'Little' Sacred Heart Sets Big Goals Again
August 17, 2017
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
MOUNT PLEASANT – Deep in the woods, so far west of municipal Mount Pleasant you’d think you’d gone too far, findable only by invite and the line of cars parked alongside the road, Michigan’s most intriguing cross country team is getting ready to show why.
Well, that might be a little dramatic. Sacred Heart has run early-morning August practices at Deerfield Nature Park for years, and there’s a sign for Camp Weidman and a swinging metal gate right off Vandecar Road to help point the way to the Irish’s preseason home.
But the whole “intriguing” part? That’s hard to dispute.
Three girls teams – Sacred Heart in Division 4, Traverse City St. Francis in Division 3 and Otsego in Division 2 – have won two straight MHSAA Lower Peninsula Finals titles. But comparing times from last season’s races at Michigan International Speedway, run separately but on the same course under similar conditions (the later races got a little muddier), Sacred Heart also would’ve won Division 3 last fall and placed second in Division 2 to the Bulldogs.
That’s pretty incredible for a school of 130 students – and invites anticipation for this fall, as the Irish begin the race season Saturday with six of their top seven runners from 2016, plus another standout who missed nearly all of last fall with an injury.
“Our top runner left us, but we have a really deep team for D4. We have a lot of runners who push each other – push each other to get on varsity, push each other to get to Brooklyn (home of MIS) again, so we are all competitors,” said senior Megan Nowak, that runner who, after just missing making all-state in 2015, was injured most of last fall.
“In D4 this year, we’re the team to beat. But compared to everybody else in all the other divisions, we’re just a little team. So we look at everybody else, look at other people’s times even not in our division, to have that motivation and drive to keep going and be better.”
After winning every race they entered last season, the Irish do have some ideas for another encore.
They start Saturday with the Ryan Shay Memorial Invitational, a 2-mile race at Central Lake. They hope to end Nov. 4 at MIS holding an MHSAA championship trophy for the third straight season, becoming the seventh Lower Peninsula girls team to win three straight titles and first since Clarkston and Goodrich both completed three-year runs in 2005.
Along the way they’ll again see how they match up with many of the state’s best small schools – but with a special opportunity Sept. 15. Sacred Heart will run the “Elite” race at the Spartan Invitational at Michigan State University, which annually includes many of the state’s fastest teams regardless of division and this season will be filled mostly with Division 1 programs plus a few from out of state.
Most years, most if not all Division 4 teams would be severely overmatched against the “Elite” competition. But this Sacred Heart team is not typical for one of the state’s smallest schools. In their most recent high school race – last year’s Final – all seven runners broke 21 minutes.
Now-senior Bailley McConnell came in second in 18:55, with now-junior sister Cammie fifth at 19:10, now-junior Lauren MacDonald 11th at 19:41, and another now-junior Scout Nelson 20th at 20:09. Now-sophomore Desiree McConnell was 25th at 20:14, and now senior Rowan Fitzpatrick just missed all-state (top 30) coming in 31st at 20:28. Alexis McConnell – the oldest of the four sisters – came in fourth last season at 19:09 in her final high school race, but rejoining the lineup is Nowak, who was 36th in 20:26 as a sophomore.
“It’s hard to imagine that after the past two seasons we still have something to look forward to,” longtime Sacred Heart coach Mark Zitzelsberger said. “But we have eight gals that I think we can get under 20 minutes, and if that’s the case and they’re healthy we should be pretty tough to beat again. They girls have continued to work and improve. Their goal is to try and break their record.”
Sacred Heart scored 34 points at last season’s Finals – cross country is scored by adding up a team’s placers, so lower is better – to beat by a point Rockford’s winning score of 35 in LP Division 1 in 2000. That was the first year cross country moved from classes to divisions for postseason competition, and no team has scored better since the switch. In fact, no team in LP Division 4 has scored lower than Sacred Heart the last two seasons.
But the Irish plan to go low again. And early returns make it look possible.
