Rababeh, Lakeland Earn Long-Awaited Wins
November 5, 2016
Second Half reports
BROOKLYN – What Dearborn’s Riad Rababeh accomplished with a minimal amount of work was pretty remarkable.
It got him wondering what he could do if he trained with a purpose for his senior season of cross country.
The result of his effort was the MHSAA Division 1 individual championship Saturday at Michigan International Speedway.
Rababeh had the fastest time of the day in all four divisions, posting a 15:24.8 on a course that had some muddy sections to win by a 16-second margin over Alpena senior Mitchell Day.
A year ago, Rababeh shocked himself by placing eighth in the MHSAA meet in 15:30.8. The year before, he was 124th in 16:45.7. As a freshman, he was 32nd in his Regional in 17:38.3, which didn’t come close to qualifying for the MHSAA Finals.
“My junior year, I didn’t do anything,” he said. “Then I went into cross country season and ran 15:30 at states and puked my brains out. This year, I peaked around 65 miles in the summer and I was doing a lot of workouts and a lot of good stuff. I legitimately trained this summer, and it paid off in the end.”
This year’s race was expected to be a battle between Day and Rockford junior Cole Johnson, who were second and third, respectively, last season. With newfound fitness, Rababeh joined the two of them at the front, then began to pull away at 2.5 miles.
He became the first Dearborn runner since 1930 to win the MHSAA individual boys cross country title, something he never imagined when he was far back in the pack two years ago.
“Maybe top 50, I was hoping, but my junior year just accelerated into something beyond what I ever thought it would be,” Rababeh said. “Now I’m here.”
In the team competition, White Lake Lakeland won its first MHSAA championship since taking back-to-back Class A crowns in 1996 and 1997. Lakeland, ranked fourth in the state, scored 125 points to easily beat runner-up Saline, which had 198.
Birmingham Brother Rice was third with 220, while top-ranked Novi was fourth with 225.
Lakeland put four runners in the top 26 in the team race. Sophomore Harrison Grzymkowski led the Eagles, finishing third overall and second among team runners in 15:51.4.
Also scoring for Lakeland were senior Zack Werth (21st, 16:18.6), senior Joel Woody (25th, 16:22.7), junior Drew Wenger (26th, 16:23.8) and junior Angelo Savich (51st, 16:43.0).
None of the other team contenders had more than two runners in the top 39 in the team scoring.
The MHSAA Cross Country Finals are sponsored by the Michigan National Guard.
PHOTOS: (Top) Dearborn’s Riad Rababeh (206) stays a pace ahead of contenders Cole Johnson of Rockford and Mitchell Day of Alpena. (Middle) White Lake Lakeland’s Harrison Grzymkowski pushes through to finish third and lead his team to a championship. (Click to see more from RunMichigan.com.)
Hansen Goes Distance Again, Allendale Claims 1st Final Since 1999
November 2, 2024
BROOKLYN — It looked like TJ Hansen of Freeland had gotten a big head start on the rest of the field, not that he needed it.
Hansen, after all, set the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 2 Finals record with his time of 14 minutes, 52.8 seconds last year.
But here he was, moments before the start of Saturday’s Division 2 race at Michigan International Speedway, nearly in a dead sprint 600 yards from the start rushing into the Freeland tent to quickly change his shorts.
The style of shorts Hansen was wearing differed from those of his teammates, a uniform violation that would have disqualified the reigning champion. After frantically rushing to get different shorts, Hansen was put in a cart and rushed to the start line.
There was no time to decompress.
“As soon as I got back, it was 10 seconds and, boom, the gun went off,” he said. “It’s just a lesson in dealing with adversity.”
For a few highly-stressful minutes, Hansen feared he would be on the sideline while someone else won a championship he was out to defend.
“It kind of flashes before your eyes,” he said. “They tell you you’re DQ’d, and all those months of hard work seem like they flash before your eyes and all go to waste.”
When the gun went off, Hansen was back in his element and repeated as champion by lowering his Division 2 record to 14:50.5, the fourth-fastest time in any division at MIS.
He needed every bit of that effort, as Marshall senior Jack Bidwell took second in 14:57.3, a time that is the third-fastest by a Division 2 runner and 14th all-time in any division.
Hansen and Bidwell reached the two-mile mark together in 9:36.2 before the defending champion pulled away in the final mile.
“It was really just try to push the pace and see how fast I could go,” Hansen said. “My legs weren’t really feeling it today, so I changed up strategy to race to win.”
Hansen won 11 of 12 races this year, losing only to a runner from Tennessee on Oct. 5 in Indiana.
In the team race, Allendale won its first MHSAA Finals championship since 1999 by placing its five scoring runners among the top 29. The top 30 made all-state. The Falcons scored 78 points to win by 102 over 2023 champion Ada Forest Hills Eastern.
Sophomore Mason Hill was ninth in 15:24.0, senior Kilian Whalen 13th in 15:28.8, junior Ronnie Silveira 15th in 15:31.1, senior Ben Gross 27th in 15:47.1 and senior Parker Tiethof 29th in 15:48.3.
Allendale was fourth last year and returned its top six runners.
PHOTOS (Top) Freeland’s TJ Hansen pushes to the finish line in the Division 2 race Saturday after looking back to see Marshall’s Jack Bidwell also on the home stretch. (Middle) Allendale’s Mason Hill (403) and New Boston Huron’s Lucas Kuhn (530) race among the lead packs. (Click for more from Dave McCauley/RunMichigan.com.)