Cheerleader Support Helps Mendon Return to Cross Country Finals
By
Wes Morgan
Special for MHSAA.com
November 2, 2021
Art Stephenson’s family knows not to make any big plans in early November.
Each season of his 18-year tenure has ended the same way, with the Mendon cross country coach roaming Michigan International Speedway and motivating his runners in green.
The Mendon girls team’s appearance this weekend at the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 4 Finals in Brooklyn marks the seventh since Stephenson took over. Previously, the boys team made 17 consecutive trips to the championship race.
Even with fourth-seeded freshman Presley Allen leading the way in an unbelievable debut season, the Hornets were on the verge of seeing that team-qualifying streak snapped. For most of the year, Stephenson’s squad didn’t have enough runners to register team points. In fact, it took until Oct. 16 at the Sturgis Kiwanis Invitational for Mendon to put together five times for a team score.
Like most small schools, Mendon struggles yearly to fill out its athletic rosters. And considering the storied histories of the Hornets’ volleyball and football programs, getting kids to choose cross country — despite its own record of consistent success — isn’t always easy. So, numbers were low this year, and with Allen missing four of the first six meets due to COVID, a team trip to MIS didn’t appear to be in the cards.
But Allen, who had nine individual victories and a school-record time of 18:37 in a runner-up performance against top-ranked Abby VanderKooi (of Muskegon Western Michigan Christian) at the Portage Invite this fall, eventually returned to full strength. And she and teammates Amber Hostetler (senior), Lauren Schabes (junior) and Chloe Behrends (senior) spent their free time recruiting anyone who would listen.
Cheerleaders Alivia Stuart (senior) and Gracey Loker (junior) answered the call as first-time runners.
“We didn’t have enough to score as a team for either boys or girls for most of the year,” Stephenson said. “We were wondering if we were ever going to with this girls team, to be honest with you. We had Alivia, who ran her heart out last Saturday (at Regionals), she came out, and so did Gracey Loker — they both came out and they have obviously been great additions to the team. They allowed us to get to this point where we’re going to the state meet.
“It is a hard thing to do and a hard thing to convince a kid to do. The least amount you’re going to do on any given day of practice is four miles. It’s a hard sell. But we do a lot of things outside of practice. We used to do more before the pandemic. We do team dinners, which is always a fun thing to do. With the smaller teams, we still have just as much fun. It’s a good thing.”
Mendon finished fourth at the Division 4 Regional at Portage Central with 92 points, trailing Kalamazoo Christian (26) and Battle Creek St. Philip (72). Allen was medalist by over a minute with a time of 19:02.09. But a 13th-place finish by Hostetler, a 23rd-place effort by Schabes, Stuart’s 34th-place run and Behrends’ 45th-place finish helped secure the Finals berth.
Allen’s rise to the top of the program’s record list required besting her cousin Kasey Culp’s time of 18:43 from 1997.
“She was cheering me on the whole time,” Allen said of Culp. “She lives in Kentucky and she was texting me and asking me … she was almost as nervous as I was.”
Having competed against most of the top-seeded runners in D4 already this season, Allen is excited to be a part of a lead pack Saturday in Brooklyn that includes VanderKooi, Buckley sophomore Aiden Harrand, Maple City Glen Lake senior Makenna Scott and Western Michigan Christian freshman Grace VanderKooi.
“It really makes me think about how they were running in each meet and what they do,” Allen said. “It has helped me know what to do when I go to state.”
“She has had a lot of success this year,” Stephenson said of Allen. “She had COVID early on in the year and we’re lucky it was early on in the year. It took her a while to get back. I think she’s back to form now and doing well. She is definitely there in that top five (at state). She is probably the most driven runner I’ve ever had. She’s amazing, and she loves to do what she’s doing — and it shows. She has a workout regimen that I defy any high schooler to do.
“Getting out clean isn’t a worry because she gets out fast. That’s always been her thing. She has only been behind a couple times this season. She’ll keep chasing if that happens. This week is going to be an awesome race because of who you have there. That’s quite a top five for a D4 Final. It is going to be a fun race to experience.”
Stephenson and Allen both agreed it will be a whole lot more fun having that experience as a team, made a whole lot sweeter after the adversity they faced in 2021.
“It doesn’t matter when we get them, as long as we get them,” Stephenson said. “Everyone is out here doing the same thing for the same cause.”
Wes Morgan has reported for the Kalamazoo Gazette, ESPN and ESPNChicago.com, 247Sports and Blue & Gold Illustrated over the last 12 years and is the publisher of JoeInsider.com. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Berrien, Cass, St. Joseph and Branch counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Mendon’s Presley Allen leads the pack during her team’s Division 4 Regional at Portage Central. (Middle) The Hornets advanced to the Finals as a team with a third-place Regional finish. (Photos by Nicci Plummer/JoeInsider.com.)
