Beal City Repeats, St. Phil Soph Surges
November 1, 2014
By Bill Khan
Special for Second Half
BROOKLYN — Ava Strenge's goals were constantly being upgraded as she made her way along the five-kilometer cross country course at Michigan International Speedway on Saturday.
She didn't come into the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 4 meet as one of the favorites, having placed 73rd last year on what was admittedly a bad day.
"I was hoping for a top 10, at best," the Battle Creek St. Philip sophomore said.
Then the race started to unfold. Strenge found herself near the front of the pack, within striking distance of first place.
"Maybe at the mile point, I was second or third, and I thought I could do a top three," she said.
And winning?
"I didn't think about that until that straightaway," she said.
Turning on the jets down the final long straightaway at MIS, Strenge won a three-girl battle for the championship with a time of 18:54.5.
Sophomore Alexis McConnell of Mount Pleasant Sacred Heart was second in 18:58.1, while freshman Mary Ankenbauer of Kalamazoo Hackett took third in 18:58.6.
"I was really relieved," Strenge said. "Usually the straightaways are where people get me, because I'm not a good sprinter. I can't go that fast."
Strenge beat her personal best of 19:14.6 set in the regional meet.
It was a much better finish to the season for Strenge, who ran 21:13.3 at MIS last year after dipping below 20 minutes four times during the season.
"The nerves," she said, trying to offer up a reason for last year's disappointment. "I might have overtrained that last week, because it was my first year and I was really excited. I might have overdid it."
Beal City, which returned six of seven runners from last year's championship team, repeated as the team title winner with 94 points.
Hackett was second with 108, followed by Sacred Heart with 130.
Senior Emily Steffke and junior Hannah Steffke led Beal City, taking fifth (19:15.0) and sixth (19:26.0), respectively. Senior Hayley Neyer also made the top-30 all-state range, placing 27th in 20:17.6. Freshman Madeline Steffke, the only newcomer to the lineup, was 41st in 20:40.6. Sophomore Ariel Salter completed the scoring, taking 55th in 20:55.4.
Hackett had four runners cross before Beal City’s fourth did, but there was a 16-point difference between the schools' fifth and final scorer.
PHOTOS: (Top) Battle Creek St. Philip’s Ava Strenge capped her sophomore season by improving 72 places to win the LP Division 4 title. (Middle) Beal City’s Emily Steffke (745) and North Muskegon’s Avery Lowe race for top-five finishes; Lowe ended up fourth and Steffke fifth for the team champion Aggies. (Click to see more from RunMichigan.com.)
Century of School Sports: Cross Country Finals Among MHSAA's Longest-Running
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
October 23, 2024
While we are celebrating multiple milestones this fall – the beginning of the MHSAA’s 100th anniversary, and our 50th Football Playoffs – we already can circle another notable date for the first season of the 2025-26 school year.
This time next fall, we’ll be on the cusp of our 30th Lower Peninsula Cross Country Finals at Michigan International Speedway, which has drawn an average of 9,332 fans to those four championship races since becoming their home in 1996.
Boys cross country actually was one of the first sports to have postseason events organized by the newly-formed MHSAA. Annual boys cross country championship races had been run since 1922 (according to L.L. Forsythe’s “Athletics in Michigan High Schools – The First Hundred Years”), and although the 1924 Open Class Final – won by Ann Arbor High School – was competed before the MHSAA’s official start date that December, it is counted on the list of official MHSAA championships. Cross country would be joined that inaugural school year by boys basketball, boys swimming & diving, boys tennis and boys track & field as the first sports with MHSAA-sponsored championship events. Girls cross country would be added in 1978 – the 10th girls sport introduced that decade – as the first steps were taken to provide opportunities for all high school athletes.
Several changes over the 55 years have led to a Michigan high school cross country competitive format that has remained mostly unchanged over the last four decades.
Initially, Lower Peninsula and Upper Peninsula teams ran Finals together until the break in championship meets for World War II during the 1942 and 1943 seasons. Since 1974, the Lower Peninsula has been separated into four Class (previously) or Division (currently) groupings for postseason competition, and the Upper Peninsula into three. Also, from 1971-96, two individual champions were awarded in each Lower Peninsula Class/Division – a winning runner from a race of team qualifiers, and another winning runner from a race of only those who had qualified for the Finals as individuals. The current field again includes all team and individual qualifiers in one race.
The distance of the championship race was two miles through 1969, then 2.5 miles in 1970 and 1971, and then three miles through the end of that decade. In 1980, the race became the standard five kilometers (or 3.1 miles) run today.
As noted above, the Lower Peninsula Finals moved to MIS in 1996, and annually a course is charted that begins on the stadium infield, continues into the surrounding property and concludes alongside the racetrack’s finishing stretch.
The Upper Peninsula Cross Country Finals are among the most picturesque of any MHSAA championship competitions, run in late October generally against a backdrop of reds, oranges, yellows and greens as tree leaves begin to change and fall. This past weekend, Upper Peninsula winners were celebrated at Pictured Rocks Golf Course in Munising. The Division 1 Boys Final featured the three fastest times run in the history of U.P. championship races.
Lower Peninsula teams will run their Regionals this Friday and Saturday, with Finals qualifiers convening at MIS again Nov. 2 while chased and cheered by an anticipated 10,000 fans in Brooklyn.
Previous "Century of School Sports" Spotlights
Oct. 15: State's Storytellers Share Fall Memories - Read
Oct. 8: Guided by 4 S's of Educational Athletics - Read
Sept. 25: Michigan Sends 10 to National Hall of Fame - Read
Sept. 25: MHSAA Record Books Filled with 1000s of Achievements - Read
Sept. 18: Why Does the MHSAA Have These Rules? - Read
Sept. 10: Special Medals, Patches to Commemorate Special Year - Read
Sept. 4: Fall to Finish with 50th Football Championships - Read
Aug. 28: Let the Celebration Begin - Read
PHOTOS (Clockwise from top left) The 1998 Lower Peninsula Class D Final begins at Michigan International Speedway. (2) Caro’s Yami Albrecht (542) holds onto the lead ahead of Bridgman’s Brian Njuguna during the 2016 LP Division 3 Final. (3) Eventual runner-up Leah Kiilunen of Calumet (9) leads a pack at the 2012 UP Division 1 race in Munising. (4) Runners begin the 1949 LP Class B Final at Washtenaw Country Club. (Photos of 1998 and 2016 Finals by RunMichigan.com; 2012 Finals photo by Paul Gerard; 1949 photo from MHSAA archives.)