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Clare Boys Hang On for 1st title since 2000
June 2, 2018
By Jeff Bleiler
Special for Second Half
COMSTOCK PARK – For the second straight year, the Lower Peninsula Division 3 boys track & field championship came down to the final race at Comstock Park.
Chesaning was the benefactor last season. On Saturday, it was Clare’s time.
The Pioneers finished third in the 1,600-meter relay, and although Berrien Springs won the event to finish with 42 points, Clare came away with the big team trophy with 44 points. Kent City finished third with 32 points.
Clare’s championship was its first in boys track since 2000, and coach Adam Burhans said he had a handle on the standings throughout most of the day.
“We came in expecting to fight a battle all day with Berrien Springs, Caro, Kent City, and that’s pretty much what happened,” he said. “Where one team would falter, one team would pick up points. I told the team that in this type of scoring, if you get in the realm of 40 points, you’ve got a shot.”
Berrien Springs likely found the outcome mildly shocking as Clare was nowhere in the top four with just three events left. The standings at the point did not account for the points that hadn’t been tallied in the discus, where Clare’s Noah Nivison won with a throw of 156 feet, 7 inches, and teammate Zac Stickler placed sixth. Stickler was also third in the shot put, which were 16 big points in the grand scheme.
But Burhans really has senior Xavier Martin to thank. Martin anchored two of Clare’s three all-state relays – and was the third leg of the other – and finished second in the 200 in 22.54 to Kent City’s Giovanni Weeks (22.36).
Clare was second in the 800 relay in 1:29.64 with junior Jake Hawley, sophomore Colt Smedley and Brenden Sersaw joining Martin; third in the 400 relay in 43.91 with the same group except Sersaw anchored ahead of Martin; and third in the all-important 1,600 relay with Sersaw, Smedley, senior Justin Tickle and Martin in the lineup.
Martin said the team watched Berrien Springs put up a 3:23.42 time in the heat before the Pioneers’ preliminary and knew it had a tough battle.
“It was a lot of pressure,” he said. “We watched them run and were like, ‘Oh my God, that’s a really good time.’”
Needing a finish no worse than fourth to claim the Finals championship, the Pioneers responded in the last boys event of the day.
“It’s a situation kids dream of, to make a last-second shot to win, but it’s not what a coach dreams of,” Burhans said, chuckling.
Elsewhere, Jackson Blanchard had some big shoes to fill at Houghton Lake in terms of the hurdle events. He’s wearing them quite well.
Blanchard, a senior, successfully repeated with championships in the 110 and 300 hurdles, claiming the 110 title in a meet record 14.23 seconds. That eclipsed the time of 14.3 set by Derrick Cook of Muskegon Oakridge in 2003.
Blanchard won the 300 hurdles in 37.79 seconds, beating his nearest opponent (Kalob Bellows of Lake City) by nearly two seconds.
But perhaps more satisfying to Blanchard was that he took down the school records set by his father and hurdling mentor, Thomas Blanchard.
“It is amazing (to win the state titles again),” Blanchard said. “I’m getting chills just thinking about it. Getting the 110 record was really cool, too; an amazing feeling. It’s a shocked, proud feeling. (After I won last year), I told my dad it was my goal to get first again, and that’s what I did.”
The younger Blanchard, who took up the hurdles even semi-seriously only as a sophomore, beat his father’s school record in the 300 that season. He topped the 110 several times this season, punctuated by Saturday’s time. Blanchard’s main focus was golf during the spring sports season, so he rarely practiced for track. As a sophomore, he competed in only the minimum number of meets he needed to qualify for Regionals.
“Imagine what I could do if I practiced,” said Blanchard, who next heads to Central Michigan University to run the 110 and 400 hurdles for the Chippewas.
In the field events, Jacob Ager of Boyne City sat seventh going into the final round of the shot put. On his last attempt, he launched a bomb 59 feet, 11 inches to comfortably win the championship. Jack Boyle of Roscommon was second at 58-1½.
The finish surprised even Ager.
“My first three or four attempts were not that good, but then my coach told me to explode back and focus on the snap at the end, and that’s what I did,” said Ager, whose best put of the day before the winner was 56-1. “It’s a good feeling (to win). I was looking at the rankings and thinking about it. It’s kind of surreal.”
Ager, who also finished 10th in the discus, is heading to Northern Michigan in the fall and will play football.
In the pole vault, Manton senior Zach Flint won after being the only athlete to clear 13 feet, 6 inches. Flint, who entered the meet with a vault of 13-0, failed in his quest to conquer 14 feet but already had first place in his pocket.
“It feels good to finally get a medal at states,” said the senior, who was 14th in Division 4 last season. “I knew I was better than that.”
Flint, who cleared 14-3 on Monday in winning the Cadillac News meet, will vault for Aquinas College in the fall.
Saugatuck junior Corey Gorgas was a double winner on the day, claiming the 1,600 in 4:15.74 and later adding the 3,200 in 9:17.32.
Caro won the 3,200 relay in 8:05.71 with juniors Yami Albrecht, Caleb Cotton, Bryden Miller and Aaron Hulburt.
Junior Caleb Schuette of Grandville Calvin Christian won the 100 in 11.10 seconds, and Hart senior Logan Wells won the 400 in 48.89 seconds. Leslie senior Devin Gibbs won the 800 in 1:55.88.
