Bassmaster Elite All-Star Event next week

Below is the first few paragraphs of our front-page story for this week — the Bassmaster Elite Series is bringing its All-Star event to the Muskegon and White Lake areas next weekend.

This weekend, the nationally-known Bassmaster Elite Series will stage its All-Star event locally, with 14 of the top anglers in the country competing over two days of fishing on Muskegon Lake Sept. 27-28, and culminating with the top four placers after two days gunning for the Evan Williams Bourbon Championship on White Lake Sunday, Sept. 29.

It will be the second time in a month that the Elite Series has brought a competition to Michigan after the Plano Championship Chase was held on Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River in late August. Prior to that, the series had never ventured into the state, said Eric Lopez, director of operations for the B.A.S.S. organization.

“We have lots of members in the Michigan area at the B.A.S.S. Nation level,” Lopez said, referring to the organization that certifies fishermen nationwide. “We have lots of people in Michigan who were asking when we were going to do an event here. It’s not that we’ve been ignoring Michigan, but there are lots of great lakes out there. It was time.”

Ultimately it was worth the wait, as Muskegon Lake and White Lake will play host to one of the most prestigious weeks on the tour, Toyota All-Star Week.

“We’re very excited to bring the best of the best to Muskegon,” Lopez said. “We’re bringing in 14 of the best for this three-day tournament.”

Why did the Bassmaster Elite Series choose the Muskegon and White Lake areas to host the All-Star event? Lopez said it came down to the area’s support of fishing.

“There are lots of awesome fisheries in Michigan, but looking at the communities, we wanted to go to an area that believes in and supports bass fishing and has the infrastructure,” Lopez said. “That area meets those criteria.”

Next week, it appears I'll be joining Mike Iacconelli, one of the anglers competing in the All-Star event, for his practice session on the water. This should be enlightening, to say the very least.

In any case, for anyone interested in fishing, this is a big event, probably the biggest sporting event to be held here in recent history. (The event will air in multiple parts on ESPN2 Oct. 13.)

What to Make of the Football Season So Far?

Montague's Chris Carroll breaks up
a pass last week against Ravenna. Montague
might be back on track after a slow start.
(Photo by Andy Roberts)

We're already a third of the way done with most teams' football seasons, and tonight we'll be 44% finished. That's depressing, folks.

What to make of what we've gotten so far? Here's a team-by-team look at our area's 6 football teams' seasons through 3 games:

Hart — Poor Hart. They're just too small a school to be playing in the West Michigan Conference. There are only about 20 kids on the entire squad this year, so the Pirates don't even have the luxury of a JV team. The results have borne that out — Hart got blitzed in Week 1 by an Onekama team it destroyed last year, and has since taken lopsided defeats against two of the better teams in the WMC in Oakridge and North Muskegon. Hart's never even played in the state football playoffs, which go back to the 1970s. There's been rumblings of late that Hart wants to leave the WMC, but they haven't made that move yet, mostly because of teams like soccer, competitive cheer, and others that might be without a home if they pulled the trigger.

Hesperia — Hesperia's story is probably the most interesting one so far. The Panthers are 3-0 for the first time since 1992. They've been helped by a relatively soft early schedule, but still, Hesperia is halfway to the magical six-win mark that would get them into the playoffs (they haven't been since 2007), and still has six games to collect the three remaining wins. They face winless Holton tonight, a win that Hesperia should be able to get. From there the road map is clear for the Panthers: they would just have to defeat Central Montcalm again in the season finale, as they did last year, and would have to flip the result of one of the four remaining games, all of which were losses last year (Lakeview, Newaygo, Reed City and Chippewa Hills). A couple of those games were close a year ago, and this Panthers team appears, at least early, to be far better than it was in 2012, so there's hope. It should be interesting to see how that progresses.

Montague — Montague might have figured something out at halftime of last week's Ravenna game. The Wildcats went into the locker room that day trailing 20-14 and on the precipice of a loss that would've severely damaged their chances of locking in their 13th straight playoff berth. But Montague exploded for five unanswered touchdowns in the second half, went to 2-1, and if coach Pat Collins' assertion that the team is going to look like that the rest of the year comes true, they'll be right on track. Sophomore quarterback Jacob Buchberger appeared to grow up very quickly in that game, and he has plenty of weapons with which to work. This week's game against Shelby will say a lot about whether the Wildcats really are on the uptick or whether last Friday was just a case of a better team imposing their will on a lesser one when the game was on the line. Last season, the Cats won a classic in OT in that matchup. Another one would, with layups against Hart, Mason County Central and (probably) Whitehall still remaining on the schedule, pretty much lock in the team's playoff bid.

Reeths-Puffer — The Rockets are tough to read so far, mainly because I haven't seen them yet. The vagaries of the schedule have disallowed me from seeing them in action until their homecoming game in two weeks. But what I've gathered from the stats is if R-P is in the lead, you're in trouble. Julian Munday and Dereko Riley have proven to be an extremely potent one-two punch at running back. The trouble for the Rockets will come if they fall behind, because quarterback Garrett Blanshine is not built for comebacks. R-P is 2-1 this year, but has very tough contests left with Muskegon, Mona Shores and Zeeland East in league play, not to mention tonight's game with East Kentwood, a lopsided loss for the Rockets a year ago. The Rockets will need to win at least two of those games to get to the playoffs in all likelihood, a tall task for a still-growing team.

