Photo by R. Klompstra.

The Cedar Springs Red Hawk Varsity football team started their season with a 35-14 win last Friday over Tri-County on the Vikings’ home turf.  The offense came out strong, allowing the Red Hawks to beat the Vikings, and the defense held strong, only allowing two touchdowns throughout the night, and getting in an extra point block.

Quarterback Tyler Covell completed 6 of 9 passes for 102 yards and a touchdown pass, as well as ran for a touchdown. Brandon Slater caught the 38-yard touchdown pass.

Austin Wamser led the Red Hawks offense with 128 yards on 2 kick returns and a touchdown, rushed for 108 yards and a touchdown and added 24 yards on punt returns.

Hank Porter also helped Cedar Springs along with 72 yards on 10 carries.

The game was cut short by about three minutes due to lightning in the area.

“Our kids played hard and I was proud of the effort,” said Cedar Springs Coach Brian Busen. “However, we made a number of mental mistakes and some of our juniors weren’t ready for the speed of the game at this level.  I was also disappointed to get the lightning cancellation. We had some kids that we were getting into the game at that point and they missed out due to the weather.”

This Friday, Cedar Springs travels to Forest Hills Eastern, who is 0-1 after their 30-7 loss to Zeeland West last week.

Coopersville, Sparta, Comstock Park and Forest Hills Northern also won their games this week in the OK Blue. West Catholic and Belding lost.

It’s that time of year again—can’t you feel it? Time for some football!

Fans are looking forward to Friday night, August 26, when the Cedar Springs Red Hawks travel a short way north to take on neighboring rival the Howard City Tri County Vikings!

This year will mark the second year in a row the teams have met to renew a rivalry of years gone by. Before last year’s game, which the Red Hawks won 33-6, Cedar Springs had only played Howard City Tri County twice since Sand Lake and Howard City merged in the early 1960s. They played them in both 1982 and 1983, for the last game of the season, when they were part of the Tri River Conference. Cedar Springs lost 14-0 and 20-15, respectively. Prior to that Cedar Springs faced Howard City in 1954 and 1955, winning 60-0, and 64-0, respectively, when they were part of the Newaygo County conference. They did not face Sand Lake in the 1950s or 1960s, though they did play both Sand Lake and Howard City in earlier years.

Game time is 7 p.m. The Cedar Springs Cross Country team will run the game ball down the White Pine Trail to the Vikings’ football field, so be sure to get there early to see it happen!

Summer’s not yet over, and it’s time for the first high school football game of the season! You don’t want to miss the game on Friday, August 26, when the Cedar Springs Red Hawks travel to Tri County High School to take on the Vikings at 7 p.m. Get there early to see the Cedar Springs Cross Country team run the ball down the White Pine Trail! It’s a new tradition that was started last year, when the two teams met for the first time since the 1980s. Look for more info in next week’s Post!

On Saturday May 7, the Cedar Springs Track Teams hosted the Red Hawk Team Invitational. Using the MITCA team scoring system, the Lady Red Hawks scored 429.5 points to place fourth. Jenison took first place with 535 points while Ionia was second with 524.5
Senior Amber TerHaar was a double winner with winning throws in the Shot Put and Discus.  Sophomore Katie Weiler also took home an individual championship by winning the 3200 meter run.
Placing for the Red Hawks was:
First Place: Katie Weiler 3200 meter run; Amber TerHaar Shot Put and Discus.
Second Place: 3200-meter relay team of Maddie Pekrul, Caitlin McClurken, Kayla Ovokaitys, and Katie Weiler; Katie Weiler 1600-meter run.
Third Place: Sommer VanDyke 800 meter run; Abby VanDusen long jump; Aly Hamilton 100 and 200 meter dash; 400-meter relay team of Rieley Hondalus,  Sayge Wight, Abby VanDusen, Aly Hamilton.
Fourth Place: Maddie Pekrul 3200 meter run.
Fifth Place: Sommer VanDyke 1600 meter run; Jessica Titus 3200 meter run.

Row 1: Beth Bullen, Aiyana Plank.Row 2: Amber Dunham, Sam Alger, Brittany Lenardson, Jessica Naffziger, Ellen Pike, Brooke Gust, Kristen Bull, Mackenzie Frederick, Amber Barnes, Jessica Blackmer, Paige Gebhardt. Row 3: Coach Russel, Molly VonSeggern, Alexis Robinson, Tranaya VerStrat, Molly McCarthy, Monica West, Samantha Durkee, Megan Brunett, Shannon Leal, Seana Pursley, Coach Kennedy.

