Baseball

The oldest of three baseball-playing brothers from Free Soil who competed for Central Michigan University, Steve Papes earned All-America honors in 1970, when he was the most valuable player and captain on a 36-4 Chippewa squad. "A great deal of the success we had this season was due to Steve's leadership on and off the field," said his coach, Waldo Sauter. Papes set CMU single-season records for ...Read More...

Ludington High School's success in baseball, basketball and soccer over the last four years was due, in no small part, to the contributions of Kyle Gurzynski. He earned three varsity letters in each sport. In baseball, Ludington won three consecutive conference titles and Gurzynski, the starting shortstop and a relief pitcher, was named to the All-Western Waterways team all three years. This sprin ...Read More...

Free Soil was a small community, but the success of its basketball program under the tutelage of Max Carey was large. In Carey's 26 years as their coach, the Pirates won or shared 15 Western Michigan D League championships, 11 Class D district titles and five regional championships. His record in the state quarterfinals was 3-1 and his overall record was 476-177. His 1961 and 1971 Free Soil teams ...Read More...

Mason County Central's football team was 7-4 in 2004 and advanced to the Division V district finals for the first time, due in large part to the quarterbacking of Matt Flutur. The senior athlete of the year at MCC, Flutur played football for four years, basketball for four years, baseball for one year and track and field for three years. He won his school's "Mr. Spartan" Award in basketball and fo ...Read More...