After Close Calls, Chelsea Claims Title
June 1, 2013
By Greg Chrapek
Special to Second Half
ADA – This spring’s high school sports season long will be remembered for having some of the worst weather in years.
While the wet and cold weather hampered many teams across the state, the Chelsea boys track team used it to its advantage. And the payoff was an MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 2 track and field championship Saturday afternoon at Forest Hills Eastern.
After coming close the past two years, the Bulldogs came away with this year’s title as they totaled 64 points to edge second-place Grand Rapids Ottawa Hills by eight points.
Chelsea finished second two years ago, and last year the Bulldogs placed third. This year, thanks to some hard training when the weather was at its worst in the spring, Chelsea had what it took to bring home the title hardware.
“Back in March and April when the weather was bad and everyone was complaining about how bad the weather was, we talked about just concentrating and working harder,” Chelsea coach Eric Swager said. “Rain, sleet or snow everyone was out there working their hardest, and it paid off. … Everyone just worked that much harder when the weather was bad.”
The hard work resulted in Chelsea having a deep team capable of scoring points in a variety of events.
“Everybody contributed,” Swager said. “The sprints, the relays, the distance runners, field events. The entire team has been focused and working hard from day one. We have some individual talent, but everybody stuck together and that was the key.”
Berkley Edwards was one of the individual talents that helped pave the way for the Bulldogs. One of the state’s top sprinters, Edwards wrapped up his high school track career by winning both the 100 and the 200-meter dashes.
Edwards turned in a time of 10.58 in the 100-meter dash and then came back to edge Gary Jones of Allegan in a 200-meter dash that came down to the end. Edwards finished with a time of 21.37.
“Things went well for me today, better than expected,” Edwards said. “I ran a 10.58 which was a p.r. (personal record) in the 100, and then I ran a 21.37 which was a p.r. in the 200.”
The highlight for Edwards was holding on to win the 200.
“It was definitely a photo finish,” Edwards said. “It was a real close race. My strategy was to get out to the lead and hold it on the curve. I heard him (Jones) coming. I didn’t want to stress. I just stay relaxed.”
Sweeping both the 100 and 200 was a major key to Chelsea’s title and part of the strategy going into the Finals.
“My coaches told me I had an opportunity to win two races,” Edwards said. “They thought I could get the 100 and possibly the 200, and if I did we had a real good chance of winning.”
The Bulldogs also picked up points in the field events as senior Michael Hovater won the pole vault by clearing 14 feet, 10 inches. Chelsea also won the 3,200-meter relay as the team of Zach Rabbitt, Jacob Stubbs, David Trimas and Tony Vermilye turned in a time of 7:55.84.
Chelsea was pushed for the title by an Ottawa Hills team that had one of its best Finals performances in recent history. Key to Ottawa Hills’ strong effort was the performances turned in by its sprint relay teams.
Ottawa Hills finished in the top three of three of the four relay events, led by the first-place 400-meter relay team of Shawn Kneeland, Sam Beal, Jacori Millbrooks and Teyland Avery.
The relay was seeded second coming into the day but came away with the school’s first title-winning effort at the Finals since 1997.
“This was real big,” Kneeland said. “The key for us was to focus. Not to worry about anyone else and just focus on running our best.”
Senior Teyland Avery ran the anchor leg for the Bengals.
“To win a state title in Grand Rapids was real special,” Avery said. “We had two seniors on the relay team, and to finally win a title is special. Last year we finished third at state and we didn’t do too well. This just feels great. To run in my city and to win in my city is pretty special.”
For Detroit East English senior Marcell Wyckoff and the rest of his teammates, Saturday’s Finals were the first in school history as East English is in its first year as a high school. Wykoff, who came in seeded second, won the 400-meter dash.
“The first thing I wanted to do was to get out fast,” Wykoff said. “I knew if I got out to a good start, nobody would catch me. I had a pretty good start, and I held on.”
Wykoff’s title was the first in school history and was a little bittersweet for the senior.
“I came over from Crockett Tech,” Wykoff said. “This year was really different. It was not like I thought my senior year would be, but it ended up pretty good winning a state championship. It feels good on the inside.”
Mason senior distance runner Tanner Hinkle ended a few years of frustration both on the track and during cross country season. He won the 3,200 by more than four seconds with a time of 9:13.41.
“I have finished second two different times at state,” Hinkle said. “Winning it my senior year feels real good, to finally win a state title. I also finished second at state during the cross country season. I’ve been very close to a state title a few times before, and to finally win one is a dream come true.”
In the field events, Cadillac senior Riley Norman closed out a successful high school throwing career by winning the shot put for a second consecutive season. He turned in a winning put of 59-10, missing a Finals record by less than two feet.
“I won it last year with a 61-2 ½ and this year I had a p.r. of 62-10,” Norman said. “I wanted to set a new record, but I came up a little short.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Chelsea's Berkley Edwards races toward the finish line on the way to winning one of his two MHSAA titles Saturday. (Middle) Mason's Tanner Hinkle sets the pace in the 3,200. (Photos by Greg Chrapek.)