The Cedar Springs Red Hawks Varsity  Tennis team has been steadily improving their stats as the season slowly begins to warm-up in weather and match results. This past week, the varsity girls defeated Coopersville, Sparta, and swept West Catholic. The season has not been weather friendly, and two Saturday tourneys and some non-league matches had to be canceled. Practice was often indoors or outside in some blustery conditions. Despite this, the varsity has posted a respectable 5 wins 3 losses and 2 ties for the season. The league tournament is this Saturday, with regionals at Ludington on May 19.
Playing #1 singles is Brooke Gust. She is currently 2nd in the league and has a dual record of 9-2. She has added some pace to her game and mental toughness that has enabled her to maintain a high level of play. Following Brooke in the lineup is seniors Mackenzie Frederick at #2, and Brittany Lenardson at #3 singles. Mackenzie has 8 wins and 3 losses, and Brittany is 9-2, with a 5-match winning streak. Both play with great patience and are able to adapt their games to defeat different types of opponents. Senior Ellen Pike is #4 singles, and is a 2nd year player that gives the team a valid competitor at #4.
The doubles teams are led by seniors Amber Dunham and Jessica Naffziger. The #1 girls have five match wins with the latest against West Catholic, coming back from a 5-2 deficit to win 7-5, 6-0. They have improved each week, like the whole team, with top results. Following are #2 doubles Paige Gebhardt and Samantha Alger, with a 5-2 record and 4-match win streak. They have sound ground strokes and that inner drive to compete at a top level. Jessica Blackmer and Kristen Bull make up #3 doubles are on a 6-match win streak. Jess, a sophomore, and Kristen, a freshman, blend together well and complement each other with their skills in competition. Below them at #4 doubles are freshmen Megan Brunett and Shannon Leal. They have 4 match wins, with the latest 6-0, 6-0 against West Catholic. Following them are the #13 and #14 girls senior Amber Barnes and freshman Samantha Durkee.
The team has some big challenges ahead being positioned in 3rd place in the OK-Rainbow conference after duals. The team need to have a good day at conference on Saturday, May 14. The tennis year, despite the weather disappointments, has been one of gradual improvement in tennis skills and match competitiveness. Coach Kennedy credits his captains jess Naffziger and Brooke Gust for their leadership, and the rest of the seniors—Amber D., Brittany, Mackenzie, Ellen, and Amber B. for helping to move the team forward this year.

Alex Bray running with baton for the Red Hawks.

The Cedar Springs boys track team started their defense of the 2010 OK Blue championship with resounding victories in their opening double dual meet. The Red Hawks won every event in their 127-10 victory over Muskegon Oakridge and 122-15 victory over Mona Shores. Even with winning all the events, there were some stand-out performances of note. AJ Olszewski broke the school record in the pole vault at 14’6”, Alex Hemry won the 100, in a personal best of 11.0, and also won the 200 and anchored the winning sprint relays. Aaron Dault set a personal best in the high jump of 6’1”, and Derek Ash won the discus and shot put in personal bests of 127’4” and 43’.5”. Conner Mora led the young distant group with victories in the 1600 and 3200 while Justin Balczak provided victories in the 110 and 300 hurdles.

Trevor Hemry with the discus for the Red Hawks.

The team has spent the off season hard at work in the weight room and running in indoor meets to prepare for this season. The expectations on this team are sky high with their talented core of seniors that are 20-1 in conference dual meets since 2008, 17 straight, and 23-4 overall.

Even head coach Jeff Myers was impressed with the opening meet. “The team’s performance exceeded the coaching staff’s expectation,” he said.

The team’s next scheduled meet is Saturday, April 16 at Coopersville for the Bronco Classic. The Red Hawks are the 3 time defending champions of the meet and are looking for the Cedar Spring community to come spend a spring day supporting them.

Alec Hanmer scores against Muskegon. Hanmer was voted to the OK Blue All Conference team.

Hanmer and Porter voted all conference

The Cedar Springs boys varsity basketball team was eliminated from state tournament play last Wednesday after being defeated by the Muskegon Big Reds. The Red Hawks kept the game within reach until late in the third quarter, but the relentless trapping and pressing by the Big Reds defense proved to be too much for Cedar Springs and Muskegon went on to win by a score of 64-42.

Muskegon got out to an 18-8 lead after one quarter. The Red Hawks traded punches with the Big Reds and tied the 2nd quarter, but Muskegon still led by 10 at the half. Midway through the 3rd quarter, Cedar cut the Big Red’s lead to 7 on a Ryan Dines 3-pointer. Muskegon responded with a 9-0 run to end the third quarter and held a commanding 49-33 lead going into the fourth.

