the court know just how much sweeter and more successful it could have been.
In the spirit of giving and in recognition of Giving Tuesday, Mt. Pleasant Agency and McArthur Insurance Agency are giving away $6,000 to organizations and projects in the central Michigan area.
