.jpg)
Free Soil 1975 softball team
The Mason County Sports Hall of Fame has announced its Class of 2025 inductees along with highlights of their respective accomplishments.
“The MCSHOF Board of Directors is proud to announce the 21st class of inductees since the initial class of 2005,” Mason County Sports Hall of Fame president Vic Burwell said. “The board members are proud to honor another excellent class of inductees who exhibit the highest level of athletic achievement.”
“Each year the board reviews hundreds of athletes, coaches, contributors and teams in Mason County’s rich history of athletic achievement and after an arduous selection process, announces the new class,” Burwell said. “There are so many with incredible accolades who are deserving of this honor and thus, being selected as an inductee is a noteworthy honor.”
The 2025 class of inductees are the 1975 Free Soil girls’ softball Michigan High School Athletic Association State Runner-up team along with individuals Jeff Kraus, Bruce Krieger, Harry Plouff, Jayne (Halvorsen) Reed and Jim Stankowski, Sr.
“The MCSHOF Board of Directors is eager to honor the inductees by celebrating and recognizing the merits of their enshrinement through stellar athletic achievement,” Burwell said.
The class of 2025 represents individuals and teams from Free Soil, Scottville/Mason County Central, St. Simon and Ludington high schools.”
In 2025, the 1975 Free Soil girls’ softball team members will celebrate the 50th anniversary of their state runner-up finish. The Pirates won the 1975 District tournament with a 22-11 win over Bear Lake, defeated Center Lake 20-3 to win regionals, beat Hilman 7-4 in the quarterfinals and captured the semifinal, defeating Waterford Lady of the Lakes, 10-9, before bowing out of the finals with a 10-6 loss to Flint Holy Rosary.
Members of the 1975 Free Soil team included Elaine Morong, Helen Shereda, Cathy Morang, Tammy Rybicki, Earlene Edwards, Joyce Papes, Ann Shereda, Gena Marquardt, Robin Morse, Micki Willoughby and Lori Olenchak. Free Soil was coached by Marsha Krajkiewcz and assisted by Jack Shereda. The scorekeeper was Edna Shereda.
Jeff Kraus
Jeff Kraus, a 1983 Ludington High School graduate, built an undefeated 41-0 record in his senior season to become Ludington High School’s first ever state champion wrestler, accumulating 29 pins along the way.
Kraus wrestled in the 119-pound weight division and was the Orioles’ first three-time conference champion and the first to break the 100-career victory mark. He also established the single season record for wins (41) and consecutive victories (41).
Kraus was 32-8 as a junior, 28-3 in his sophomore season and 10-18 as a freshman for an overall 111-29 career record.
Kraus’ journey to his state championship started with a 14-0 win in his first state match, then he had two consecutive pins to reach the final match. Kraus’ opponent was Wade Tackett of Monroe Catholic Central. Tackett was 42-1 and Kraus entered the match at 40-0.
With 30 seconds remaining in the match, Kraus was trailing 9-5. Kraus earned points with an escape and then a takedown. As time was expiring, he achieved a two-point near fall and a 10-9 decision to win the state championship.
Bruce Krieger
Bruce Krieger coached track & field, cross country, basketball and football at Mason County Central, becoming the 1986 Michigan Track & Field Coach of the Year in Class C and the 1986 National Track & Field Coach of the Year-Bronze Award recipient.
Krieger coached the 1985 boys Track & Field MHSAA State Runner-up team and the 1986 State Champion team. His teams were conference champions four times and cross country regional champs twice.
Krieger coached two stints in track & field at MCC. The first was from 1967 to 1974 and again from 1980 to 2001, winning 72% of all dual meets. Krieger coached MCC’s first conference champion team in his first coaching assignment and coached several individual state champions.
A member of the Michigan Coaches Hall of Fame, Krieger also served as the City of Scottville Mayor and was named the 2004 Scottville Citizen of the Year.
A graduate of St. Simon High School in Ludington, Krieger got his bachelors degree from Ferris State College and earned his master’s degree at Central Michigan University. He taught at MCC for over three decades and also served as Scottville mayor.
Harry Plouff has been running for over 30 years and has logged over 100,000 miles, running in 57 marathons on seven continents.
Harry Plouff
Plouff initially attended Mason County Central where he played football for coach Loren Dietrich and he ran track prior to attending Ludington High School where he ran track and graduated in 1966.
Some of the interesting locations Plouff has run are Dublin, Ireland; the Great Wall of China; Kilimanjaro, Africa; Inca Trail, Peru; and Antarctica.
