Dexter Builds Lead, Carries it to D2 Title
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
March 12, 2016
UNIVERSITY CENTER – Mike McHugh was floating on his back in the Saginaw Valley State University pool Saturday afternoon, water soaking his clothes and a smile covering his face.
The Dexter coach, who had spent the previous four hours wearing out his shoes walking the pool’s deck, could now relax as his Dreadnaughts had won the Lower Peninsula Division 2 boys swimming and diving championship.
“It was the best swim I’ve ever had,” said McHugh, who also led Dexter to an MHSAA title in 2012 and a runner-up finish in 2014. “These guys work. I’m thankful for all the work they put in. I’m thankful for all the support I get from home. It’s a relief. It’s been a lot of pressure being ranked No. 1 all year, so being able to finish it off feels really good.”
Behind championship swims in the 200-yard freestyle and 100 backstroke by senior Rob Zofchak, and 13 total top-eight finishes, Dexter finished with a meet-best 284 points. Warren DeLaSalle was second with 266, two-time reigning champion Birmingham Seaholm was third with 211 and Battle Creek Lakeview was fourth with 205.
“We knew coming in we had to build up a lead,” McHugh said. “DeLaSalle’s really good in the back and breast(stroke). We’re really good in the 200 (freestyle), 500 and (individual medley). We knew we had to go big, and having seven top-eight swims in those three events was huge. I had three seniors make top eight in the 200 free (Zofchak, Matt Bergdolt who was second, and David Merz who was eighth). That’s the leadership we’ve got. Three senior leaders, two of them captains, just doing everything they can.”
Dexter still had work to do in the final race of the meet, although it wasn’t much. If DeLaSalle didn’t win the 400 freestyle relay, all the Dreadnaughts needed to win the meet were to not get disqualified in the race. They finished second, one spot ahead of the Pilots. Fittingly, it was Zofchak who swam the final leg of the relay.
“It’s something special,” Zofchak said. “You feel great. Even though you’re swimming hard, you’re going as hard as you can and you’re really tired, you still feel great. Like, ‘Wow. There’s not much I can do right now to mess this up.’”
The anchor leg capped off a great day in the pool for Zofchak, who won the 200 freestyle in 1 minute, 38.23 seconds, and the 100 backstroke in 49.26 – breaking his own meet record.
“I swam pretty well,” he said. “There’s definitely things I can improve on, and I’ll keep working on those, but in general I’m pretty proud of my swims.”
Zofchak was one of three swimmers to take home two individual titles on the day, joining Grosse Pointe South’s Jacob Montague and Midland Dow’s Nehemiah Mork.
Montague won the 200 individual medley and 100 breaststroke with LP Division 2 meet records of 1:47.4 and 53.93, respectively. It was the second straight year he’d won MHSAA titles in those events.
As Montague swam to commanding leads in both races, spectators watched in awe, some even counting the number of times he came out of the water in the breaststroke and marveling at how infrequently he did so.
“My freshman year, I only qualified for one event at the state meet and I didn’t even make it to finals,” Montague said. “I never thought that I’d be able to compete at a level like this. These past couple years I’ve given everything I can in the pool, every practice, every day. I just give 100 percent, just trying to get better. When everything pays off in the end, it’s just a great feeling.”
Mork was also a repeat champion in both of his events. He won the 50 freestyle in 20.83 seconds, one hundredth of a second ahead of Seaholm’s Liam Little. Mork won the 100 in 45.43 seconds.
“I could kind of see that (Little) was close to me – I had no idea it was a hundredth of a second close,” Mork said. “I saw him gliding a little bit; that’s when I knew I had to get a good finish, and I touched him out. But then everybody started cheering and I thought, ‘Aw shoot, I lost.’
“Then I looked up and it was a hundredth of a second and I still won, so I’ll take it.”
Also repeating as champion was Seaholm diver Sebastian Fay, who won with 479.4 points. He had a commanding lead coming into the final dives, but didn’t rest on his laurels.
