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Meyers Serves, Strides for Norrix Fall Teams
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
August 21, 2017
KALAMAZOO — Finding a face in a crowd of 357 runners erupting down a hillside all at once could be a daunting task.
But spotting sophomore Joe Meyers is easy, said Greg Savicke.
“He’ll be one of the ones out front,” the Kalamazoo Loy Norrix coach predicted.
That was true at Friday’s Portage Central Early Bird Invitational, where Meyers finished 14th with a time of 17 minutes, 12 seconds.
That sounds like a great time for a first race of the season, but Meyers was not celebrating.
“I had a pretty bad race,” he said. “I was training in Colorado for like a month with my new coach, and I put in a lot of training.
“I should have been well in the 16s. It was just not a good race.”
He didn’t have much time to fret.
The two-sport athlete had his first tennis match of the season Monday.
He’s playing No. 2 singles for the Knights after putting together a 21-5 record at the same flight last year.
Juggling two fall sports is not a problem for the amiable Meyers, with tennis taking priority.
“We work around the tennis schedule,” said Savicke, in his 29th year as Norrix’s head cross country coach. “We get Joe when he’s available. Early in the season it’s not so much, but down the stretch, yes.
“That’s the championship part of our season for us, in October, so we get him for the most important meets coming up.”
Both sports are in Meyers’ DNA.
His mother, Jody, got him on the tennis court when he was 5 and just playing for fun.
“Then I quit and mainly played hockey for years until seventh grade, then picked up tennis again,” he said.
He started running with his father, John, at age 9.
As a freshman, “I didn’t really want to pick one because I knew I could do pretty good in both,” Joe Meyers said. “It worked out last year.”
Both are individual sports, but in running, “you have to definitely have a lot more drive to go out and run by yourself because you can have a lot of excuses not to,” he said.
“In tennis, you go to group and you have to try as hard as you can. I don’t really get as tired in matches (since I’ve been) running.”
Meyers works out with sophomore Reed Crocker, Norrix’s No. 1 singles player.
Crocker qualified for the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 2 Finals last season, losing his top-flight title match, 7-6(6), 3-6, 7-6(8), to top-seeded Varun Shanker of Midland Dow.
The only way Meyers will make it to the Finals is if Loy Norrix as a team qualifies, since the No. 1 player is the only individual eligible if the team falls short at Regionals. The No. 1 singles champion and runner-up at Regionals advance to Finals play even if their teams do not qualify.
“We have a better chance (as a team) this year,” Crocker said. “The team’s looking better.
“We’ve been doing a lot of sprints, a lot. (Sunday) was an easy day. We only ran a mile” before practice.
Crocker said Meyers pushes him to be better.
“Joe is like the marathon runner, so it helps me with conditioning and it helps me on the court because I know he can help build the wins,” Crocker said.
“We hit together, and he pushes me get better. I’ve had the joy to hit with him the last year or so because he joined my coach (Bill Jenkins, who is also Norrix’s head coach).”
Jenkins, in his third season with the Knights, has coached tennis for 38 years.
Meyers possesses a “good work ethic, and genetics are very much in his favor as far as a force in track,” Jenkins said. “He’s built for it in tennis as well.
“He’s also extremely coachable so he has a very good perspective, very good mindset and disposition for tennis. He’s extremely intense, extremely passionate and competitive, but he’s also very level-headed, so he’s able to channel a lot of that energy into proper use.”
Jenkins said, in his experience, it is unusual to have an athlete be so successful in two sports in the same season.
“He’s got very set dreams but he works at them on a daily basis, knowing that the only way to achieve them is through his commitment,” the coach said.
“Regardless of whatever natural distractions may come up, he seems to stay on track very diligently and is years ahead of his time.”
While Meyers needs the team to qualify for the MHSAA Finals in tennis, he has a much better shot of earning a berth in cross country.
Last year, then-senior Gabe Runyon was the only Norrix runner to qualify for the Lower Peninsula Division 1 competition at Michigan International Speedway.
Meyers just missed qualifying, finishing 21st at his Regional with a time of 17:04. The top 15 runners moved on.
Savicke lost Runyon and four of his other top seven runners to graduation this spring, noting that Meyers has moved up from second in the order to become the team’s top runner.
Meyers has improved on his 2016 Regional time and has an unofficial personal best of 16:30. He has hit 17:00 in a race, and his short-term goal is to get into the 16s during competition.
Said Savicke: “Joe’s father was a runner in high school for (Kalamazoo) Hackett in the 1980s, and he’s really active in bicycling and running events. He’s brought Joe along with him.
“I think that just paid dividends with his running abilities. I saw Joe in middle school, so I knew he would be a good fit for us.”
Norrix’s next cross country meet is Thursday with Meyers leading a varsity contingent of junior Will Carrier, senior Zach Skinner, sophomore Myles Baker, junior Rowan Mathieson, senior Garrett Bloom and sophomore Erick Ponce.
Once the fall season is over, Meyers does not plan to leave sports behind.
He bicycles and was the Michigan Bicycle Racing Association road race junior state and point series champ a year ago and “might pick up hockey or swimming this year,” he said.
In the spring, he is part of the varsity track & field team, competing in the 1,600, 3,200 and 3,200 relay.
