Making the Cut
Twenty years of good sports
By Steve Stein
As a writer for The Chaldean News since 2006, I’ve covered many great sports stories. Here’s a list of the top 10.
1. Absolutely Perfect
Pierce and Connor Shaya are tennis players at Bloomfield Hills High School. Pierce is a junior. Connor is a sophomore. Between them, they’ve played in the Division 1 state tournament five times and won five flight championships. And they have never lost a singles match in high school competition. Pierce is 47-0 and Connor is 53-0. Pierce lost a doubles match in 2022, so his overall high school record is 72-1.
2. No Handicap
Gabe Sheena lost most of his left leg to an amputation because he was suffering from osteosarcoma (bone cancer). The operation took place January 6, 2000, one day before his ninth birthday, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. The handicap has never stopped him. He was an outstanding wrestler at Birmingham Brother High School and he wrestled for the University of Michigan. He’s now a doctoral fellow at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago after graduating from U-M and the Central Michigan University College of Medicine.
3. Two-Sport Star
Ella Lucia is headed to Harvard University to play Division I women’s hockey. The Bloomfield Hills High School senior had 32 goals and 92 assists in 66 games last season for the Little Caesars AAA 16U girls hockey team. AAA is the highest level of girls junior hockey. Lucia also is an All-American high school girls lacrosse player. She had 125 goals and 59 assists in 23 games last spring for Bloomfield Hills.
4. All For Iraq
Professional soccer player Justin Meram, a Shelby Township native, played in World Cup qualifying matches and other competitions for the Iraq national team from 2014-22. He scored four goals in 36 games for the Lions of Mesopotamia. Meram was the lone Chaldean on the team, and one of the few Chaldeans who have ever played soccer for Iraq. Meram was able to play for Iraq because his parents were born there and he has dual citizenship. He’s currently playing for Charlotte FC in the Major Soccer League.
5. It’s A Set Up
Ava Sarafa was a member of three state championship volleyball teams (2020-22) at Birmingham Marian High School. A setter, she had more than 5,000 assists in her high school career. She’s now playing volleyball at the University of Kentucky. She didn’t play for the Wildcats as a freshman, but she has four years of eligibility remaining.
6. Not Easy
Bloomfield Hills native Andrew Nadhir became an All-American wrestler the hard way when he was a senior at Northwestern University. He finished in sixth place at 149 pounds at the 2011 NCAA championships. To do that, he needed to wrestle seven matches in three days. After being pinned with one minute remaining in his first match of the meet, the Northwestern captain won four consecutive do-or-die matches in wrestle-backs, two in overtime. Nadhir was an All-State wrestler at Novi Detroit Catholic Central High School before heading to Northwestern. He’s now the chief operating officer at BOSC Realty Advisors in Troy.
7. He’s A Bronco
Michael Sulaka played a huge role in the Warren De La Salle High School boys basketball team’s Division 1 state championship in 2022, his junior year. Sulaka’s most impressive performance during the Pilots’ run-up to the state championship game and their first state title came vs. Grand Rapids Northview in the state semifinals. He scored 20 points on 8-of-10 shooting, grabbed eight rebounds and blocked four shots in 21 minutes. He had a 4.004 grade-point average at De La Salle. The 6-foot-9, 215-pound Sulaka is now a freshman on the Western Michigan University men’s basketball team. He didn’t play for the Broncos this year, but he has four years of eligibility remaining.
8. He’s An Ironman
Paul Shaya of Bloomfield Hills swam 2.4 miles, rode a bike for 112 miles, and ran 26.2 miles in one day in temperatures that topped 100 degrees and high winds. His reward? He was among 1,690 finishers in a field of more than 2,000 athletes who competed in the Ford Ironman Arizona competition in 2008. Shaya finished the grueling race in 16 hours, 27 minutes and 19 seconds. He was back at work two days after the competition. Shaya is a Birmingham Groves High School and University of Michigan grad.
9. March Madness
Want to know why the high school basketball state tournament is called March Madness? Jeremy Denha can tell you. He was the coach of the West Bloomfield boys basketball team that came out of nowhere to make it to the Class A state semifinals in 2017. After going 12-8 in the regular season, the Lakers advanced to the Final Four for the first time since 2003. One of their wins en route to the Final Four was an improbable 67-66 double-overtime victory over Novi in a regional championship game. West Bloomfield was down 66-62 with 12 seconds left and pulled out the victory. Denha is now coaching boys basketball at Utica Ford, his alma mater.
10. Catholic League Honor
Sal Malek, a longtime athletic director at Detroit Catholic League schools, received the league’s prestigious Ed Lauer Person of the Year Award in 2011. That wasn’t bad for a guy who admittedly spoke “terrible English” when he came to Detroit as a 14-year-old in 1964 after his family spent six months in California following a move from Baghdad, Iraq. Malek is currently the athletic director at Waterford Our Lady of the Lakes High School.