Fisher Chases History, Reigns Again in D1
November 1, 2014
By Bill Khan
Special for Second Half
BROOKLYN — Grant Fisher's only competitors in Michigan are ghosts from the past.
While the state currently has a strong crop of cross country runners, they can't even stay close to Fisher, the Grand Blanc senior who ended his MHSAA cross country career Saturday with one of the fastest times in Finals history.
The only question heading into the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 1 meet was whether Fisher could threaten the seemingly untouchable Michigan International Speedway record of 14:10.4 set by Rockford legend Dathan Ritzenhein in 2000.
High winds — the only thing that could touch Fisher on this day — ruled out that possibility before the race started. It would take perfect conditions for such a quest to be plausible.
Those hoping to see history had to "settle" for a dominating 14:52.5 effort by Fisher, well off the record but still one of the greatest performances the state has ever seen. His time ranks third in the 19-year history of racing at MIS behind Ritzenhein and former Rockford teammate Jason Hartmann, who ran 14:51 in 1998.
Ritzenhein is a three-time Olympian who once held the American 5,000-meter record. Hartmann finished in fourth place as the first American at the 2012 and 2013 Boston Marathons.
"Dathan is Dathan," Fisher said. "He's the best high school runner ever. For people to compare anything I've done to him, in my mind I shouldn't be compared to him ever, as nobody should. Dathan's in a class of his own.
“You can look at his professional career and it speaks for itself. I've met him a few times. He's a great guy and definitely someone I look up to."
Ovid-Elsie's Maverick Darling (14:52.8 in 2007) and Saline's Dustin Voss (14:54.45 in 2003) are the only other runners to break 15 minutes at MIS.
It was only the second time Fisher has broken 15 minutes. The first time came under ideal conditions in the Portage Invitational on Oct. 4, when he came within a second of Ritzenhein's course record with a time of 14:43.
"To do it at this venue means a lot," Fisher said. "You can look back, as everyone has recently, at some of the fast times people have turned in here. You see some of the big names that have gone on to do some pretty incredible things. To do it on this course with so much history and to do it with my teammates next to me means a lot."
Here's the scary part: Fisher still had at least one more gear in him.
His race plan was to cruise through the first mile, go hard in the second, cruise through a downhill stretch, then go hard down the final stretch. He took a look back while going around a curve just after the two-mile mark. He couldn't see anybody approaching, so he followed through with the plan.
"If someone was right on my heels, the race plan would've gone out the window and I'd have gone into race mode," said Fisher, who also is the reigning Foot Locker national champion after defeating a field in San Diego last winter.
The race for second place was much more exciting, with only 10.6 seconds separating the next eight finishers. Saline senior Logan Wetzel emerged from the battle as the runner-up in 15:19.2, 26.7 seconds behind Fisher. Anthony Berry of Traverse City Central was third in 15:21.1. Waterford Mott's Ryan Robinson, who was in second much of the race, took fifth in 15:25.4.
Junior Isaac Harding of Rockford was fourth in 15:23.2, leading Ritzenhein's former school to its first team championship since 2002.
The Rams won a tight three-way battle, scoring 140 points to edge White Lake Lakeland by six. Mott, the runner-up the last two years, was third with 148.
Rockford didn't have a senior in its lineup last year when it finished 12th in LP Division 1. Five of those seven runners were in the lineup Saturday, with one noteworthy addition. Freshman Cole Johnson was the team's No. 2 runner, placing 16th in 15:40.9. That's faster than Ritzenhein ran during his freshman year at Rockford, though his 16:22.3 was good for fifth place on a slow, muddy course in 1997.
Also scoring for Rockford were Paul Burke (57th, 16:13.2), Grayson Harding (58th, 16:13.5) and Grant Gabriel (102nd, 16:30.1).
Lakeland and Mott had five runners cross before Rockford, but the strength of its top two runners carried the Rams.
PHOTOS: (Top) Grand Blanc’s Grant Fisher finishes his second MHSAA Finals victory Saturday all alone on the final stretch. (Below) Saline’s Logan Wetzel and Traverse City Central’s Anthony Berry lead a tight pack racing for second place. (Click for more from RunMichigan.com.)
Performance: Brimley's Austin Plotkin
October 25, 2019
Austin Plotkin
Brimley senior – Cross Country
Plotkin finished an accomplishment Saturday that has been achieved in Michigan high school boys cross country only once before. By winning the Upper Peninsula Division 3 Final championship for the fourth time, Plotkin joined Central Lake legend Ryan Shay as the only other four-time boys champion (LP Class D 1993-96), earning the MHSAA “Performance of the Week.”
Plotkin’s time of 17:20.7 was nearly 11 seconds ahead of the field at Gentz’s Golf Course in Marquette and capped an undefeated season that included for the first time a championship as well at the Mackinaw City Invitational on Sept. 26. Plotkin entered this fall with a personal record (PR) of 16:50 and lowered it to 16:32. This season’s Finals winning time actually was just the third-fastest of his four, further backing up Brimley athletic director Hugh Clarke, who called Plotkin arguably the school’s most dominant athlete over the course of a four-year high school career. Plotkin also owns an Upper Peninsula Division 3 Finals track championship in the 3,200 from 2017 and will run that race plus the 800 and 1,600 in the spring. He holds all of his school’s cross country records and is part of two record-holding track relays. Plotkin also plans to play basketball this winter for the first time since freshman year.
