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.)
Bridgman Completes Climb to 1st Title
December 18, 2019
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Bridgman girls cross country coach Spencer Carr couldn’t recall his team having a bad meet this fall. And there were a couple of especially good showings that seemed to forecast the Bees’ historic season-ending finish.
On Sept. 21, Bridgman traveled to New Prairie, Ind., and won the Varsity A race against schools twice its enrollment of roughly 250 students. Two weeks later, the Bees finished second in the Division 4 race at the prestigious Portage Invitational, just a point off the lead.
And in both races, their top runner placed sixth individually, another coincidental sign of how the team would win its first MHSAA Finals championship in girls cross country Nov. 6 at Michigan International Speedway.
With junior Karsyn Stewart leading the way with a sixth-place individual finish, Bridgman scored 132 points to outpace four-time reigning champion Mount Pleasant Sacred Heart and lock up the title – and the honor as MHSAA/Applebee’s “Team of the Month” for November.
“Coming into the season, I had hopes of a top-10 finish, maybe top five if everything progressed well,” Carr said. “I never really looked at who was a contender at the top of Division 4 until we started to place high at some big meets. We knew Mount Pleasant Sacred Heart was good and had won state the year before, but it wasn't until part way through the year that I noticed they had won it the last four years.
“We talked about the challenge of beating a team like that, one with experience that always seemed to run well in the big meets. We knew it was going to be very tough to beat them because they knew how to win in the big meets, and we were pretty new to being towards the top. The girls realized early on that they could only control how they ran. If they did everything they could do to run their best race, then that would put us in a pretty good position.”
That mindset paid off well. At the Regional, Bridgman scored just 35 points placing four among the top 10 and five among the top 13. At the Final, Stewart was followed by sophomore Arie Hackett in 11th, freshman Summer Fast in 39th, sophomore Jane Kaspar in 68th and senior Mikaela Owen in 81st.
Stewart had led the way as well in 2018, when Bridgman finished 15th as a team and she finished 24th individually. She was 35th as a freshman in 2017 as the team also finished 15th – setting an early foundation for this rise to the top.
Before this fall, the Bees’ best Finals finish was fifth in Class D in 1985. They didn’t qualify as a team for the championship races again until 2015, when they finished 24th in Division 3.
Longtime coach John Wismer had built a strong boys program (Division 4 runner-up finishes in 2009 and 2010) and helped put the girls team in position before retiring after the 2016 season. Kurt Hanke led the Bees in taking the next steps in 2017 before Carr – previously the boys cross country coach at Hartford from 2010-16 – took over both Bridgman programs the following summer. He credited both predecessors for helping the Bees build toward their first title.
But this fall did have some early unpredictability. Bridgman had graduated three of its top five from the 2018 Finals lineup, including its second and third-highest placers. Carr knew he had Stewart and lone senior Owen, but other pieces had to fall into place as well.
Carr knew Kaspar had lots of potential, and that Fast had been successful in middle school. Bridgman got a major boost from Hackett, also a basketball and softball player who hadn’t run as a freshman.
They came together to win all of their races this fall but two – at Portage and against a field of much larger schools at the Kalamazoo Christian Invitational, where the Bees finished second to Grand Rapids South Christian (which went on to place 19th at the Division 2 Final). Bridgman also won its Berrien-Cass-St. Joseph Conference title and posted a perfect score of 15 at the River Valley Mustang Invitational.
Bridgman expects to return six of its top seven runners next year; sophomore Grace Fenech and junior Alexa Ackerman followed Owen in the Finals lineup. But Sacred Heart should be back in Division 4 contention, along with third-place finisher Kalamazoo Christian – which edged the Bees at Portage. And there always could be another Bridgman-type team preparing to make a big jump – so the Bees know what they face to stay on top.
“We lost a bunch of seniors last year who really were the start of really getting the girls program going, so I wasn't really sure how good we could be,” Carr said. “I knew we had Karsyn Stewart, who was all-state the year before, and Mikaela Owen, our only senior and a great leader, but I wasn't too sure after that.
“They all came together over the summer and put in the work, and it translated into a great season.”
Past Teams of the Month, 2019-20
October: Allegan boys tennis - Report
September: Ishpeming Westwood girls tennis - Report
PHOTOS: (Top) Bridgman’s girls cross country team poses with its first MHSAA Finals championship trophy during the awards ceremony at Michigan International Speedway. (Middle) Arie Hackett (1699) works to keep a step ahead of Sacred Heart’s Olivia Ervin. (Photos by Dave McCauley/RunMichigan.com.)