Pioneer Meets Lofty Expectations with Another Trophy Finish
By
Scott DeCamp
Special for MHSAA.com
March 12, 2022
HOLLAND – Nothing gets the attention of Ann Arbor Pioneer’s swimmers quicker than a glance up at the state championship banners in their home facility.
The piercing whistle of Pioneers coach Stefanie Kerska might be a close second, however.
Pioneer’s boys swimming & diving team made some more noise this weekend at Holland Aquatic Center, capped by another championship in runaway fashion at the MHSAA’s Lower Peninsula Division 1 Finals on Saturday.
On the strength of their depth and relays, the Pioneers amassed 365 points. Northville was runner-up with 267 points, followed by Holland West Ottawa in third (195), Saline fourth (187.50) and Macomb Dakota fifth (157).
It was the second-straight boys Finals title for Pioneer and Kerska. The Pioneers’ girls team, also coached by Kerska, captured a second consecutive championship in November at the Holland facility.
“They walk in every day to a facility that has multiple, multiple, dozens of banners on the wall and they know. We have alumni come back to speak about the program and what it means. There is a lot of pressure – people don’t realize that,” Kerska said about her boys team.
“There is a daily pressure on these guys to not only be the best here, but to live up to what’s come before them. I know I feel it, walking into my office every day. I’ve got a picture of Liz and Denny Hill on my desk, and I just try to be what they were.”
Under the Hills, Pioneer captured 15 Division 1 or Class A Finals titles in boys swimming and 16 more on the girls’ side. Kerska and the Pioneers certainly have kept that championship tradition afloat with four more titles between the boys and girls teams the last two years.
Kerska also learned from Denny Hill, her mentor, how handy the shrieking whistle across a noisy natatorium can be. When she does it, the Pioneers tend to stop in their tracks on the pool deck. They can hear her in the pool, too, and take their cues.
“I’ve been doing it for a long time. Actually, Denny Hill tried to teach me how to do it without my fingers, which is probably the better way, especially with COVID, to do it,” Kerska said with a smile. “I’ve been doing it for years and years and years. Although, I think I do have the same shrillness and tone that he did, so I’m trying to follow in his footsteps.
“We kind of do, like, the Von Trapps: Wherever they are on the pool deck, when they hear my whistle, they look. It comes in very handy with 17 boys.”
Kerska’s boys answered the call. Seniors Ryan Hume and Jack Wilkening led the way for Pioneer.
Hume repeated in the 200-yard individual medley (1:49.44) and he also won the 500 freestyle (4:26.65) after finishing runner-up in the latter event last year. Wilkening captured first place in the 100 free (45.06) and swam a leg on the victorious 200 medley relay (1:31.91) along with seniors Robert Yang and Alex Farmer plus junior Gabriel Sanchez-Burks.
Hume and Wilkening also joined Yang and senior Harrison Sanders on the Pioneers’ winning 400 free relay (3:03.99), which closed the Finals meet with an exclamation point.
Pioneer senior Teodor Jaworski captured the title in the 200 free (1:39.45), and he took second in the 500 free behind teammate Hume. Wilkening also placed second in the 100 backstroke.
“It’s all about the team. I had to have (a strong) relay for the team and I was performing for the team at that point,” said Wilkening, who signed to swim at University of Michigan.
As a member of back-to-back state title teams, Wilkening said this one was a little more special, mostly because things were a lot closer to “normal” in comparison to 2021.
Last season was shortened amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Last year was a crazy year for swimming in particular, men’s swimming, just because of how shortened our season was, how different everything was – the training, too,” Wilkening said.
“We really got to become a team again, I think. That’s what really set this one apart. We actually got to bond as one, be as one in total, more than last year.”
As Wilkening put it, being surrounded by the “greatness” of high-achieving coaches and peers has driven him and his teammates to achieve at this high level.
Sanchez-Burks can vouch for that. He is not a year-round swimmer like many others in the Pioneer program, as he also focuses his attention to water polo – but he played a key role for his team.
Sanchez-Burks was especially pleased by his runner-up finish in the 50 free, which established a school record with a time of 20.60.
“It’s been a struggle for me to keep up with everybody,” Sanchez-Burks said. “In practice, I always try to push myself to stay with all the year-round swimmers and I always try to push myself to stay with all the people I’m competing against today. It’s a lot of fun.
“All the relays, I think that’s where we strive because we have such a diverse team – we spread out so many good swimmers.”
Other first-place finishes belonged to West Ottawa senior Kevin Maas in the 50 free (20.58), Saline senior Joshua Brunty in the 100 breaststroke (55.85), Rochester senior Jack VanHowe in the 100 backstroke (48.13), Canton junior Ryan Gurgel in the 100 butterfly (49.34), Waterford Mott junior Alex Poulin in 1-meter diving (456.70), and Northville’s 200 free relay team (1:23.88) of Evan Scotto-DiVetta, Kyle McCullough, Nate Obrigkeit and Leonardo Simoncini.
Maas, who also is taking his swimming talents to U-M, was a back-to-back winner in the 50 free. Last year, he swam on the winning 200 free relay and tied for second in the 100 free.
On Saturday, VanHowe repeated in the backstroke.
“It was super emotional and super electric in so many ways,” Maas said about his performance Saturday in a venue that’s very familiar to him. “I never knew I could be so happy and so energetic after dropping only 0.02 (in the 50 free), but just to get the ‘W’ for the team and repeat for my team and my family, it meant a lot to me and I was emotional.
“That was the happiest I’ve ever been, and it felt so good.”
