AUGUST 15 • 2024 | 35

quick hits

Avery Gach is one of the top high school
offensive linemen in the country and a
prized University of Michigan recruit.
Before he heads into his senior football
season at Birmingham Groves, the 6-foot-
5, 290-pound Gach competed in track and
field this past spring for the Falcons.
Even though he’d never thrown the
shot put previously, Gach won a Division 1
regional championship in the shot put with
a throw of 52 feet, 8 inches and he placed
30th of 46 competitors at the state meet with a toss of 49-6.
Gach wasn’t surprised that he qualified for the state meet, “but it
was cool to do it,” he acknowledged.
After playing baseball in previous springs for Groves, Gach didn’t
want to do it last spring, but he wanted to compete in something,
he said, so he went with track and field.
Gach has been taking online classes this summer so he can grad-
uate from Groves ahead of schedule and go to U-M early next year
to participate in the football team’s off-season workouts.
He had a perfect football season last year for Groves. He didn’t
allow a sack or quarterback pressure from his offensive tackle posi-
tion. That’s saying something because the Falcons faced two state
champions (Southfield A&T and Harper Woods) and a state semifi-
nalist (West Bloomfield) last year.

BY STEVE STEIN

Groves Football Star Avery Gach Makes a
Statement at the State Track and Field Meet

Ex-Michigan State Hockey Player Josh Nodler
Signs with the ECHL’s Jacksonville Icemen

Before he embarked on his college hockey
career, Oak Park native Josh Nodler was
selected in the fifth round of the 2019 NHL
draft by the Calgary Flames.
The Flames no longer owned Nodler’s
rights when he finished his college career
last winter, so he looked for a new opportu-
nity to play pro hockey. The 5-foot-10, 185-
pound forward found it recently when he
signed with the Jacksonville Icemen of the
ECHL (formerly the East Coast Hockey League).
The Icemen are the ECHL affiliate of the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres
and the Rochester Americans of the American Hockey League, the
primary development league for NHL teams.
Nodler, 23, began his college hockey career at Michigan State.
After three seasons with the Spartans, he played one year at the
University of Massachusetts and one year at Bowling Green State
University.
He played in 162 games during his five-year college career.

Avery Gach

MURRAY GOLDENBERG/CLASSIC
PHOTOGRAPHY

Josh Nodler

BOWLING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY

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