In their first game of the season, the Chix beat Allendale by a score of 9-1.  Prince broke her own single-game scoring record in that game, putting six shots past the goal-keeper, and throwing in an assist for good measure.

Tough effort to follow, sure.  But that didn’t stop Prince from trying in the Chix’ home opener, a 4-0 victory over Wayland Union.  Of those four goals, Prince scored three and assisted on the other.  Not like game one, but all in all a pretty good game.

Talk about ridiculously high standards.

Prince’s stats after two games?  9-goals, 2-assists and 2-wins.  Zeeland East opponents’ stats after two games? 1-goal, 0-wins.  Nuff said.

Congratulations to Abbie Prince, this week’s DU Panthers West Michigan All Star. If you know someone worthy of the honor, go to woodradio.com, keyword athlete.

GR Union's Ladon Carnegie

This week’s Good GMC West Michigan All Star is Ladon Carnegie. Ladon is a junior forward on the Grand Rapids Union basketball team.

Carnegie posted remarkable averages of 26.6-points, 5-assists, 4-rebounds and 4-steals per game in his senior season, leading the way for the RedHawks’ during their 19-2 season and their second consecutive O-K Black Conference championship.

Not too shabby, I’d say.  The Associated Press agreed, recently naming Carnegie to the Class-B all-state boys basketball team.

Carnegie’s is the type of consistently dominating performance that doesn’t come easily, or naturally.  Union coach Terrence Williams credits long, hard hours of work in the off-season for Carnegie’s performance during the RedHawks’ season.  Carnegie illustrates perfectly the correlation between “gym-rats” and “allstars.”

Congratulations to Landon Carnegie, this week’s Good GMC West Michigan All Star. If you know someone worthy of the honor, go to woodradio.com, keyword athlete.

Keep up with the latest action and analysis by becoming a WMA fan on Facebook, or join the conversation by following WMA on Twitter.  Heck, even start your own topic over at Allstars Among Us.

Huntey is pretty good for a youngin

This week’s Good GMC West Michigan All Star is Alexis Huntey, basketballer for Morley-Stanwood.

If you were told that a player lead her team to stretch of a 48-3 record, what would you think?  That she was a superstar?  That she played her best basketball over the duration?

How about she’s just getting started?

Alexis is only a sophomore.  She lead Morley-Stanwood to a 48-3 record, including 24-2 this year, over her first 51-games.  Coach Bob Raven credits Alexis as being a huge help in their 24-2 season, explaining that he thinks she might be the teams most versatile player, and the best pure shooter he’s ever had.  And in recognition for all this, she was recently named first team All-State in class-C.

Not bad for a girl with two more years to play.

Congratulations to Alexis Huntey, this week’s Good GMC West Michigan All Star. If you know someone worthy of the honor, go to woodradio.com, keyword athlete.

Keep up with the latest action and analysis by becoming a WMA fan on Facebook, or join the conversation by following WMA on Twitter.  Heck, even start your own topic over at Allstars Among Us.

As a freshman playing on Kelloggsville’s varsity bowling team, Jessica was awarded All Conference and All Area honors. She finished ranked second in the state in Division-3 bowling, and brought home a second place finish at the state finals.  This would have been a career crowning achievement for most athletes, but Jessica was just getting started.

After all, second place isn’t first place.

In her sophomore year, Jessica one-upped even herself.  She placed first at conference, second at regionals, and won the individual bowling state championship for Division-3, all while carrying an average of 202.  She lead her team to a conference championship, a second place finish at regionals, and made the top-16 teams at the state tournament.  While she has reached the pinnacle of her sport as an individual, the next step in Jessica’s development is as a leader.

Which shouldn’t be a problem.  Jessica is a great kid with a big heart, the type of athlete who lifts up her teammates no matter how they’re bowling.  As a sophomore, she is already a key cog in the Kelloggsville machine.

And she’s got two more years to improve.

Congratulations to Jessica Lubbers, the Davenport University West Michigan All Star.

If you know of a student athlete who deserves to be honored for his achievements on and off the field, go to woodradio.com, keyword athlete.

Tyler "Moose" Gruszka

This week’s Good GMC West Michigan All Star is Tyler Gruszka. “Moose” Gruszka is a sophomore tri-sport athlete at Comstock Park.

Moose is an offensive/defensive lineman on the Comstock Park football team, and gets his swings in on the Panther baseball team as well.  But despite his significant success on the field and the diamond, that’s all small potatoes compared to his dominance on the mat.

Boasting an overall record of 44-and-5, Moose is ranked fifth in the state in Division-2 wrestling. That’s a stellar record for any wrestler, but for a sophomore that’s the kind of dominance you write home about.  But again, it’s relatively minor compared to his most significant accomplishment.

After all, how many other Moose do you know with a 3.9 GPA?

Congratulations to Tyler Gruszka, the Good GMC West Michigan All Star.

If you know of a student athlete who deserves to be honored for his achievements on and off the field, go to woodradio.com, keyword athlete.

Let’s start with a question: What does the average bowler score?  100?  150?

I consider myself to be athletic, and if you’re like me, you’re somewhere in the neighborhood of 100.  Strikes, while not an impossibility, are certainly rare.

Not for Chelsea Purdum.  How about 12-strikes in a row, on her way to rolling a perfect 300-game to help her team shut out Allendale.

Even those guys who seem to live at the lanes — they bowl what, 200?  225, maybe?  Whatever the number, suffice it to say that there are a lot of lifelong bowlers who never get their portrait on the wall for bowling a perfect game.  There are a lot of lifelong bowlers who haven’t matched Chelsea Purdum.

