Update Friday, June 20: Congratulations to Orchard Lake St. Mary’s Luke Crighton for being voted Detroit Free Press Athlete of the Week.
It’s time to vote for the Detroit Free Press Boys Prep Athlete of the Week for June 8-14.
This week’s poll features four players from last week’s baseball semifinal and championship tournaments .
Voting will be open until 12 p.m. Friday, June 20. We’ll announce the winner here shortly after the poll closes.
Here are the nominees (listed in alphabetical order by last name):
Luke Crighton, Orchard Lake St. Mary’s
Orchard Lake made it to the Division 2 semifinal game Thursday, June 12, when Crighton, a junior pitcher, struck out eight in six innings. That wasn’t enough to beat Forest Hills Eastern, which won and went on to win the championship game.
Luke DeMasse, Macomb Dakota
DeMasse led the Cougars to the team’s first Division 1 state championship game. On Friday, the senior pitcher struck out five in seven innings during Dakota’s 6-2 semifinal victory against Bay City Western. In Saturday’s championship game against Hartland, Demasse went 2-for-3 with one RBI.
Luke Janigan, Plymouth Christian Academy
Janigan, a junior pitcher and second baseman, had nine strikeouts in seven innings during the team’s 9-1 semifinal victory over Petersburg Summerfield on Friday. He also scored two runs. Plymouth Christian went on to lose the Division 4 state championship on Saturday.
Michael Zielinski, Hartland
Zielinski pitched five of the nine innings it took for Hartland to capture its first Division 1 state championship in a decade, defeating Dakota, 5-3, on Saturday. The senior pitcher struck out five, allowing six hits and two runs. He also went 3-for-4 with one RBI.
Come back to freep.com/sports/high-schools/ every Tuesday morning to vote for Athlete of the Week.
This week’s Athlete of the Week nominations include reporting from Jared Ramsey.
TO YOUR INBOX: Sign up for our weekly Michigan Preps newsletter to get high school sports and news sent directly to you!
Eric Guzmán covers youth sports culture at the Free Press as a corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The GroundTruth Project. Make a tax-deductible contribution to support this work.
Contact Eric Guzmán: eguzman@freepress.com; 313-222-1850. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter: @EricGuzman90.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Free Press Boys Prep Athlete of the Week, June 8-14: Orchard Lake St. Mary’s Luke Crighton
Reporting by Eric Guzmán, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