The McConnell sisters despite being one fewer are poised for another big season. Bailley’s fastest time last fall was 18:38, and she ran 18:30 during an offseason meet – and has her sights set on Alexis’ personal-record 18:10. Cammie has finished 17th and fifth, respectively, at her first two Finals, and Desiree is showing perhaps the biggest improvement from last year. Sacred Heart runs a “marathon mile” session where the girls run miles at race pace as far as they can while keeping it up – and she ripped through five miles last week, tying the program record.
McDonald improved from 26th to 11th over her first two Finals, Nelson was 10th as a freshman in 2015 and 20th last fall, and Fitzpatrick has posted Finals finishes of 26th, 47th and 31st her first three seasons. Nowak counted as the fourth-fastest runner on the 2014 team that finished third in LP Division 4 before her near all-state run a year later.
Zitzelsberger called it a “coach’s dream” to have so many runners who could be the lead most seasons. He’d never seen anything like it before he began watching them emerge during junior high. But it also made sense once they arrived.
The McConnells’ parents Rob and Tori are lifelong competitive runners who both ran the Boston Marathon earlier this decade, and Rob with Nelson’s mom Luanne Goffnett have coached in the Sacred Heart program and laid much of this foundation with the junior high program.
Aside from Nowak – whose family moved from the Lansing area before her ninth grade year to follow her dad’s job – the rest of the girls have grown up running together and playing other sports successfully too. Scout Nelson and Nowak also were standouts on last season’s girls basketball team that made the Class D Semifinals and MacDonald came up from the junior varsity, while Nelson, Nowak, Bailley and Cammie McConnell all earned all-state accolades in helping the track & field team finish fifth in LP Division 4 in the spring.
“We all came up from middle school, and it’s kinda become a little family,” Fitzpatrick said. “We became attached to each other.”
Twenty years ago might seem like yesterday when Zitzelsberger recalls just trying to find five runners total after taking over the program. His 1998 team had two girls, but he was able to pull in enough off the track team to build the school’s first MHSAA girls team champion in the sport, in Class D, in 1999.
A decade later, Bridget Bennett won back-to-back LP Division 4 championships in 2008 and 2009. There have been other stars. But he’s never enjoyed a collection of talent like this.
And while Sacred Heart likely won’t be expected to win at MSU next month, it will be a race worth watching as the Irish push to add another fine finish to a memorable and growing legacy.
“We’re such a small school, and most of the people running in the Elite are huge,” Bailley McConnell said. “They have thousands of high school students, and our school is so little. So to be able to do that would be amazing.”
Geoff Kimmerly joined the MHSAA as its Media & Content Coordinator in Sept. 2011 after 12 years as Prep Sports Editor of the Lansing State Journal. He has served as Editor of Second Half since its creation in Jan. 2012. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for the Barry, Eaton, Ingham, Livingston, Ionia, Clinton, Shiawassee, Gratiot, Isabella, Clare and Montcalm counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Bailley McConnell (1858) and sister Cammie McConnell (1859) help push the pace during last fall's MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 4 Final. (Middle) Sacred Heart, posing with its 2016 championship trophy, returns six of seven runners this fall. (Photos by Matt Yacoub & Janina Pollatz/RunMichigan.com.)
Anderson Shows Way for Fenton Runners
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
October 10, 2018
The runners on the Fenton girls and boys cross country teams admired and respected coach Jesse Anderson before he placed 20th overall at the 2018 Boston Marathon.
But that performance definitely didn’t hurt his credibility.
“Like everyone else on the team, I was shocked and very proud when I heard the news,” Fenton senior Nolan Day said. “It’s so crazy to think that our coach that we see every day took 20th out of 30,000 in one of America’s most prestigious marathon races. We all feel very lucky to have him as a coach as it is, and this just adds to it.”