Sam Spaulding, a junior at Berrien Springs, won the high jump with a 6-7, and Quincy senior Bryce Ruhl won the long jump with a 21-¾.
VIDEO: Blanchard Doubles in D3 Hurdles
PHOTOS: (Top) Clare scored big in relays on the way to its first Finals title since 2000. (Middle) Houghton Lake's Jackson Blanchard pulls away from the field during one of his hurdles victories Saturday. (Photos by Annette Tipton. Click for more from RunMichigan.com.)
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Fisher Goes the Distance at LP D1 Final
May 31, 2014
By Bill Khan
Special to Second Half
ROCKFORD — Grant Fisher wasn't going to get snuck up on again.
As a sophomore last year, Fisher came down the final stretch with the lead in the 1,600-meter run at the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 1 Track and Field Final, only to be caught from behind by Lake Orion's T.J. Carey and lose by sixth-thousandths of a second.
The Grand Blanc distance star made up for it later in the day by winning the 3,200, then went on to win the MHSAA Division 1 and Foot Locker national cross country championships in the fall.
The one title he still lacked was the MHSAA 1,600 crown, which he took care of Saturday by jumping out to the lead and never looking back.
Fisher won in 4:10.82, having built a sizable cushion over fast-finishing Traverse City Central sophomore Anthony Berry, who took second in 4:12.64.
"Last year in the last 100 meters I got caught by T.J.," Fisher said. "That was a really disappointing one, because I was so close. This year, I wanted to get a victory this time and I didn't want to leave it too close to call. Usually, I sit and kick, but today it's about winning. I'll do what it takes to win."
With a 1,600 victory under his belt, Fisher took a different approach a couple hours later in the 3,200. He sat behind Royal Oak's Ben Hill until 200 meters remained, then won a sprint to the finish with a time of 9:07.11, covering the final lap in 59 seconds. Hill took second in 9:09.34.
Fisher became only the second boy in the last 12 years to sweep the distance events in LP Division 1, the last being Monroe's Justin Heck in 2008. Of seven runners who have swept the 1,600 and 3,200 in LP Class A or Division 1, only future Olympian Dathan Ritzenhein of Rockford had a faster combined time. Ritzenhein posted times of 4:08.08 and 9:00.63 in 2000.
"My plan going into the race was with 150 (meters) to go to make a move," Fisher said. "That's what I did. I had to wait like that, because I was pretty tired from the mile. That was a huge goal of mine to win the mile and two mile."
Fisher wasn't the only boy to turn in elite-level performances.
Junior Donavan Brazier of Grand Rapids Kenowa Hills set an MHSAA all-Finals record in the 800 with a time of 1:50.24. He broke the mark of 1:50.63 set by Rick Gledhill of Mt. Clemens Chippewa Valley in the 1988 LP Class A meet. Brazier was pushed down the stretch by Waterford Mott's Brennan Munley (second in 1:51.79) and Milford's Brian Kettle (third in 1:52.39).
"A 1:50 was pretty surprising," Brazier said. "I was hoping for a (personal record) from 1:52. I just hung on until the last 200 and gave it all I've got."
Saline's 3,200 relay team of John Davis, Ryan Gauche, Ryan Wilkie and Logan Wetzel set an all-Finals record with a time of 7:40.54, breaking Saline's mark of 7:41.27 set in 2004. Victory wasn’t even a given until Wetzel overtook Okemos on the final lap after the Hornets were in third place for much of the race. Wetzel ran a 1:50 closing leg.
"It's really hard to press in that last 200, 300 meters when you're all alone," Wetzel said. "Definitely having a guy to battle with made all the difference."
Oak Park senior Maurice Allen had the stamina to complete a difficult double, winning the 400 in 48.13 seconds and coming back three events later to take the 200 in 21.36. Earlier, he ran on a second-place 800 relay team.
"You're tired, but the thing is to get out in the lead in the first part of the race," Allen said. "If you can start, you can finish."
The only other athlete to win two individual events was Swartz Creek senior thrower Kevin Weiler. Weiler won the discus at 176 feet, 5 inches and the shot put at 60 feet, 4.5 inches.
East Kentwood won its fifth team championship in six years, scoring 71 points to beat Oak Park by 21. Saline was third with 37 points.
"It's one of those things where we're not necessarily winning everything, but we're taking seconds and thirds and scoring twice in events," East Kentwood coach Dave Emeott said. "It's a very special group of kids who worked crazy hard."
Antoine Lloyd, Kevin Smith and Devin McKinney each scored in four events for the Falcons. Lloyd had a hand in 27 points, winning the 110 high hurdles, taking second in the 300 hurdles, taking fourth in the high jump and running on a fifth-place 1,600 relay team. McKinney scored 25 points, taking third in the 110 hurdles; running on the winning 800 relay team with Smith, Ashley Bailey and Michael Catching; running on a sixth-place 400 relay team; and taking third in the 200. Smith had a hand in 23 points. He was on the winning 800 relay team.
PHOTO: Grand Blanc’s Grant Fisher leads a pack around a turn during the 1,600 at the Lower Peninsula Division 1 Final on Saturday at Rockford High School. (Click to see more from RunMichigan.com.)