Zingsheim's Story an Award-Winner
May 31, 2012
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Zack Zingsheim’s career highlight is an easy pick.
It was just a few months ago, at Michigan International Speedway, when he stunned even himself by winning the MHSAA Division 3 cross country championship.
He can describe in vivid detail being the last to come out of the chute at the finish, looking into the grandstand and telling himself to always remember the moment. He can see again his teammates further down the chute, chanting his name. The goose bumps he felt. How they jumped the fence, lifted him to their shoulders and carried him off the course.
It was the greatest day he could remember. And it ended with a pie in the face.
“I remember how surreal the moment was,” he said. “Since I was a little kid, I thought it would be so cool to win the state meet for cross country; the atmosphere is so amazing.”
Nearly as amazing is he doesn’t remember the flavor of the pie.
Zingsheim tells a story with the best of them – thanks in part to a keen photographic memory and attention to detail.
But he gets a Second Half High 5 this week because of his status as one of the state’s top high school runners – and what a tale he’s spun over the last year.
Zingsheim has the top-seeded Division 3 time in the 800 meters (1:55.30) heading into Saturday’s Finals at Comstock High School, and also runs on the top-seeded 800, 1,600 and 3,200 relays. He and his teammates won the 800 relay at last season’s Finals, and he has or is part of school records in all four of those races, plus the 400. He’s also the fastest in Cougars cross country history.
Another of his favorite stories to tell explains why.
Diamond in the rough
He remembers seeing the Corunna baseball diamond in the distance. That’s key to this story.
Zingsheim was a freshman in 2009, running the second leg of the 800 relay, and had just taken the baton. His right hip had been feeling tight and then painful over the previous couple of weeks, but he felt great at that point as he glanced ahead and saw the baseball field.
The next step, he felt like he got hit with a baseball square in the right hip. But there was no baseball.
He tried to bring the leg forward, and couldn’t. He dragged his leg the next 100 meters to complete his handoff, and then collapsed.
Zingsheim did see a “flabby piece of bone just laying there.” He started crying. His parents immediately drove him to the hospital as he screamed the lyrics to whatever was on the radio to try to forget the pain. (And yes, he remembered one off the songs: “Boom Boom Pow” by the Black Eyed Peas.)
The flexor muscle that connected his hamstring to his pelvis had torn and taken the top of that part of his pelvic bone with it.
Next came months of therapy and changes. He’d started on the freshman basketball team, but decided to stop that sport and focus on running. Still, he couldn’t get in shape that summer because he couldn’t put in the miles, and his sophomore cross country season wasn’t what he’d wanted – until he ran a personal best late in the season and got a needed confidence boost.
“There’s something so special about being able to run so hard and seeing hard work come to fruition on the course or the track,” Zingsheim said. “And especially, seeing how far I had to come. I wanted to see what kind of runner I could become if I put all that work in.”
His 1,600 relay finished eighth at the 2010 Division 3 Finals, another turning point. A year later, Lansing Catholic coach Tim Simpson needed a fill-in on the 800 relay. The date was April 13, 2011 – a day shy of two years since he’d suffered the pelvic break. “I’ve never been so nervous for another race,” he said. But the Cougars set a school record, and he’s been on that relay since.
A long road traveled
“He’s come a long way, but he’s always had that ability,” Simpson said. “He ran 50-70 miles a week during the summer. He reads about the top runners, follows it, so he know what they’re doing, what you’re supposed to do if you’re going to be good.”
There’s always an eye on the details; Zingsheim’s got a reputation among his classmates as the guy who always is last to turn in his tests. He gets done quickly, but spends the rest of the period double and triple-checking his answers to make sure everything is right.
There are plenty of other stories, of course. Like how he and his talented classmates – Lansing Catholic’s senior boys also played in the Division 5 Football Final in the fall – split up during middle school into football teams that stayed the same for months and turned into fierce rivalries. (He played receiver.)
He’s earned the story-teller role in his family too; at gatherings he’s often the go-to guy for a “quirky” or “goofy” family tale.
But the stories he’ll be most proud to be part of are those that get passed down to Lansing Catholic runners after him.
Zingsheim was in first grade when his brother Brandon was a senior on the cross country and track teams and began the Cougars’ tradition of saying a “Hail Mary” and chanting “Hey Cougars, what we going to do?” Zack is among those who now lead that rally.
Lansing Catholic had outstanding runners before Zingsheim. But with him and a strong group of individuals including distance seniors Jimmy Hicks (who will walk-on at the University of Georgia), Austin Winter and Joe Marrah, they could cap their careers with the team’s first MHSAA championship.
“What I really wanted to do by the time my tenure was done was lay a foundation. Build the program; do things the right way,” Zingsheim said. “I wanted to teach guys what it means to be an LCC runner.
“The last four years, we’ve really been able to build that program. … And I’m so excited to see where the program is going the next couple of years.”
Click to read more about Zingsheim's inspirations and aspirations.
PHOTO: Lansing Catholic's Zack Zingsheim was part of the championship-winning 800 relay at last season's Division 3 Final.