“It didn’t hit me until the seventh frame that I could do it,” said Purdum, whose previous high game was 268, to the Grand Rapids Press. “I was extremely nervous, but I tried to keep my adrenaline down and make good shots.

“It was so exciting. It felt good to have everyone cheering for me. I tried not to look up at everyone that was watching me. I just looked at my teammates.”

Congratulations to Kory Banner, this week’s Good GMC West Michigan All Star.

To nominate your West Michigan Allstar, go to WoodRadio.com.

Keep up with the latest action and analysis by becoming a WMA fan on Facebook, or join the conversation by following WMA on Twitter.  Heck, even start your own topic over at Allstars Among Us.

There’s a drama in high school sports that is unparalleled at any other level.  The type of drama that comes when you know the players personally, perhaps even associate with them, and especially when you’ve perhaps even been in almost the exact same situation on the court or on the field yourself.  Talk about empathy; everybody’s been to high school.

Kory Banner personified that type of drama earlier this week, scoring 20-points in a nail-biter win over rival Forest Hills Northern, and in doing so won himself the Good GMC West Michigan Allstar award.  And there is none better at capturing that drama with the written word than the Venerable Jane Bos of the Grand Rapids Press.  Take it away, Jane.

Playing your biggest rival in front of a pretty full house. At home. Senior year. The game is intense. Lots of energy, the lead going back and forth, the student sections are dancing and screaming.

And as long as you’re dreaming up the perfect scenario for a memory maker, how about after making some key shots and free throws in the decisive fourth quarter, you make a free throw in the final second to seal the win.

Ah. That’s what I’m talking about.

That’s exactly what Kory Banner did.

The Forest Hills Central senior point guard made critical free throws down the stretch against neighborhood rival Forest Hills Northern – arguably the biggest game of the year for the players – to help the Rangers grab a 68-64 victory.

That’s high school sports drama.  I just got chills.

Congratulations to Kory Banner, this week’s Good GMC West Michigan All Star.

To nominate your West Michigan Allstar, go to WoodRadio.com.

In sports, there are certain feats that are held above all others.  Accomplishments that lift those who reach them to a higher level, simply by virtue of their having reached them.  In basketball, that feat is a triple-double.

It’s one thing to score 10-points in a game, or even to grab 10-rebounds or dish out 10-assists.  If an athlete reaches any one of these milestones, they had a large influence on the result of the game.  It’s a completely different thing, however, for an athlete to put all these milestones together into one game, as Getty did recently to lead her Wildcats to a victory over East Kentwood.  That’s the type of performance that lifts up an entire team.

And she didn’t stop at merely a triple-double.  Getty scored 22-points and passed for 10-assists, making her singularly responsible for 42 of the Wildcats 73-points.  She also snagged 12-rebounds and threw in an impressive 6-steals for good measure (bringing her four steals shy of the supposedly unattainable quadruple-double).

Getty is a one-of-a-kind asset to the Wayland girls basketball team.  Which is impressive, especially considering that basketball is the third of her three sports.  Getty will attend Davenport University next year on a scholarship for her first two sports, softball and volleyball.

Incidentally, there’s a triple-double in volleyball, too.

To nominate your West Michigan Allstar, go to WoodRadio.com.

In a game that had been hotly contested throughout, Caledonia had played almost the entire fourth quarter with a slim lead. Finally, late in the quarter, they managed to increase that lead to as many as four points.  Comfortable, relatively speaking.

But with just under a minute left, Allendale senior Kelsey Seitsema changed all that, tying the game with a remarkable four-point play.  And with the play, the tide, the crowd, and all the momentum abruptly swung away from Caledonia.  And just like that the Fighting Scots were fighting an uphill battle.

Even as a sophomore, Miller understood this.  More than that, she knew it was now or never, and her team needed her to make a play.

She did them one better — she made two.

Miller stole the ball from an Allendale player and was fouled in the act of shooting.  Ice in her vains, she stepped to the line in one of the most clutch situations in sports and nailed the two accompanying free throws.  Then, with seven seconds left on the clock, she nailed two more to secure the four-point victory.

Miller lead the game with 18-points, but it was her steal and cold-blooded free-throwery during the clutch moments of the game that gave her team the win.   Congratulations to Lexi Miller, the latest Good GMC West Michigan Allstar.

To nominate your West Michigan Allstar, go to WoodRadio.com.

Forest Hills Eastern, ranked at #5 in the state entering the Regional round, have been looking up at 1st place Ionia the entire season. The Hawks have had an extremely successful season by any measure, but Ionia has been on an entirely different level, demolishing their opposition with consistency.  So no matter how much success they enjoyed, in order to have realistic visions of a state championship, there was no way around it — they’d have to beat the Bulldogs.

Mission accomplished, thanks to an outstanding 4th place finish by the Hawks senior leader, Garrett Cullen.  Cullen lead his team to a first place finish at last week’s Regional at Carson City, besting the runner up Bulldogs by 14 points.

It’s a huge accomplishment, particularly given Ionia’s dominance throughout the season.  But it’s only the first step on the road to a championship.  The Hawks will have to do the same thing again at the state meet next week, where they will face off against 29-other teams, one of them an Ionia team looking to avenge their unexpected defeat.

Cullen and his Forest Hills Eastern teammates will be ready.

Congratulations to Garrett Cullen, this week’s Good GMC West Michigan All Star.