Shelby — The train just keeps rolling for the Tigers. I've been as impressed with the job Lorenzo Rodriguez does as Shelby coach as I am with any sports team in the area, and it's because his team just wins with what it's got. Last year, the Tigers got to the Division 6 state semifinals on line play, defense and guts despite not really having game-breaking talent at any skill position, with the possible exception of linebacker Ben Schroeder. They're doing it again this year, with Forrest Courtright now playing the role of Schroeder. Shelby's 3-0 heading into tonight's big game with Montague. It's especially big for the Tigers because probably no team in the WMC has a tougher remaining schedule than Shelby. Hart and Ravenna should provide W's, but there's no other sure win on the slate, with Oakridge and North Muskegon looking like the class of the league so far. (Those two face off tonight, which should be interesting.)

Whitehall — The only area football team with a new coach, the Vikings were always going to face an uphill climb this year after graduating a talented crop of seniors and installing a new veer-based attack under Tony Sigmon. I don't think anyone thought it would be this rough, though, as the Vikings have just flat-out not been able to move the football. The team still doesn't really know who its QB is — Connor Rake has the job right now by default over fellow sophomore Zarren Aylor because the latter was tossed out of last week's game and by rule will sit this week as well — and by staying on the field so long, its defense is being left out to dry. In the Vikings' defense, they've faced an extremely tough conference slate so far, and tonight's game offers a chance to get healthy against Mason County Central, whose team is just as small as Hart's. But if the Vikes can't get this one, it'll be tough to see a win anywhere on the schedule except for perhaps that Hart game.

Golf and Tennis Results - Week of 9/13

Since a long fishing column and a bunch of soccer action has caused there to be a lack of room this week in the paper, here are the results for this week's girls golf and boys tennis action.

GIRLS GOLF

Whitehall 8th at Chip Hills Invite

REMUS — Whitehall placed eighth in an eight-team field Wednesday at the Chippewa Hills Invitational, shooting a 557 as a team. Seventh-place Alma had a 505. Farwell and Central Montcalm tied for first place at the even, each shooting a 390.

Individual results were not reported for the Vikings.

Vikes drop dual to Manistee

WHITEHALL — The Whitehall Vikings dropped a dual meet at home Tuesday to Manistee, shooting a 276 to the visiting Chippewas’ 244.

Whitehall’s Taylor Mikkelson led her team in scoring Tuesday, shooting a 62, while Taylor Boyd added a 64.

Brooke Borgman shot a 72 for the Vikes, and Randi Mikkelson contributed a 78.

Manistee’s Fallon Gates led all scorers with a 46.

Rockets 2nd at conference jamboree

MUSKEGON — Reeths-Puffer’s girls golf team took advantage of playing on its home turf Monday afternoon, placing second in the O-K Black Conference jamboree at Lincoln Golf Club, up from fourth the previous week.

The Rockets’ team score of 209 was just 21 shots behind Mona Shores, which once again took first place.

R-P got top performances from Hannah Moss and Mikaela VanDuinen. Moss placed second individually at the meet with a 44, while VanDuinen’s 48 placed her in fourth.

BOYS TENNIS

Whitehall 3rd at Mona Shores Quad

MUSKEGON — Whitehall’s Tell Sutton led his team with a championship at first singles to help the Vikings place third at Tuesday’s Mona Shores Quad.

Sutton’s victory in the finals, 3-6, 7-5, 10-7 over Sam Kling of the Sailors, provided most of Whitehall’s scoring in the quad.

Connor Briegel won a match at fourth singles over Muskegon Catholic’s Mike Valachovic, 6-1, 6-0, and Andy Esh and Erik Butzer both won the consolation brackets at second and third singles respectively.

Jack Dillivan and Tim Hiemstra won their first-round match at first doubles over North Muskegon’s Brock Dobb and Levi Hardman, 6-4, 6-4, and Matt McCollom and Jack Zwemer took the consolation bracket at fourth doubles.

Vikes roll by Grant

GRANT — The Whitehall Vikings had to battle for a couple of flight victories, but as a team had little trouble taking out Grant Monday afternoon, 7-1.

The Vikings won five of their six matches in straight sets, with Erik Butzer being pushed to three sets by Grant’s Noah Meuwenburg at third singles before Butzer took the match, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.

At first singles, Tell Sutton easily dispatched Roman Aguilar, 6-0, 6-1. Andy Esh took down Simon Carlson at second singles, 6-2, 6-3.

Whitehall swept the doubles matches, all in straight sets. Picking up victories were Jack Dillivan and Tim Hiemstra at first doubles; Drew Bolles and Judd VanBergen at second doubles; Jacob Herbert and Alec Milliron at third doubles; and Matt McCollom and Jack Zwemer at fourth doubles.

Rockets down Muskegon Catholic

MUSKEGON — Reeths-Puffer easily dispatched Muskegon Catholic Monday in a non-conference match, 7-1.

The Rockets won three matches — fourth singles, third doubles and fourth doubles — by default, as the host Crusaders did not field players in those flights.

All the three Rockets’ players to win their matches did so in straight sets. At first singles, Zack Strong defeated Christian Stone, 6-2, 6-1. Second singles saw Luke Sessink dispatch Adam Lewis, 6-3, 6-0. Nate Grinwis defeated Jack Farrell at third singles, 6-0, 6-3.

At second doubles, Chandler Adame and Jesse Miller knocked off Connor Inglat and Mike Valechare, 6-1, 6-4.

Whitehall 4th at Grand Haven Invite

GRAND HAVEN — Whitehall took fourth place in the Buccaneer Fall Classic last Saturday behind first singles player Tell Sutton, who won all three of his matches.

Sutton defeated Grand Haven’s Korey Searle 7-5, 7-5, beat Zeeland East’s Nate Weeldreyer 6-4, 6-3, and received a forfeit victory against Grand Rapids Catholic’s Joey Ellis when Ellis had to retire due to injury. Ellis was ahead 6-0, 6-5 at the time of his forfeit.