SAULT STE MARIE ― The Gaylord softball program has been on quite the rollercoaster over the past six seasons, stacking accolades and accomplishments like no other GHS team before them. In 2026, the rollercoaster got even bumpier.
Gaylord (25-13) was expected to take a step back this season, unable to boast a name like Aubrey or Jayden Jones in the lineup, but the Blue Devils still had high hopes. Two weeks in, head coach Ron Moeggenberg left the team, leaving interim Bill Bethuy to right the ship for a team that now had its fifth coach in a six-season span.
“It was after the first weekend, I sat down with the group and said, ‘Look, there’s two paths we can take. You can take the path that brings us here today, or we can choose to just be a team,'” Bethuy said.
Eventually, a senior-led group chose its path; the Blue Devils turned in another 20+ win season, won a sixth-straight district title victory and advanced again to the regional rounds of the Division 2 state playoffs. The Blue Devils kept trekking, and the path kept going, with Gaylord winning 8-6 over Shepherd in the semifinals on Saturday, June 6, in Sault Ste. Marie to reach the program’s sixth consecutive regional final.
Finally, however, Gaylord found the end of the path in the Upper Peninsula; the hits stopped falling, a one-run deficit just couldn’t be surmounted and the Blue Devils fell to Ogemaw Heights 2-1, ending Gaylord’s season in the regional finals for the second consecutive season.
“They chose to be this team; they checked a lot of boxes and accomplished a lot of goals,” Bethuy said.
GHS bats help Blue Devils to win over Shepherd
Gaylord came into Saturday’s games with a bit of familiarity with their opponents, already having played both Shepherd and Ogemaw Heights during the regular season. The Blue Devils and Blue Jays played two high-scoring games when they split a doubleheader on May 14, and that theme held true again on Saturday morning.
The two teams traded runs throughout the first two innings before Shepherd took control of the game with three runs in the top of the third. Gaylord’s offense didn’t get going until the bottom of the fifth, where an RBI double from Lily Ryckman-Hall, an RBI single from Brooke Warren and a two-RBI single from Morgan Holzschu gave Gaylord a two-run lead.
Ryckman-Hall had another RBI double in the sixth, giving Gaylord a three-run cushion heading into the final frame. Shepherd scraped a final run across, but the GHS defense shut things down to win the program’s sixth straight regional semifinal game.
Gaylord’s three seniors led the team at the plate, with Ryckman-Hall, Nora Bethuy and Makayla Kozlowski all with two hits apiece.
“They sort of set the example,” Bethuy said of his seniors. “They’ve been through a lot through three, four years with the program. They’ve seen a lot, and they definitely were leaders on the field.”
One stumble away
Gaylord and Ogemaw Heights met in last year’s district title game, an 11-0 GHS victory on May 31, 2025, in Cadillac, Mich. This was not going to be the same type of game, and Gaylord was going to need one of its best performances to pull out a win over the Falcons this time around.
Credit to the Blue Devils, they played about as well as they could, but they just never got the bounces to go their way.
Ogemaw Heights’ pitcher Kylee England did a great job against a high-scoring GHS lineup, but the Blue Devils also had quite a few hard-hit balls that found Falcons’ gloves rather than grass. A rally in the fourth inning almost brought the score even, but the runner who would’ve tied the game on a Lily Lauer RBI double stumbled on her way home, leaving Gaylord trailing by one run.
That ended up being the closest Gaylord would come to that elusive tying run.
Gaylord pitcher Nora Bethuy pitched tremendously in both games, getting the win with four strikeouts against Shepherd before holding Ogemaw to two earned runs and five hits in the final.
It brings Gaylord’s season to a close in the regional finals and ends the GHS careers for Bethuy, Ryckman-Hall and Kozlowski, the lone seniors for the program. Bethuy is continuing her softball career at Indiana Wesleyan University, while Ryckman-Hall is playing at Spring Arbor University. Kozlowski will be attending Grand Valley State University,
Contact GHT Sports Editor Dylan Jespersen at Djespersen@gaylordheraldtimes.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @dylanjespersen, and Instagram, @dylanjespersen
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Gaylord softball defies expectations, bows out in regional finals
Reporting by Dylan Jespersen, The Petoskey News-Review / The Petoskey News-Review
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Dylan Jespersen, The Petoskey News-Review | USA TODAY Network