PHOTOS (Top) Robert Yang swims the third leg of the winning 200 medley relay for Ann Arbor Pioneer. (Middle) Pioneer’s Teodor Jaworski pulls to the front on the way to winning the 200 freestyle. (Click for more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
Picking Up Seconds All Over, Cranbrook Picks Up Points to Climb Podium
By
Jason Schmitt
Special for MHSAA.com
March 11, 2023
ROCHESTER — Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood edged top-seeded East Grand Rapids by one hundredth of a second Saturday in the 200-yard medley relay at the Lower Peninsula Division 3 Finals at Oakland University.
The Cranes celebrated their victory in the meet’s first event like they had just won the state championship. Little did everyone in attendance know that when all was said and done, that razor-thin margin would in fact be the difference, as Cranbrook captured its first Finals title since 2017. The Cranes totaled 271 team points, beating out the two-time reigning champion Pioneers (259) by 12 points.
“I’m one of those coaches, I score out the psych sheet, I score out the entries and EGR was 11 points up on us coming into today,” Cranbrook head coach Paul Ellis said. “(Winning) that first relay, that was a 12-point swing. That got the snowball rolling, and we continued to feed off that and go fast.”
Freshman A.J. Farner, senior Ethan Schwab and sophomores Sean Lu and Joe Wiater got the win for Ellis’s team. Schwab and Wiater swam the top splits in their legs, with Wiater rallying his team to victory in the final freestyle leg.
“That win by one one-hundredth really set the tone for the meet,” Schwab said. “It was great to come out with my team and have fun in the first relay and then bring the energy into the next event.”
Schwab brought the energy to all four of his swims at the Finals. The Michigan-bound Schwab won three of the races he entered and set LP Division 3 Finals records in both the 200 individual medley and 100 breaststroke this weekend. His time of 1:48.23 in Saturday’s IM beat the record he set just a day earlier in the prelims. He then finished with a 54.31 in the 100 breaststroke, beating out Wayland’s Zachery Jenison by more than two seconds but falling just short of his record-setting time of 54.04, set in Friday’s preliminary round.
Schwab was named Swimmer of the Meet by the Michigan Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association for his efforts, which also included a runner-up finish as part of the 400 freestyle relay.
Cranbrook’s 200 freestyle relay team of sophomore Robbie Sarle, senior Christos Tzoumakas, Wiater and junior Will Farner beat out top-seeded and 2022 event champion Grand Rapids Christian for the win. It was one of four victories for the Cranes.
“It was just a phenomenal team effort from top to bottom,” Ellis said. “Everyone did their part. Everyone nickel and dimed their way into the top 16 and nickel and dimed their way by moving up a little bit in each final swim that we had.
“We had huge swims from Will Farner, A.J. Farner and Sean Lu. Joe Wiater was injured last year. He came back and was consolation in the 50 and top eight in the breaststroke. It was a whole bunch of guys from all different classes that did it for us. I’m thrilled with everything they did.”
East Grand Rapids, which came in having won the Division 3 title in both 2021 and 2022, actually took slim leads over Cranbrook after eight events and again after 10. Junior Carter Kegle won the 500 freestyle for the second-straight year, beating out Plainwell freshman Sam Harper by five seconds. The win helped his team take a 10-point lead over Cranbrook. Kegle would finish second in the 200 freestyle and helped his Pioneers win the 400 freestyle relay to end the day. Junior Micah Spitzley and seniors Ted Turnage and Logan McCahill joined Kegle on the winning relay.
“We swam great. We broke three or four school records, and we were in the hunt,” East Grand Rapids head coach Milton Briggs said. “Give credit to Cranbrook. They beat us in that (medley) relay and they won the 200 free relay, which they weren’t supposed to. They had a great second day. They swam out of their minds. They’re a very, very good team.”
Grand Rapids Christian junior Ben Sytsma won the 50 freestyle and finished runner-up in the 100 freestyle. He won the 50 in a time of 20.57 seconds, edging Manistee junior Alec Lampen by three tenths of a second.
Lampen rebounded to win the 100 backstroke in a time of 50.30 seconds.
Chelsea’s Mitch Brown rolled to victory in the 1-meter diving competition. The junior scored 522.25, outdistancing second-place Gryffin Porter of Haslett (428.75). DeWitt freshman Carson Reynolds was third with 419.65 points.
Fremont senior Matheus Garcia won the 100 freestyle, touching the wall in a time of 44.75 seconds. He beat out Sytsma (44.96) and McCahill (45.20).
The state saw a glimpse of the future, as a pair of freshmen walked away with championships. Otsego’s Liam Smith won the 100 butterfly, and Adrian’s London Rising was tops in the 200 freestyle. Smith entered the weekend with the top-seeded time but was second after Friday’s preliminaries to Holland senior James Baer.
“I always put pressure on myself,” said Smith, who won the final with a time of 49.74. “I came in as the 1-seed so I felt like I had to finish as the 1-seed. But at the same time, I have three more years to come in and do it all over again. It feels awesome.”
Rising, who was second to Kegle after the prelims, said he was stressing out heading into the prelims and all night Friday.
“All night, I was just visualizing my race,” said Rising, who also finished third in the 100 butterfly. “When I came back, I was more nervous than excited but after I won, it was a big weight lifted off my shoulders. Today, I just focused on myself and didn’t underestimate anybody. I thought it was going to be a good race, and it was.”
Holland Christian finished third with 161 points, and Adrian (135) and Grand Rapids Christian (110) rounded out the top five.
PHOTOS Cranbrook Kingswood’s Ethan Schwab launches into one of his races Saturday at Oakland University. (Middle) Adrian’s London Rising celebrates his victory in the 200 freestyle. (Below) Chelsea’s Mitch Brown completes a dive on the way to claiming the title in that event. (Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)