Junior Hank Porter goes to the hoop against Muskegon. Porter was chosen All conference honorable mention.

With 4:30 to go in the game and Cedar trailing by 22, Coach Secor put the five healthy seniors in the game (Andrew Klompstra is injured and was unable to play). The five seniors—Tyler Baker, Kyle Chaney, Alec Hanmer, Jake Holtrop, and Tyler Hinton—finished the game, playing together for the last time for Cedar Springs. During that time, Alec Hanmer hit two free throws and a jump shot, and then Kyle Chaney drove the lane for a lay up. Then Alec Hanmer hit Tyler Baker on a long pass and Baker made the lay up for the final Red Hawk basket of the season.

Ryan Dines led the Red Hawks with 12 points in the game, and Hank Porter had 10. Alec Hanmer had 9 points and a team high 7 rebounds. Tyler Baker had 6 points. Kyle Chaney and Derek Ash had 2 points each, and Jason Gingrich had one. The Red Hawks finished the season with a 9-13 overall record. The Red Hawks finished 3rd in the OK Blue with a 6-6 conference record.

Head Coach Andy Secor reflected on this year’s Red Hawk team after the final game of the season. “Our entire coaching staff really enjoyed working with this group of student-athletes and parents. This group came to practice everyday, ready to work hard and improve. One of the things I am most proud when it comes to this group, is how they re-established the way we like Cedar basketball players to act as role models. It is a great group of young men who have the chance to be very successful in life.”

Senior Alec Hanmer earned a spot on the OK Blue All Conference team, which is chosen in a vote by the league coaches. He led the Red Hawks in scoring for the season with 170 points. He also led the team in defensive assists (20). Alec was second on the team in rebounds (78), blocked shots (14) and steals (21), and 3rd in assists (25).

Despite missing 5 games with a knee injury, Junior Hank Porter was second on the team with 143 points and voted OK Blue All Conference honorable mention.

Hank led the team in scoring average with 8.94 points per game. He was 2nd in “charges taken” (7), and 4th in assists (24).

See more player stats on our website at www.cedarspringspost.com.

Trevor Hill lays one up against Greenville.

The JV Boys basketball team finished their season with a 10-10 record by defeating a tough Unity Christian squad on Thursday, March 3. The Hawks made 17 of 20 free throws to ice the victory, 51-49.

Coach Scott Taylor pointed out the team lost 5 games, over the course of the season, by less than 5 points each. Their OK-Blue conference record was 5-7.

Freshman Cameron Link was the high scorer for the season, including a 30 point effort at Coopersville. Sophomores Robert Klein, Trevor Hill, Jake Benton and freshman Austin Hilyer were typical starters and provided a balanced scoring attack. The team’s defense was also very strong.

Dakota Bekins was another freshman who provided key minutes off the bench. The rest of the team provided strong support when needed.

According to Coach Taylor, “The key to the success of our season boils down to how well the players got along on and off the court. Also, the continued daily improvement in practice.” Coach Taylor was assisted this year by Kevin Dines.

Beside the victory against Unity Christian, the season was also highlighted by a buzzer-winning game against Kenowa Hills. Austin Hilyer threw a long inbound pass and hit Cameron Link in stride as he dove to lay in the winning basket when time expired.

Coach Taylor added, “I am going to miss coaching this group. It has been truly my pleasure to coach them and be around them everyday.  They are a really fun group.

Hank Porter goes up for two against West Catholic.

After starting the OK Blue conference season with a disappointing 1-4 record, the Cedar Springs boy’s varsity basketball team needed motivation. “We set a goal about halfway through the year to finish in the top half of the conference, and we needed to win 3 of our last 4 league games to do it,” said Coach Andy Secor. With a victory over Forest Hills Northern two weeks ago and a loss to Comstock Park last Tuesday, the Red Hawks needed to win their last two league games to achieve their goal.

Last Wednesday the Red Hawks hosted West Catholic in a blizzard make up game. In the first half, the lead changed 6 times as the teams traded punches. The Red Hawks took a 4-point lead with 3:50 to go in the half on Tyler Covell’s second 3-pointer of the game. Then West Catholic took over and led 21-18 at halftime. The Falcons led 31-27 after 3 quarters, and extended their lead to 9 points early in the 4th. Then, with things looking bleak for the Red Hawks, senior Alec Hanmer took charge. Hanmer scored 12 points in the final 5:27 of the game. Hanmer hit two 3-pointers to keep the game close. Then with 4:01 to go and Cedar still trailing 40-33, Hanmer drove the lane and hit a short jumper, was fouled and made his free throw to cut the Falcon lead to 4. A Hank Porter 3-pointer cut the Falcon lead to one point. Then Hanmer hit another 3-pointer to give Cedar a 42-40 lead with 1:30 left. The Red Hawks got the defensive stop they needed and West Catholic was forced to foul.  Free Throws by Ryan Dines and Hank Porter iced the game for the Red Hawks. The final score was Cedar Springs 44, West Catholic 40.