Anderson, who finished the marathon in 2 hours, 29 minutes and 19 seconds, is in his fourth year as coach at his alma mater. The 2008 graduate was a two-time all-state finisher and four-time MHSAA Finals qualifier for the Tigers. While he didn’t run competitively while attending University of Michigan, he wound up picking the sport back up on his own and competed in road races before making the jump to marathons in 2013.
“The (Fenton) position came open in 2015, and I was encouraged to apply for the spot because I was running a business in town and I had picked up competitive running at the time after college,” Anderson said. “I cared a lot about the program and wanted to have an impact at that level. It has surpassed my expectations.”
In his first three seasons, the Fenton boys have qualified twice for the Division 1 Finals (2015 and 2017), and the girls qualified in 2017. Both teams are projected to finish first in their regions by Athletic.net, although the boys hypothetical Regional meet sees the Tigers tying Highland Milford for first and just one point ahead of Walled Lake Central. On the girls side, junior Alexa Keiser – who earned all-state finishes in both of her first two seasons at Fenton – has a top time this fall that once again would put her on stage at Michigan International Speedway on Nov. 3.
Anderson gives a lot of the credit for the team’s success to his assistant coaches, Sue Larsen and Nathan Loersch.
“I couldn’t do what I do without those two,” he said.
He also said that both his experience as a high school runner and as a currently competitive runner are what he’s needed to be a complete coach.
“They kind of go hand in hand,” he said. “When I’m talking to the kids and communicating a workout, my experience as a runner in high school is more valuable, especially when it comes to racing tactics,” he said. “But training to be consistent over road races has really taught me about making consistent habits. I wouldn’t feel as complete as a coach without one or the other experience.”
While Anderson acknowledges training for marathons is different than training for 5Ks, he also points out that there are plenty of similarities, which his experiences make him uniquely qualified to see.
The mileage an athlete is running per week may be different, but he said the rhythm of that week – when to rest, what to work out – is very much the same. And, of course, he has a willing participant to test the effectiveness of his workouts – himself. That helps him communicate why his high school athletes are running what they’re running, and what it will do for them, something Anderson feels very strongly about.
His athletes appreciate all of the experience he brings to the table.
“As a person and a coach, we think very highly of him, and his decorated running resume backs his already trustworthy judgment and advice,” Day said. “Just when I think that I couldn’t have any more respect for him as a person and as a coach, his achievements keep on grabbing even more of my respect.
“When it comes to relating to his runners and understanding what they are going through, Coach Anderson’s skills are unparalleled. He knows the stretches and fixes for every injury, and knows how to push his runners to their highest potential while not being detrimental. For these reasons, among many others, I truly feel Coach Jesse Anderson is the best cross country coach in the state of Michigan.”
Of course, not all of Anderson’s lessons are taught from his successes. In 2013, he attempted for the first time to run the Boston Marathon and had to drop out. It’s the only race, Anderson said, he’s hasn’t finished.
“I didn’t prepare very well,” he said. “I was in the midst of starting up a business in town, and I had kept myself busy that weekend and drove out the day before. I didn’t drink enough water. I drank too much coffee. I made a lot of mistakes, and I use it as an example now for coaching.”
The 2013 race also served as a personal learning experience as Anderson prepared for the 2018 marathon, helping him to his biggest triumph at the site of what was previously his rare racing failure.
It was made more special by the group of Fenton runners he has been mentoring seeing that success.
“They’ve always been super supportive, and it was really heartwarming to have a bunch of people reach out to me,” he said. “I really try not to make too much out of it because a lot of circumstances went into being able to place that high, but I would like to think I was just trying to practice what I preach to the kids. This wasn’t the result of some Herculean effort. That said, it was pretty cool, and Boston is pretty recognizable to most people, so it was really cool to see the kids get excited about it.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Fenton coach Jesse Anderson is surrounded by his runners during their preseason camp at Sleeping Bear Dunes. (Middle) Anderson crosses the finish line 10th at the Aug. 25 Crim 10-mile run in Flint. (Top photo courtesy of Fenton cross country, middle by RunMichigan.com.)