Pam Shebest served as a sportswriter at the Kalamazoo Gazette from 1985-2009 after 11 years part-time with the Gazette while teaching French and English at White Pigeon High School. She can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Calhoun, Kalamazoo and Van Buren counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Kalamazoo Loy Norrix sophomore Joe Meyers returns a volley during a tennis practice Sunday. (Middle) Clockwise from top left: Meyers, tennis teammate Reed Crocker, Knights’ boys tennis coach Bill Jenkins, Knights’ boys cross country coach Greg Savicke. (Below) Meyers pushes ahead of a pack during Friday’s Early Bird race at Portage Central. (Photos by Pam Shebest.)
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Plotkin Completes 2nd Boys Finals 4-Peat
By
John Vrancic
Special for MHSAA.com
October 19, 2019
MARQUETTE – Brimley senior Austin Plotkin said he tried to run Saturday’s Upper Peninsula Division 3 Final like any other race.
But, perhaps as expected, it was much more.
Plotkin crossed the finish line in 17:20.7, winning his fourth MHSAA Finals championship and becoming just the second boys cross country runner to do so, joining Central Lake’s Ryan Shay who accomplished the feat in Lower Peninsula Class D from 1993-96.
"I tried to get under 17 minutes, but going under 17 is hard to do on this course," said Plotkin. "There's a lot of rolling hills out there. It's a very deceptive course. I just tried to run this like any other race, and it paid off. I tried to focus and do what I needed to do."
Plotkin was followed at Gentz's Golf Course in Chocolay Township by Cedarville senior Thomas Bohn, who finished runner-up for the third straight season and this time in 17:31.1. Brimley junior Cameron Hoornstra was third at 18:00.5.
Rudyard was crowned Division 3 team champion for the first time in a decade with 72 points, followed by Dollar Bay with 93 and Brimley with 96.
"This was kind of a surprise for me," said Rudyard coach Mark Rice. "I thought we could be runner-up. We depended a lot on our No. 5 runner (sophomore Ross Malaska), and he came through for us. Hayden Mills (who placed fifth at 18:20.1) was working with a little bit of an injury issue a few weeks ago, which I think came from running too many races. We're going to revamp our schedule next year."
Division 2
All aboard. Here comes the Hematite train!
The Ishpeming boys, who call themselves that, chugged to their second straight Upper Peninsula Division 2 cross country championship Saturday with 27 points.
The title also was the fifth in six years for the Hematites, who were followed by Ironwood with 51 points, Gogebic (Wakefield-Marenisco/Bessemer) at 67 and Norway at 92.
"My wife (Christie) and I start them off in grade school," said Ishpeming coach P.J. Pruett. "When cross country season starts, they're ready to go. Our program is very solid. We have a lot of runners coming back next year. The future looks bright."
Ishpeming senior Jonah Broberg earned his first individual title, covering the 3.1-mile event in 17 minutes, 29 seconds. He was followed by Norway sophomore Adam Cavagnetto (17:33.9), Ishpeming junior Jordan Longtine (17:48.6) and Gogebic (Bessemer) senior Adam Mazurek (17:54.5) on this partly sunny, breezy and mild day.
"The wind picked up for our race, which made it very challenging," said Broberg. "But I still won, and running into the wind makes it that much more satisfying. I wanted to go out hard, and the first 800 (meters) was very fast."
Cavagnetto's time was three minutes, 20 seconds better than a year ago.
"It's fun," he said. "I get up in the morning thinking about running and go to bed thinking about running.
"I wanted to go out fast and stay with Jonah and Adam, and I think it worked out very well."
Division 1
Marquette secured its first Division 1 title in five years with 51 points, followed by 2018 champ Sault Ste. Marie with 57 and Houghton with 63.
"We've alternated No. 1 runners throughout the year and (senior) Hogan Nemetz was our top runner today," said Marquette coach Kyle Detmers. "Sault was right there. Hats off the (coach) Jim Martin. They have a great program, and Houghton has a real good team.
"I appreciate the Gentz family allowing us to use their facility. This is an excellent setting for a meet. I also appreciate the efforts by our athletic director Alex Tiseo, assistant coach Mike Leanes and the many volunteers."
Houghton junior Joe Wood won a Final for the first time in a personal-best 16:57.8, followed by Gladstone sophomore Giovanni Mathews (17:27,6) and Sault junior Jaron Wyma (17:30.8).
"I wanted to stay with the front pack in the beginning," said Wood. "I ran with Giovanni for a while, then I made my move a little after the mile mark. I felt I could break away.
“It feels good to get a PR (personal record). This is definitely a confidence boost and a good way to end the season. Our whole team did pretty well."
Mathews said he was pleased with the overall conditions.
"The weather conditions were great today," he added. "The only problem is it was real windy. We (freshman Drew Hughes and Mathews) had a pretty big gap in the beginning. Only, I think Joe could sense I was feeling it. A couple times, I almost stopped. Joe was in a little better shape today."
PHOTOS: (Top) Cedarville's Thomas Bohn (269), Brimley's Austin Plotkin (236) and Newberry's Ephram Evans (273) run in the UPD3 Final. (Middle) Ishpeming's Jonah Broberg (151), Gogebic’s Adam Murzek (180), Norway's Adam Cavagnetto (166) and Ishpeming's David Liimatta (156) lead the UPD2 race Saturday. (Below) Houghton's Joe Wood (27) runs to the Division 1 title, here followed closely by eventual second-place finisher Giovanni Mathews from Gladstone. (Photos by Cara Kamps.)