“I’m not sure I’ve ever been part of a game where we finished on an 11-0 run to win by four points.” said Coach Secor. “It was one of those games where it would’ve been easy for us to mail it in, down 9 in the 2nd half and really struggling offensively. Alec Hanmer’s 9 consecutive points in the fourth quarter really got us going,” he said.

Hanmer finished with a game high 20 points along with 5 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 blocked shots. Porter had 9 points and Covell finished with 6. Ryan Dines had 4 points and a game high 6 assists, including 4 assists during the fourth quarter comeback. Jason Gingrich and Derek Ash rounded out the scoring for Cedar with 3 and 2 points, respectively.

The Red Hawks traveled to Belding last Friday for their final league game of the year. Cedar started the game red hot hitting 6 of their first 7 shot attempts and jumping out to a 13-0 lead. During that span Jason Gingrich and Hank Porter each scored 4 points while Alec Hanmer had 5. The Red Hawks led 13-4 after 1 quarter. Derek Ash and Hanmer scored on lay ups to start the second quarter. Then Kyle Chaney hit a baseline jumper and Ryan Dines hit a pull up jumper and the Red Hawks led by 11 with 2:07 left in the half. Then the wheels came off for Cedar as Belding went on an 8-0 run to end the half with the Red Hawks leading by only three 22-19.

A three pointer by Hanmer and a lay up by Ash built the Red Hawk lead back to 8 in the first 2 minutes of the second half. Ryan Dines also scored 6 points in the quarter and Cedar Springs had a 12 point lead after 3 quarters. Jason Gingrich made 7 of 8 free throws down the stretch and the Red Hawks hung on for a 55-47 victory. “We played 4 of the best minutes of the year out of the gate, jumping to a 13-0 lead” said Coach Secor. “Our mental toughness and poise was tested in the 2nd half by a couple runs by Belding. Playing at Belding is never easy and Coach Babbitt gets his teams to play very hard.  In the end, we made some key plays on offense and enough free throws to get by.” he said.

Alec Hanmer and Jason Gingrich led Cedar Springs with 13 points each. Ryan Dines had 11 points and led the team with 4 assists. Derek Ash had 9 points and Hank Porter had 4. Kyle Chaney and Trey Reed had 2 points each. Tyler Baker had 1 point and led Cedar with 6 rebounds. The 2 victories gave Cedar a 3rd place finish in the OK Blue Conference. The Red Hawks final regular season game is Thursday, March 3rd at Cedar Springs High School as they take on the Unity Christian Crusaders. Before the game the Red Hawks will honor their six Seniors who will be playing in their final home game. The Freshmen game begins at 4 PM, followed by the JV at 5:30 and the Varsity at 7.

The Red Hawks begin state tournament play in the district tournament at Grand Haven High School on Wednesday, March 9th at 6 PM as they take on the winner of the Mona Shores vs Muskegon game.

Congratulations to Red Hawk wrestlers Austin Wamser and Nic Baird, who will wrestle in the state finals next week.

Two Cedar Springs Red Hawk wrestlers, junior Austin Wamser and senior Nic Baird, are headed to the 2011 Individual State Finals at the Palace of Auburn Hills March 3-5.

Both Wamser and Baird clinched fourth place wins at the Individual Regionals at Dewitt on February 19. Wamser lost his first match to Cody Kline from Clio 9-7, then came back to beat Sean Rusaw from Fenton 12-2 and Codie Naylor from Corunna 5-3 to take his place at state .

Baird had a battle of his own. Losing his first match to Nick Baker from DeWitt 10-4, Baird’s never give up attitude fueled his win against Austin Golden from Linden 9-5. With everything at stake, Baird’s next match was against Tyler Pastor from Fruitport. When Baird and Pastor last met, it didn’t go so well for Baird. Looking to be the victor, Baird took his attitude to the mat and proved to all that this was the match of the day! Baird, who was down in points and came close to getting pinned, returned and pinned Pastor with only 1.8 seconds left in the first period.

Congratulations to the entire Cedar Springs Red Hawks wrestling team for a great season and good luck to Baird and Wamser at the 2011 Individual State Wrestling Finals!