Tecumseh Herald Sports

By MICKEY ALVARADO

After rains died down and strong winds subsided on Thursday, July 10, the Tecumseh Area Little League's (TALL) Major Girls softball team stirred up a storm of its own and won this years District 16 title at Clinton's Tate Park.

The group of girls won the 11-year-old division state championship last year at home in Raisin Township, and after beating Clinton 13-0 in the District 16 final they look to possibly pick up another.

TALL’s Major Girls easily rolled through the district games, giving up only one point the entire tournament. The Majors defeated Clinton 13-0 to start the tournament and pounded Adrian 19-1 to follow. The girls then secured the title with another dominating win against Clinton in the final. The Tecumseh girls avoided a double elimination championship contest by beating Clinton 13-0 in the final.

Tecumseh advanced to the state tournament in Mattawan and was scheduled to play on Wednesday.

TALL also had its 12-year-old Major Boys team win the District 16 title. The boys will advance to the state tournament in Bay City.

As the host of the District 16 Major Girl's Tournament, Clinton's Little League did an outstanding job of preparing the ball field after a heavy downpour soaked the ground only a half an hour before the game was to start.

Field conditions didn't factor into the contest after it started with Clinton able to keep its footing and shut down Tecumseh's first offensive attack. Tecumseh displayed its power as soon as the game started and attempted to score a run but was thrown out at home plate to end the top of the first inning.

By MICKEY ALVARADO

A brand new aluminum dock was recently installed on Globe Mill Pond, behind the Tecumseh Community Center, giving boating enthusiasts much easier access to the waterway adjacent to Indian Crossing Trails Park.

Many visitors already use the boat launch where the L-shaped dock was placed, and Tecumseh Parks and Recreation Director Pat Paul Sorise hopes the new addition will prod more visitors into trying out a canoe trip on Tecumseh's premier fishing pond. No boat? No problem. A canoe rental station has also been installed.

“It's something we've thought about doing for quite a while,” said Sorise. “We'd like to see more people using the waterways.”

While the docking is brand new to the pond canoes are certainly not. The department began renting them last year on a limited basis. Now renting one is easier than ever with the cost to use one lowered to only five bucks for four hours. A deposit is required but it too has been reduced in half to just $50. When the canoe is brought back undamaged the deposit is returned.

“The likelihood that we would be keeping that is slim to none,” said Sorise about the deposit. “It's there basically so someone doesn't steal the canoe or do major damage to it.”
A paddleboat is also available for rental at the Tecumseh Park (the Pit) for the same limited cost.

By MICKEY ALVARADO

A hot afternoon in July seems an unusual time to be thinking about football but there is no bigger priority on Tecumseh varsity football coach Jason Mensing's mind with just two and a half weeks between the last day of camp and the first official day of practice.
Coach Mensing has already had a successful camp focusing on defense for the varsity level, from June 23-25, and looks to have another with the younger athletes of Tecumseh. The second defensive skills camp, for grades 7, 8 and 9, begins on Monday, July 21, and runs to Wednesday, July 23.

Both camps emphasized defense with three main objectives set by Mensing and his staff this season. The first objective is to find a simple but practical defensive layout.
“Basically everybody in our league runs some sort of spread set,” said Mensing. “So we needed to run something where we could show simple coverages and run multiple coverages out of it, so it pretty much has to be a forced secondary look doing that.”
Mensing's second objective gets straight to another problem: tightening the playing field as much as possible.

“The trend right now is to run spill ends, bounce everything to the sidelines,” said Mensing. “We want to do the opposite. We want to run contain ends and shorten the field.”

The final stroke on the defensive drawing board is to be able to utilize the Indians smaller, quicker athletes.

“Generally we're not going to be as big and physical as say Ann Arbor Pioneer, so we want to find a way to take a 150-pound kid who's a tough nut and wants to get after it on the field and be successful doing it. We think we've found that.”

By MICKEY ALVARADO

Tecumseh residents are finding it hard to wait for the newest addition to the city’s hiking/biking trails to officially open and be ready for traffic and have already been seen using the unique asphalt path.

“People love it already,” said Tecumseh Parks and Recreation Director Pat Paul Sorise. “We're just waiting for good weather to finish the landscaping.”

A sign identifying the former railroad bed as a closed road may confuse those who are unfamiliar with the area but when completed the path will be clearly marked as a city trail. The unused railroad bed, between Cal Zorn Recreation Center and Tecumseh Acres Elementary School, fit perfectly into Tecumseh Parks and Recreation Department Director Pat Paul Sorise's overall plans of connecting as many of the parks with the city school's as feasibly possible. The “Russell Street to Union Street Trail” will be a wide asphalt path that runs from Russell Road north to Patterson Street behind the Nelson Park ball diamonds on Union.

There are four other proposed additions to the overall trail with the largest of the group running through Bird Park on north Maumee Street. Currently a wide wood chip trail leads visitors to the back of Globe Mill Pond where it ends near Herrick Park Elementary. Future plans include installing a walking bridge that connects Bird Park trail with Indian Crossing Trails Park to the east across a wide spillway that runs from Standish Dam to Globe Mill Pond.

Another extension would be to the Evans Creek Trail. Currently the trail runs from Tecumseh High School's tennis courts east along Evan's Creek behind Brookside Cemetery to Union Street. Phase II of the project will add another section to Evens Creek Trail from Evans Street to North Maumee Street at the front of Bird Park.

EAST LANSING - A record number of schools and teams were crowned champions in Michigan High School Athletic Association post-season tournaments during the 2007-08 school year.
With an additional division in Lower Peninsula boys and girls swimming, and co-titlists in two sports, the past year saw a total of 125 team champions in classes or divisions, and there were three schools winning their first MHSAA titles in any sport: Walled Lake Central in boys bowling; South Lyon in girls bowling; Garden City in softball; Morley-Stanwood in girls volleyball; and Greenville in wrestling. In addition, there were 27 other teams that won tournament titles in a given sport for the first time.
Twenty two of the 103 schools winning in 2007-08 took more than one crown, with six schools - Bay City All Saints, Birmingham Brother Rice, East Grand Rapids, Petoskey, Saginaw Nouvel and Tecumseh - claiming at least two championships each in unified tournaments. All Saints led the group with three titles - winning in baseball, boys bowling and softball, while the other five schools each had two championships - Brother Rice baseball and boys lacrosse; East Grand Rapids in boys lacrosse and football; Petoskey in boys and girls skiing; Saginaw Nouvel in girls basketball and football; and Tecumseh in girls bowling and softball. Marquette won eight total titles; while Ann Arbor Pioneer, Bay City All Saints, East Grand Rapids and Williamston each won three crowns. Sixteen of the MHSAA's 28 championship tournaments are unified, involving teams from the Upper and Lower Peninsulas, while separate competition to determine titlists in both Peninsulas is conducted in the other 12 sports.