Coaching girls’ and boys’ cross country for 11 years at Mt. Pleasant High School, Plouff’s teams won nine conference titles, two regionals and finished in the top 10 teams at state finals on four occasions.
Plouff was twice Lansing State Journal Division II Cross Country Coach of the Year, was a finalist for Coach of the Year in the Michigan Track & Cross Country Association and in 2018 was inducted to the Mt. Pleasant High School Athletic Hall of Fame.
Co-founder of the Mt. Pleasant Striders Running Club 35 years ago, Plouff has served over 300 runners. He taught for 31 years in Mt. Pleasant, graduated from Central Michigan University with a Bachelors and Masters degree.
Jayne (Halvorsen) Reed coached girls’ basketball and softball at Mason County Central High School, coaching the girls’ basketball team to a 1976 MHSAA State Runner Up finish in Class C. She was a physical education and health teacher at MCC Middle School.
In basketball, Reed coached seven years, from 1976 to 1982 and had four conference championship teams, three district champions, twice won regionals and quarterfinals and the 1976 team won the semi- finals.
Jayne Reed
Reed’s basketball coaching record is 109-51 for a .681 winning percentage overall, with a 64-20 record in the West Michigan Conference. Reed’s 1976 team averaged 64.2 points per game, still a record at MCC and the 1979 team averaged 60.0 points per game.
Reed was the first softball coach at Mason County Central and her team won the first conference championship when the conference sponsored girls’ softball as a sport. Reed’s teams would go on to win the first three WMC championships in softball.
Reed attended high school prior to Title IX and while her desire was to play sports, that opportunity was not available to her at Stephenson High School. Reed attended Northern Michigan University where she received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
Jim Stankowski, Sr. was a standout baseball and fast pitch softball player while in high school. He began playing fast pitch softball at age 15 at the shortstop position. He began pitching that same year and continued as a pitcher/manager until 1993.
Stankowski was a part of the 1975 Class C and 1976 Class B ASA State Championship teams, the 1978 Class A State Runner up and Great Lakes Regional team and played in the National Finals-Class A in Nashville, Tennessee.
Jim Stankowski
In 1988 Stankowski’s team was the state champion and participated in the national finals in Las Cruses, New Mexico. In 1990 and 1991 Stankowski and his team were sISC State Champion and played in the 1990 World Tourney in Victoria, British Columbia and in 1991 in Sioux City, Iowa. Also in 1990, Stankowski was the manager of Schoenherr Investments and won the Class A championship and played in the National Tournament in Sacramento, California.
Stankowski was inducted in 2005 to the State of Michigan Softball Hall of Fame as a coach and in 1991 to the Mason County Softball Hall of Fame.
The Class of 2025 will be enshrined into the Mason County Sports Hall of Fame on Saturday, June 28, 2025. The unveiling of the Class will be at noon at Mason County Historical Society’s Historic White Pine Village with the induction banquet held at 6 p.m. at Lincoln Hills Golf Club in Hamlin Township.
Photos submitted by Mason County Sports Hall of Fame.
_________________________
Please Support Local News
Receive daily MCP and OCP news briefings along with email news alerts for $10 a month. Your contribution will help us to continue to provide you with free local news.
The easiest way is to sign up for an automatic monthly payment on Paypal. Click this link.
Alternative methods:
- We can send you an invoice for a yearly payment of $120, which you can conveniently pay online or by check. If you are interested in this method, please email editor@mediagroup31.com and we can sign you up. You can also mail a yearly check for $120 to Media Group 31, PO Box 21, Scottville, MI 49454 (please include your email address).
We appreciate all our readers regardless of whether they choose to continue to access our service for free or with a monthly financial support.
If you would like to support MCP/OCP but do not wish to receive daily emails, please consider sending a contribution to any of the above methods or pay by Venmo (@masoncountypress).
_____
As the services of Media Group 31, LLC are news services, the information posted within the sites are archivable for public record and historical posterity. For this reason it is the policy and practice of this company to not delete postings. It is the editor’s discretion to update or edit a story when/if new information becomes available. This may be done by editing the posted story or posting a new “follow-up” story. Media Group 31, LLC or any of its agents have the right to make any changes to this policy. Refer to Use Policy for more information.
Please consider helping to fund local news. Mason County Press and Oceana County Press are available for free thanks to the generous support of our advertisers and individuals. Three ways to help us: Venmo: @MasonCountyPress; Paypal: MasonCountyPress@gmail.com; Mail a check to PO BOX 21, Scottville, MI 49454.
