Skyline Soars to 1st Finals Championship
March 10, 2018
By Jason Schmitt
Special for Second Half
YPSILANTI – The groundwork was laid Friday.
But the celebration was years in the making.
At the conclusion of the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 1 Boys Swimming & Diving Finals at Eastern Michigan University, Ann Arbor Skyline coach Mo-Jo Isaac performed a near-perfect back flip off the 3-meter diving board – something she’s been doing for years when her teams accomplish something special.
The occasion certainly called for the coach to take a dip in Jones Natatorium Saturday afternoon. The Hawks cruised past the competition, scoring 274 team points to top the field and bring home the first MHSAA championship in program history.
“Whenever my girls teams (at Skyline) would accomplish a milestone, or something big would happen, that’s kind of what we do,” said Isaac, who’s in her second year coaching the boys program. “Today, I had kind of forgotten about it, but a bunch of our girls were here to cheer on the guys and they were like, ‘No, Coach Mo-Jo, you’ve got to jump.’ ”
Skyline picked up wins in five of the meet’s 12 events, with senior David Cleason leading the way with a pair of individual titles. He was tops in the 200-yard individual medley, winning in a time of 1:49.81. He also bested the field in the 500 freestyle, where he edged out Livonia Stevenson’s Ben Rojewski with a time of 4:30.50.
Cleason’s teammate, Michael MacGillivray, was second in the 200 IM, while winning a title of his own in the 100 breaststroke (55.01). Both Cleason and MacGillivray were members of the team’s winning 400 freestyle relay, with senior Samuel Jyawook and junior Kyle Tschannen. Their winning time was 3:04.99, beating out runner-up Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central and third-place Harrison-Farmington Unified.
“It’s a dream come true,” said Cleason, who accounted for 40 points by himself and helped his team earn 50 more in the two relay events he swam. “Me and Michael (MacGillivray) have been dreaming about winning that 4x100 free relay and winning the team title for so long and now that we’re seniors, doing it and winning it in our last swim meet, it’s perfect.”
Skyline’s final individual event championship came in the 1-meter diving event. Junior Henry Schirmer repeated as champion, scoring 503.85 points to outdistance runner-up Cade Hammond of Brighton, who scored 448.45.
“I feel like we won the meet yesterday, even though no one scored a point,” Isaac said. “We talked about doing it as a team, and we couldn’t do it if everyone wasn’t there for each other. We were on fire yesterday and we qualified really well.”
Holland West Ottawa, which entered the Finals ranked No. 2 in the state behind Skyline, lived up to its ranking by finishing second with 207 points. The Panthers won two of the three relays and saw junior Derek Maas capture the 100 backstroke title. Maas, who finished runner-up in the event a year ago, left nothing to chance Saturday, winning in a time of 50.23, better than a second ahead of runner-up Parker Wasielewski of Livonia Stevenson.
Maas joined teammates Julian Barrios, Ryan Langdon and Khadin Soto on the Panthers’ winning 200 medley relay team (1:31.91). Langdon, Barrios, Jacob Boersema and Sam Smith took top honors in the 200 freestyle relay in a time of 1:24.54.
Forest Hills Central junior Henry Schutte repeated as champion in both the 50 and 100-yard freestyle events. His time of 20.01 in the preliminary Friday set an all-Division MHSAA Finals record in the 50. He nearly duplicated the feat Saturday, finishing with a winning time of 20.04. Zeeland’s Austin Mills was second in the 50, while Ann Arbor Pioneer’s Adam Orringer-Hau was runner-up to Schutte in the 100.
“I am beyond happy with everything I did today,” said Schutte, who helped his team to a fourth-place finish. “I have to thank my coaches, my family, my teammates, shoot, even the people in my races. We’re all pushing each other to do our best, and every race is so fun. I love it.”
Orringer-Hau, the top seed in the 200 freestyle, won the event in a time of 1:38.66. He was third at last year’s Finals.
Four-time reigning team champion Birmingham Brother Rice had its streak end, but not without a fight. The Warriors finished third, behind Skyline and West Ottawa, with 154 points. Senior Alex Margherio captured the lone individual title for Rice, winning the 100 butterfly in a time of 48.43. Howell’s Henry Bauer was second in a time of 50.09.
Northville finished fifth overall with 141 team points, with Ann Arbor Pioneer (131), Detroit Catholic Central (127), Saline (116), Zeeland (100) and Harrison-Farmington (81) rounding out the top 10.
