Groves Accomplishes Year-long Goal in Earning 1st Finals Title Since 2010

By Dean Holzwarth
Special for MHSAA.com

March 11, 2023

HOLLAND – Birmingham Groves junior Angus McDonald remembers a phone call between teammates following last year’s fourth-place finish at the Lower Peninsula Division 2 Finals.  

“I remember a year ago, we were on a call late at night saying that we could really win state next year, and we’ve been working for this the whole year,” McDonald said. “It’s something we’ve dreamed of for so long.” 

That dream became a reality Saturday as the Falcons claimed the Division 2 crown by a narrow margin over Detroit U-D Jesuit.

Groves finished with 274 points, while Jesuit had 267 points. Birmingham Seaholm (210) was third and Grosse Pointe South (207) placed fourth. 

The Finals win was the Falcons’ first since 2010. 

“We thought we had a chance to win the BIg Dance,” Groves coach Ricky Forrest said. “We knew it was going to be very tight. We knew it was going to be a dogfight, and it was. 

“We had a lot of kids step up, and our captains and our leadership on the team did a tremendous job.” 

Groves has steadily climbed the ladder at the Finals. The Falcons had placed ninth two years ago, and knew this feat was possible with the return of several experienced swimmers. 

Fenton’s Max Haney races to the 200 IM victory. “It was a goal that they had last March, and they put in the work,” Forrest said. “It's one of the most rewarding feelings in the world when you put in the work, and you get to see it. I'm getting goosebumps just talking about it right now.” 

McDonald won the 100-yard breaststroke (55.90) and was a part of the victorious 200 medley relay team that set the tone early. 

“We knew if any year was going to be the year, this was it, and we’ve been striving so hard to make it happen,” McDonald said. “U of D put up a great fight, and they’re a very strong team. We’re just so happy to come out with this, and this feels amazing.” 

Senior Ian Duncan, who clocked a winning time of 1:40.01 in the 200 free, became emotional as he clutched the championship trophy and talked about the journey to reach this moment. 

“In this sport more than anything, you have early mornings and late nights and you think about all the things that can get you through those hard practices when you really don't want to do it,” Duncan said. “Keeping your dreams alive, that one day you might get in the pool and win it all for your team and the school that you represented for four years. It's really something that keeps you going through the hard times. It's immeasurable.”

After Friday’s preliminaries, Groves set out to prove it had enough mettle to win it all. 

“We brought it together in our hotel room, and we thought we had a chance to do something special,” Duncan said. “We all looked each other in the eye, and we all knew if we could come together as a team and trusted each other then we were going to come out on top.” 

Grosse Pointe South’s Logan Hepner launches during his repeat pursuit in diving.Forrest said the little things made the difference. 

“Our boys swam outstanding yesterday and today, and it's really crazy how all the small things that we teach and we coach always matter when the races are so tight,” he said. 

Jesuit placed runner-up for the second-straight year. Last year the Cubs finished second to Ann Arbor Skyline. 

“We kind of knew all season that we were talented,” Jesuit coach Drew Edson said. “I didn’t realize we were going to be up like this, but our focus the entire season and this weekend was the team. 

“This is the best team around when it comes to being loving and appreciative for the successes they've had because they’ve worked for every amount of it.” 

Jesuit captured wins in a pair of relay events, the 200 and 400 free. 

“Top to bottom our kids did phenomenally,” Edson said. “Our relays were great, individually we were great and we had a lot of top-end speed. We were just missing a little bit of depth, and I think that’s where championships are won. Our kids swam their hearts out.”  

Fenton senior Max Haney became a two-time Finals champion winning the 200 IM (1:48.44) and the 100 back (48.92). 

Grosse Pointe South senior Logan Hepner recorded the top honor in diving for the second-straight season, this time by scoring 560.801 points. His father Chad had won a Finals championship in diving for the Blue Devils in 1993.

Byron Center's Austin Briggs (50 freestyle), Grosse Pointe south's Keiran Rahmaan (100 butterfly) and Troy Liu (100 free), and Walled Lake Northern's Seah Diffenderfer (500 free) also won championships, Diffenderfer repeating in that race.

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PHOTOS (Top) Birmingham Groves celebrates its LPD2 team championship Saturday at Holland Aquatic Center. (Middle) Fenton’s Max Haney races to the 200 IM victory. (Below) Grosse Pointe South’s Logan Hepner launches during his repeat pursuit in diving. (Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)

Longtime Coach's Legendary Expertise Keeps Manistee Surging

By Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com

November 19, 2021

Name any high school or community pool in Michigan, and odds are Corey Van Fleet has been there.

Perhaps it is true of any pool in the United States.

He might have even helped build it.