“It puts more (pressure) on me, because diving is a sport where anything can happen,” Fay said. “I try not to let the lead get in my head because then I’ll just relax. With that dive especially, that last dive, I need to go after it, and if I relax I’m going to screw it up.
“So honestly, I felt a little more nervous at the end. My heart was pounding pretty hard, so I had to calm down.”
Seaholm won the 200 and 400 freestyle relays, while DeLaSalle won the 200 medley relay. DeLaSalle’s P.J. Desmet won the 100 butterfly in 51.21, while Rochester Adams’ Graham Miotke won the 500 freestyle in 4:35.64.
PHOTOS: (Top) Swimmers launch during Saturday’s LP Division 2 Finals at Saginaw Valley State University. (Middle) A diver arches during competition. (Below) Dexter poses with its championship trophy. (Click to see more at HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
Performance: West Ottawa's Derek Maas
January 19, 2018
Derek Maas
Holland West Ottawa junior – Swimming
The Panthers’ standout won the 100-yard backstroke (52.02 seconds), took second in the 200 individual medley (1:56.80) and swam on winning 200 medley and 400 freestyle relays Saturday as West Ottawa – then ranked No. 4 in Lower Peninsula Division 1 – defeated No. 1 Ann Arbor Skyline 104-79 and No. 3 Birmingham Brother Rice 111-72. The victories moved the Panthers into top spot in the rankings this week, as Maas earned the Michigan Army National Guard “Performance of the Week.”
Maas’ backstroke time from the weekend is the fastest in Michigan this winter, and his 1:56.08 at the East Grand Rapids Classic ranks sixth in the IM. He finished second in the backstroke and seventh in the IM at last season’s LPD1 Finals, with his times that day – 50.04 and 1:52.93 – his career bests at the high school level. He also owns the USA Swimming state age 15-16 record in the 200 breaststroke of 2:02.61, set as a member of the West Ottawa Swim Club at the USA Junior National Championships East in December.
The school records in both the backstroke (48.49) and IM (1:48.30) are held by Derek’s older brother Kyle, a 2016 West Ottawa graduate who finished LPD1 runner-up in both events as a senior and now swims at University of Alabama. Derek is considering joining his brother after high school among a number of potential southern college options, and also is a fan of University of Michigan athletics. Maas also played tennis as a freshman and sophomore and ran track as a freshman, and he might pick back up one or both of those sports after this swim season is complete. He carries a 3.94 unweighted grade-point average (4.49 weighted) and is considering studying medicine after high school; he lost his 4.0 when he got an A- in Algebra II – while taking the class as a fourth grader.
Coach Steven Bowyer said: “Derek has had a significant impact on the overall success of our program. Derek received all-state honors as a sophomore in the 200 IM and 100 back. In his junior year, he will play a significant role on our state meet relays, and his individual points will be key in helping our team achieve its goal of a top-4 state meet finish. … Derek's success has come from years of hard work and long hours in the pool. He understands both the amount and type of training that is required to excel at the highest level in this sport. He is also a student of the sport, spending time studying his stroke mechanics and researching ways to increase his efficiency. Derek's work ethic and technical understanding of the sport give him a combination of skills that make him tough to beat. … In pursuit of individual excellence, Derek has always placed team success over his own. Derek understands the better the team gets, the better he gets and vice versa. Our team is training at a very high level right now, in part to the example that Derek sets on a daily basis. Derek also sets an unprecedented example in the classroom; he defines the term student athlete. In addition to the hours he puts in at the pool, he maintains a rigorous schedule of advanced placement courses. We are very proud to have Derek representing our program.”