Also worth applauding: After an admittedly disappointing freshman year academically, Plotkin has raised his grade-point average a full point over the last two years and is considering a number of options athletically and academically at the college level. He’s planning to study business administration and finance.
Coach Wilson Hester said: “When I first saw him as an eighth grader, I could tell right away he had ability, but he didn’t know pacing or how to run. He would just go out and run fast or slow with not a lot of pacing involved. Once we got him doing proper training and technique work, and he was learning how to pace, he flourished. … He’s brought lots of recognition to the school. He’s been leading the track and cross country teams for the past four years, and everybody in the region and Upper Peninsula knows who he is. … He’s just scratching the surface of what he can do. He has some tremendous potential. I think at the next level, with more mileage, more of a training season – our seasons are so short up here, it’s difficult to get them to where their absolute potential can be – I have no doubt (he’ll continue to improve).”
Performance Point: “In the last probably quarter mile of the race, I definitely thought back to what everyone had said to me when I won freshman year,” Plotkin recalled of Saturday. “They said, 'Oh my goodness, you have so much potential. You could probably do this four years.' And I remember I was scoffing, thinking no, there will be another up-and-comer, somebody who can beat me. And looking back I remember Mr. Clarke told me if I win four years in a row, as soon as possible I'll be in the Brimley Hall of Fame. And just one of the things that came to me in that quarter mile, I was just thinking, one, how wrong I was – I thought that I couldn't do it, and here I was doing it. And plus, also, I was just super-excited to have done it, because it was such a feat – only one other person has done it.”
No shot at putting: “Eighth grade track was my first time running. I actually wanted to do shot put because my summer job the summer before was moving split wood for my grandpa. And then my coach Justin Carrick asked me, he said ‘Hey, we've got nobody doing (the 3,200). You're scrawny. You can do it. We just need someone to run the 2-mile. I don't care what you get – you've just got to run it.’ In middle school it's the first event, and I won it. I ran like an 11:20 that day, which is really bad for eighth grade. He took me out of shot put and put me in the mile and 800, and I went undefeated all the way until the last two meets, which coincidentally were the only two meets we got medals for and Jimmy Storey from Pickford beat me in the 800 both of those meets. So I lost two races and by the end of the season I was down to 10:55 for my 2-mile time. … I fell in love with winning. Once I had a little bit of something to do it for really; now that I had a shoebox of medals, I was like yeah, I can do this. And then I got a text from my friend over the (eighth-grade summer) that was like, ‘Hey, why don’t you come do cross country? It’s like track in the woods.’”
Just getting started: “Coming into it as a freshman, I didn't know that I would have the potential to win. My coach told me first race, do top 20. And I won. From that point, there weren't too many races that I lost. And the ones I did, basically the meet that I lost consistently every year was the Mack(inaw) City Invitational where we ran against Harbor Springs, Petoskey and Gaylord St. Mary. And even at those meets I got second or third. And this year was my first year that I won it. … It came to me naturally as a freshman, and as the years went on I realized I had to do a lot more offseason work and I had to do a lot more in-season work not only to keep my speed, but to go faster. This was my first summer that I actually ran consistently all summer, so this season I came out and broke my PR first meet and then consistently stayed within the mid 16:30s.”
Bays on a run: “When I came in as a freshman, our cross country program was a club. Cross country was out of the picture for a lot of students, and a lot of people didn't want to participate. And track, the year that I was in eighth grade, high school track I think had 11 participants. So it's amazing to see not only how I, but how the entire cross country team has progressed. This season we had about 15 consistent runners for cross country, and last track season … I think by the end we had 25 participants, which is pretty impressive considering we had just 11 four years ago.”
Numbers games: “I think I want to run a business, or, I really like numbers; I’m in accounting right now, and I love balancing journals. So one thing I could do is be a financial officer at a bank, which is a pretty cool deal. … I definitely love in physics, when we have equations, just trying to figure out the mystery behind it and when you can’t make something add up.”
– Geoff Kimmerly, Second Half editor
Past honorees
Oct. 17: Jack Spamer, Brighton cross country - Report
Oct. 10: Kaylee Maat, Hudsonville volleyball - Report
Oct. 3: Emily Paupore, Negaunee cross country - Report
Sept. 26: Josh Mason, South Lyon soccer - Report
Sept. 19: Ariel Chang, Utica Eisenhower golf - Report
Sept. 12: Jordyn Shipps, DeWitt swimming - Report
PHOTOS: (Top) Brimley's Austin Plotkin pushes toward the finish at Saturday's Upper Peninsula Division 3 Final. (Middle) Plotkin runs with a pack earlier in the race. (Photos by Cara Kamps.)