And, a little more odds. If the pool hosted an MHSAA Finals meet, one of Van Fleet’s teams likely participated. Although he won’t have any qualifiers making the trip to the Division 3 girls meet Friday, he’s been to championship weekend lots of times with Birmingham Seaholm and Manistee. His 1962-65 Seaholm boys teams won four straight Class A Finals, and his Manistee boys team is coming off a Finals trip last winter and its best season ever.

Van Fleet, now 85 years young, is in his 68th of coaching swimmers. He’s spent the last 13 with the boys and girls teams of Manistee High School. He started the program after helping build the pool.  

The school utilizes the Paine Aquatics Center named after Bill Paine, who presented a proposal to the City of Manistee, the Manistee Area Public Schools and Van Fleet. Paine’s proposal called for the pool, which opened in July 2009, to be attached to the high school facilities.

“So I’m sitting in my office one day and this tall, lanky guy (Paine) walks in and closes the door and says my wife and I want to donate an aquatics complex in Manistee, and Sandy Saylor says you know something about swimming,” Van Fleet recalls. “‘Will you help me build it?’

“We talked about it for a while and I said yeah, I’d help him,” Van Fleet continued. “So we ended up with a nice eight-lane swimming pool in Manistee.”

Van Fleet, who also had coached at Florida State, coached and served as athletic director at Oakland University and then served as AD at Long Beach State (Calif.) during an illustrious career at the college level, took the next step naturally.

Manistee girls swimming & diving“The superintendent of schools at the time (Robert Olsen) said you build the darn thing, you might as well get some programs started,” Van Fleet recalled. “That was 13 years ago, and I’m still at it.”

At it, Van Fleet continues. He plans to stay with it until he just can’t do it anymore.

“I am still fairly healthy,” he said. “If I can find six people that can carry me out of church, I can think about quitting.”

During his tenure at Manistee, Van Fleet’s teams have dominated the Coastal Conference and produced multiple academic all-state swimmers. The boys team captured the 2020 academic all-state title with a 3.82 team grade point average.

“I am most proud, I think, about our academic progress,” Van Fleet said. “We take great pride in passing some classes.”

Van Fleet is also filled with pride when he reflects on all the swimmers he’s seen go on to become lawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers and coaches.

“I am pleased with the number of kids who have gone on to do some pretty big things in the world off our swimming programs,” he said. “I’d like to think they might have learned lessons about goal planning and sticking to it and hard work and all that stuff.

“That’s what lights me up.”

Van Fleet’s initial high school coaching job was at Madison Heights in 1959. He’s coached at camps all over Michigan, including his first at Burt Lake in 1954. Today he owns and operates a summer swimming camp in Irons, 30 miles southeast of Manistee. He also built it.

Jeff Brunner, a veteran MHSAA official in multiple sports including swimming, and father of former members of the Traverse City high school swimming co-op, is among many singing praises of Van Fleet’s impact on the sport.

“Corey has a wealth of information that he has accumulated in his coaching career,” Brunner said. “If I was a high school swimmer, I’d want to learn all I could from him – swimming for him would be such a unique opportunity.”

Andrew Huber, principal of Manistee’s middle and high schools, agrees with Brunner.

“We're humbled to have had Corey as part of our school and community,” he said. “His wealth of experience, knowledge, and relationship building has helped create a foundation of well-being for students and adults alike.  

“His enthusiasm for swimming is infectious, and his energy is amazing for anyone regardless of age,” he continued. “It's been truly impressive to observe him connect and inspire students for the many years he's been in Manistee, and realize his impact is generational.”

The Manistee boys swim team starts practice next week. The Chippewas, along with their girls squad, have battled through COVID. The pandemic is one of many changes through which Van Fleet has guided his athletes.

“We’ve seen changes in training methods,” he said. “We’ve seen changes in diet.

“We’ve seen changes in philosophies in terms of what’s important and what’s not important,” he went on. “Kids have changed, and parents have changed.”

Training methods have been modified the most, along with new multi-lane pools popping up in Michigan, Van Fleet noted.

“Swimming is more technical now,” he said. “The science of swimming has become paramount. 

“It is not just going in and kick a few legs and swim a few hundreds and go home — we’ve gone the gamut,” he continued. “It is very specific now every time you want a kid to do something, and now our swimming pools are showplaces – they are magnificent.”

Tom Spencer is a longtime MHSAA-registered basketball and soccer official, and former softball and baseball official, and he also has coached in the northern Lower Peninsula area. He previously has written for the Saginaw News, Bay County Sports Page and Midland Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.

PHOTOS (Top) Corey Van Fleet (far right) visits with his Manistee girls team the wall honoring him at Oakland University. (Middle) Van Fleet is in his 68th year coaching swimming. (Photos courtesy of the Manistee girls swimming & diving program.)