Performance Point: “I was happy about the 100 back time – it was my season best – and also our relays swam great,” Maas said. “A lot of us had the fastest splits, especially on that medley relay. We came pretty close to setting the pool record – we were like 0.06 (seconds) away, and that was a pretty good in-season time for us. … Our team was really excited for that meet, especially. That was a big confidence booster for us, and I think that everybody after that meet really realized that we have a chance to do really well at the state meet. So I hope that that will make us work even harder, and by the end of the season we’ll be able to accomplish our goals.”
Depth in the deep: “We just have a lot more depth than we had years in the past. A couple of years ago we had Tabahn (Afrik), and he won two events (at the 2014 and 2015 Finals), and then Spencer Carl did the last couple years. But besides just a couple top swimmers, they didn’t have the depth we do this year. This year we have a really solid group of 7-10 swimmers. We’ve all been excited, even starting at the end of last season and starting the summer season. We all were really excited for the state meet coming in March.”
Swim family: “Kyle’s at Alabama right now, and my sister (Jenna, a senior) is thinking about swimming in college. And I also have a younger brother (eighth-grader Kevin) who I think is going to be pretty fast. I think he’ll make a much bigger impact than I did my freshman year. … The best part is whenever I’m at a certain point in a season, I’ll know how I’m doing because I can compare it to my brother’s times. And also, whenever I talk to him about swimming, he always pushes me and gets me motivated. Even my younger brother and older sister do too. We all push each other. Last year I compared all of my times to Kyle’s, and I used to text him about that. He was like, ‘Let’s wait and see if you get my varsity records.’”
High flier: “My family really likes (U.S. world champion sprinter) Caeleb Dressel. I read in this one SwimSwam article that he had like a 42-inch vertical (leap), and that’s insane. You can see how that makes him way better on the walls, so that made me more focused on box jumps and dry land (training) and increasing my vertical leap than I had been in the past. I’ve worked on it a lot this year; I’m probably just average right now, but I’m trying to improve that. I can dunk, and Kyle can too.”
Paging Dr. Derek: “Both of my parents are doctors, and they’ve always told us we could be any kind of doctor we want, all four kids. Recently my dad has been opening up the options, but it’s most likely I’ll go pre-med, and that’s what Kyle is doing right now at Alabama. I haven’t looked into it a ton, but I know I’d like dermatology and maybe surgery.”
- Geoff Kimmerly, Second Half editor
Every week during the 2017-18 school year, Second Half and the Michigan Army National Guard will recognize a “Performance of the Week" from among the MHSAA's 750 member high schools.
The Michigan Army National Guard provides trained and ready forces in support of the National Military Strategy, and responds as needed to state, local, and regional emergencies to ensure peace, order, and public safety. The Guard adds value to our communities through continuous interaction. National Guard soldiers are part of the local community. Guardsmen typically train one weekend per month and two weeks in the summer. This training maintains readiness when needed, be it either to defend our nation's freedom or protect lives and property of Michigan citizens during a local natural disaster.
Previous 2017-18 honorees:
January 11: Lexi Niepoth, Bellaire basketball - Read
November 30: La'Darius Jefferson, Muskegon football - Read
November 23: Ashley Turak, Farmington Hills Harrison swimming - Read
November 16: Bryce Veasley, West Bloomfield football - Read
November 9: Jose Penaloza, Holland soccer - Read
November 2: Karenna Duffey, Macomb L'Anse Creuse North cross country - Read
October 26: Anika Dy, Traverse City Central golf - Read
October 19: Andrew Zhang, Bloomfield Hills tennis - Read
October 12: Nolan Fugate, Grand Rapids Catholic Central football - Read
October 5: Marissa Ackerman, Munising tennis - Read
September 28: Minh Le, Portage Central soccer - Read
September 21: Olivia Theis, Lansing Catholic cross country - Read
September 14: Maddy Chinn, Pontiac Notre Dame Prep volleyball - Read
PHOTOS: (Top) Holland West Ottawa's Derek Maas competes during a meet this season. (Middle) Maas swims the butterfly. (Photos courtesy of the West Ottawa boys swimming & diving program.)