PHOTOS: (Top) Skyline's Henry Schirmer rotates through one of his dives on the way to repeating as LP Division 1 champion Saturday. (Middle) Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central's Henry Schutte looks to the scoreboard as the other competitors in the 50 finish their sprints. (Click for more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
Peel, VanMeter Put On Show at Last Meet
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
March 9, 2019
ROCHESTER – Going into the 2019 Division 3 Boys Swimming & Diving Finals at Oakland University, both Spring Lake senior Cam Peel and Holland Christian senior Riley VanMeter had other numbers driving their respective quests to be No. 1.
For Peel, it was a third-place finish at last year’s Finals meet in the 50-yard freestyle that weighed on his mind as he readied to start this year’s ultimate sprint race.
But Peel avenged that memory by capturing his first 50 freestyle championship, in his last chance, in a time of 19.91 seconds. In Friday's prelim, he set the all-Finals record in the race at 19.86, becoming the first in Michigan to break 20 seconds in high school competition.
“I’ve always wanted to win the 50,” Peel said. “That’s one where the more mature guys win, so it’s super hard to win as a younger guy in the event. This was my year.”
Peel – who will go on to swim at University of Michigan – then completed the sweep of the sprint events by repeating as champion in the 100 yards in a time of 43.94, finishing as one of two individual standouts of the meet.
The other was VanMeter, who first won the 100 butterfly in a time of 48.07 – which wasn’t a surprise since he was the top seed going in.
But VanMeter also eyed a title in the 100 backstroke, an event he entered seeded second.
VanMeter surpassed that seeding with a terrific swim, winning the backstroke in a time of 48.95 to edge his club teammate, Joey Wachter of Spring Lake.
VanMeter, who will swim at Alabama, was second in both events at last year’s Division 3 meet.
“It’s just satisfying to be able to cap that on the end my high school swimming career,” VanMeter said. “It’s great to see where it’s been and where I’m going. I look back on all the amazing people I’ve swam against, and it’s a great way to end my high school swimming career.”
VanMeter was the main standout for Holland Christian, but he certainly wasn’t the only one, as the Maroons repeated as team champions with a meet-best 323.5 points.
East Grand Rapids finished with 267 points to place runner-up for the fourth straight year, while Marshall was third with 198 points.
Spring Lake (197) and Hamilton (139) rounded out the top five.
“We just had a really good Friday,” Holland Christian head coach Todd Smeenge said. “Prelims on Friday set you up for finals on Saturday. You can’t win a meet on Friday, but you certainly can lose it. I can’t say there was any magic trick, but we had some swims that were surprising even to me. I didn’t think they were going to swim that fast.”
Holland Christian and East Grand Rapids were tied atop the state rankings going into the meet, but the depth for the Maroons turned out to be the difference.
Holland Christian’s team of Colin Kalkman, Brant Assink, VanMeter and Brad Windemuller won the 200 medley relay in a time of 1:35.81, while the Maroons had second-place finishes in the 200 freestyle (Levi VanAst) and 100 freestyle (Jacob Heeres). Diving and the breaststroke were the only events where Holland Christian didn’t have a top-five finisher.
“Last year, we had a team made up of top-end studs … that took a lot of first places,” Smeenge said. “We took several state records. This year, we were more about depth and having the guys in all the places.”
Other individual winners besides Peel and VanMeter were Spring Lake junior Kevin Losee in the 200 freestyle (1:39.76), Trenton sophomore Spencer Boling-Hamer in the 200 individual medley (1:55.73), St. Johns senior Cayden Petrak in the diving event (520.20), Mason sophomore Jonas Cantrell in the 500 freestyle (4:34.45) and Milan freshman Andrew Dobrzanski in the 100 breaststroke (58.53).
Spring Lake’s team of Wachter, Sam Sella, Losee and Peel won the 200 freestyle relay in a time of 1:22.88, while Spring Lake’s team of Losee, Charles Brown, Wachter and Peel won the 400 freestyle relay in a time of 3:03.66.
PHOTOS: (Top) Holland Christian athletes dive into the Oakland University pool Saturday to celebrate their Division 3 championship. (Middle) Spring Lake's Cam Peel, left, and Holland Christian's Jacob Heeres congratulate each other after their 400 relays finished first and second, respectively. (Click for more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)