Full Team Effort Helps Gladstone Go Distance
June 19, 2019
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
With Gladstone’s boys track & field team set to begin competition two months ago, longtime coach Gary Whitmer described his team in a local newspaper preview as a mystery.
There were signs it could be a special spring, going back at least a year, when the Braves finished third at the Upper Peninsula Division 1 Finals thanks in part to then-freshman Calvin Thibault winning both hurdles races.
Whitmer also took notice at the end of the fall when his cross country team finished third in UPD1 – one point ahead of annual distance power Marquette – with Gladstone senior Adam Bruce the individual champion.
The Upper Peninsula Track & Field Finals can be a little bit different game than the championship meets downstate. But Gladstone’s boys solved all the mysteries and played the Finals game well. The MHSAA/Applebee’s “Team of the Month” for May won league championships in both the Great Northern and Mid-Peninsula Conferences, then claimed their Division 1 Regional before winning its first Finals since 2013 on the first day of June.
The Braves won with 127 points, 30 ahead of both Ishpeming Westwood and Marquette – the runners-up in Gladstone’s league title wins. The Braves also broke a four-year Finals winning streak for Marquette, the UP’s largest school with 950 students – twice as many as Gladstone’s 460.
“Downstate, you can come (to the Finals) with 4-5 really good athletes and win it, because there are so many schools,” Whitmer said. “But up here, if you don’t have the numbers … when you get in with Marquette and the Sault and bigger schools, you have a different strategy. You’ve got to get as many kids in there as you can.”
Gladstone had 40 athletes on its boys team this spring. Just fewer than half – 18 – qualified for the Finals during the Braves’ 24-point win at their May 16 Regional. Of that 18, 15 placed among the top six to score in their events at the June 1 Finals.
While Marquette has owned UPD1 over the last decade with seven titles since 2010, Gladstone was similarly dynastic winning six straight from 2004-09 and then again in 2013. But compared to that most recent previous champ, this Braves team enjoyed an important variety of talented athletes – with a boost from a comeback by one of the program’s best all-time.
Bruce had hip surgery in January and didn’t start racing again until May. But whereas Gladstone didn’t place anyone in the 1,600 and 3,200 during the 2013 title run, Bruce won both races this time both at the Regional and Finals. He didn’t get up to speed to break his school records set in both in 2018, but still came through with 20 points at the championship meet and likely would have scored more if he’d run the 800 – the only event at this year’s Finals where Gladstone didn’t have a placer. Bruce was held out of that race to keep his still-recovering legs fresh for the others. He also didn’t run on the 3,200 relay, which without him still cut 25 seconds off its previous best to place third.
“I don’t think the kids think they could’ve done it,” Whitmer said of winning it all. “He kept encouraging them and gave them confidence there was that possibility.”
Thibault did repeat as winner in both hurdles races and took third in the 100 and second in the 200. Sophomore Blake Servant won the discus by more than five feet, and junior Luke Van Brocklin just missed breaking the school record in the 400 while finishing second in a fast, tightly-contested race. Senior hurdler/sprinter James McKnight and junior thrower Greg Chenier also placed in multiple individual events.
Also adding to the Braves’ championship score were senior Jake Strasler, juniors Louis Berube, Jarret St. John and Kyle Van Brocklin; sophomores Wyatt Madden, Lucas Hughes and Ethan Milam; and freshmen Giovanni Mathews and Hunter Potter.
Gladstone won all but one of its meets this spring – finishing behind Marquette in late April at an event that allowed unlimited entries. Sadly, the Braves had additional motivation as well this season after longtime athletic director and assistant coach Matt Houle died Nov. 9. He had coached since the mid-1980s and remained part of Whitmer’s staff since the latter took over as head coach in 2002.
Whitmer had planned to retire with Houle, but not this soon. He’s eager to continue working with the program they helped build, already excited about a strong distance runner coming up and his team’s improving field events.
“I’ll be 64 this year, my wife is a family physician up here, and all six of our kids went to Gladstone High School and graduated from here,” Whitmer said. “I’m just going to keep plugging away, and I enjoy it. We have a great bunch of kids.”
Past Teams of the Month, 2018-19
April: Garden City baseball – Read
March: Holland West Ottawa boys swimming & diving – Read
February: Lowell wrestling – Read
January: Farmington United gymnastics – Read
December: Warren Woods-Tower wrestling – Read
November: Rochester Adams girls swimming & diving – Read
October: Leland boys soccer – Read
September: Pickford football – Read
August: Northville girls golf – Read
PHOTOS: (Top) Gladstone poses with its championship trophy after winning the UPD1 Finals. (Middle) Adam Bruce finishes his title-winning run in the 3,200. (Photos by Cara Kamps.)
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.)