Milford Racing to Spell Victory Again
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
August 30, 2017
HIGHLAND TOWNSHIP – Cross Country at Milford is not so much a sport as it is a way of life.
That might sound a tad overstated. But you would have a difficult time convincing Nicole Gringling.
Gringling is a senior at Milford High. She’s competed at the Lower Peninsula Division 1 Finals her first three seasons and played a big role on the school’s first MHSAA championship team in girls cross country last season.
The boys program has won five titles, all under Brian Salyers, the head coach for both teams.
An adopted child, Gringling latched onto the sport – and the people who are a part of the cross country community in this western Oakland County town – when she was in middle school. Gringling started swimming at age 4 and gave up the sports competitively seven years later for this opportunity to race outdoors instead.
“I fell in love with cross country,” she said. “Running is more fun (than swimming). I kind of have a rough background. I just have so much fun running with my friends. It’s where I belong.
“I’m definitely looking forward to running in college. It’s part of my personality.”
Milford returns five of its six top runners from a year ago, Gringling being one, and is again one the state’s top teams.
But that doesn’t seem to be important or at the top of the list of priorities for the team or Salyers. It instead gets back to what Gringling said: running cross country is fun. That’s what’s important. And if you win, well, that's makes it more fun.
To understand what cross country means to those in this community one must go back 50 years or more to when the legendary Lee Averill coached Milford’s cross country teams, boys and girls. Averill, a Milford graduate who died in 2014 at age 76, would go on to coach at West Bloomfield and lead his 1989 girls team to an LP Class A title.
Gene Balawajder took over the cross country program in 1970, and though he never coached an MHSAA champion, he came close and along the way was paramount in the continuation of a proud program Averill established. Balawajder’s girls team placed second to Dearborn Edsel Ford at the Class A Final in 1984.
Milford’s girls would win a number of county titles, including in 1988, a year when the boys finished third in at the LP Class A Final.
Salyers was a member of that boys team. That was his senior year, and although Salyers wasn’t one of the top runners (and a better basketball player at the time), he grew to love the sport. In 1996, after graduating from Western Michigan University, Salyers took over the program and Balawajder became the athletic director. To help with the transition, Glen Edwards, Balawajder’s longtime assistant, served as Salyers’ assistant the first two years.
Salyers knew then that he was taking over a special program, one he needed to embrace and enhance.
“The tradition is rich here,” he said. “It’s something we take pride in.
“In terms of having a cross country culture, it runs all through the school. When you put those letters on, M-I-L-F-O-R-D, you play for your school, your parents.”
The letters, those on the jerseys, has become part of Salyers’ imprint on the program – a touch that adds a little more pride. Seven runners represent each school at Michigan International Speedway, and each Milford runner who earns his or her place among those seven wears one of the letters, whether it be the block “M” or the “I” and so on.
Gringling wore the D her freshman year, the L her sophomore season and the letter I last fall.
Junior Victoria Heiligenthal, Milford’s top runner who placed 14th at MIS in 2016 and is the current county champion, is all in with the team aspect of the sport. Like Gringling, Heiligenthal competes in track & field too, her best events being the 800-meter run and the 1,600.
“Wearing the letters is one of my favorite things,” she said. “It’s really a lot of fun. All of the tradition the program has. Even the new conference (Lakes Valley) we’re in is something we look forward to.”
During the offseason, Salyers organizes events and camps to keep the athletes involved and fresh. He holds a team camp near Rapid River in the central Upper Peninsula where his runners train, but also get away from running and (with cell phones hopefully put away) have fun playing Frisbee or football – anything to create camaraderie and stronger friendships. There’s also a group camp, a much larger gathering where the underclassmen and the incoming freshmen mingle with the varsity squad.
“We have a saying,” Gringling said. “And that’s we care about each other more than the other team cares about their teammates.”
Salyers creates an upbeat atmosphere where winning isn’t the goal, but by having fun and working hard you, as an individual, will win even if it’s just by cutting a half second off of your best time.
“There’s a hometown feeling here,” he said. “It’s a fading element in high school sports. The transfers and all that is conflicting with that.
“I don’t know what high school sports will be like in 10 or 15 years. There have been a lot of changes. We try to keep an old-school atmosphere.”
And Salyers is not one to forget the past. When Milford won its first cross country title with the boys team in 2003, he had Balawajder come up to the podium with the team to celebrate in hoisting the trophy.
“That might be my proudest moment,” Salyers said.
There have been many.
Tom Markowski is a columnist and directs website coverage for the State Champs! Sports Network. He previously covered primarily high school sports for the The Detroit News from 1984-2014, focusing on the Detroit area and contributing to statewide coverage of football and basketball. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Nicole Grindling (far right) rounds a curve during last season’s LPD1 Final at Michigan International Speedway. (Middle) Milford’s seven runners spell out their school name on the track after winning their first title. (Below) Victoria Heiligenthal works to stay ahead of another competitor during a race last season. (Photos courtesy of Brian Salyers.)