By John Raffel
MaxPreps.com
Mark Keeler and his Wyoming Tri-Unity Christian basketball team takes the regular season very serious.
But being ready to go by the time the postseason comes around in early March is especially important for Keeler, whose team is the defending Class D state championship.
Class D is the division with the smallest enrollments in the state. Tri-Unity Christian, which has started out 2-1, has six Class A schools on its 20-game schedule.
"It's a solid schedule," Keeler said. "I think we're a good team. Our only loss was to Hopkins at their place in overtime, 70-68. We're going to improve as the season goes on. It's going to be a challenge. We'll have some losses."
At the end of the regular season last year, Tri-Unity Christian was 12-8. But the team went 8-0 in the playoffs to win the state title with a 20-8 mark.
"From that team, we lost two key players who got scholarships for college basketball, Andy Venema and John Viszer," Keeler said.
But Tri-Unity Christian's roster is stocked with key players, like Matt Buersem, a 6-4 forward and starting point guard, Jared Mysliwiec, a sophomore.
Also playing a key role is 6-8 junior Dan Possehl and 6-3 senior forward Dan Scafe.
Keeler is confident that his team can go after another state title.
"We need to play good defense. That's the key," Keeler said. "We need to keep our turnovers down."
Hockey
Grand Rapids Catholic Central is the defending Division 3 state runner-up and coach Alan Kranzo wouldn't mind seeing his team take another shot at the top spot.
Catholic Central has started off with an 8-3 record.
"We're a younger team from last year," Kranzo said. "We're off to a pretty good start. We've played in a couple of tournaments.
"We were 2-0 up in Alpena. We had a good win againt a good Allen Park team there. We also defeated a good Grosse Ile team. We stumbled at Traverse City this past weekend and played some good competition."
Catholic Central has key home games this weekend at their arena, Griff's Ice House, which is also a practice facility for the Grand Rapids Griffins of the American Hockey League.
"We have some talented players back from last year," Kranzo said.
Kevin Boman, a junior forward, leads the team in scoring with 10 goals.
"He had a four-goal game last weekend," Kranzo said, adding that junior Clayton Brackett is another contributing forward for Catholic Central. Adam Janecyk, a junior "has given us good goaltending so far," Kranzo said.
Kranzo hopes his team can win the Grand Rapids City League championship and then again contend for the state title.
"We've played some good competition. We have a lot of good games coming up," Kranzo said.
Volleyball
East Kentwood's volleyball team is off to an impressive start in its bid for another Class A state championship.
Coach Roxane Steenhuysen's team is off to a 12-2 start.
"Both of our losses came to Grand Rapids South Christian, an excellent Class B team," Steenhuysen said. "We have nine returning players from last year."
That includes Lauren Jones, an outside hitter, who will be going to Penn State next season and middle blocker Katie Schwartz, who will be going to Belmont, located west of Nashville, plus libero Megan Racette, who has committed to Western Michigan University, and Rachel VanderWall, a senior outside hitter, who will play her college volleyball at Hillsdale College in Michigan.
'We're having a good year," Steenhuysen said. "We have kids who are good defensive players at digging and blocking.
"We're hoping for good things. We try to improve every day."
East Kentwood ended up 27-6 last year. They won a state title in 2000 and were runners-up in 2004.
Steenhuysen said Jenison, Grand Haven and Portage Northern will also be Class A volleyball state contenders.