Repeat Champ Paces Hart's 1st Title Run
November 4, 2017
Second Half reports
BROOKLYN — The arrival of four girls from the same family at Hart High School resulted in a day the Pirates have never experienced in any sport.
With four Ackley girls finishing in the team’s top four spots, Hart won the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 3 cross country championship Saturday at Michigan International Speedway.
It was the first MHSAA championship for Hart, its best finish being a second-place showing by the girls track & field team at the 1987 Class C meet. The 1985 wrestling team was third in Class C. Three Hart teams in bracketed sports reached the MHSAA Semifinals.
Until recently, girls cross country seemed like an unlikely program to deliver Hart its first title. Hart had never qualified for the MHSAA Finals in the sport until 2011. The Pirates have been to the Finals six times in the last seven years, the best finish being fifth in 2014.
Hart scored 55 points to win by 69 over Benzonia Benzie Central. Grandville Calvin Christian was third with 137 points.
“My dad (Calvin) started a middle school team,” said Hart junior Adelyn Ackley, who repeated as individual champion with a time of 17:49.4. “He got a lot of kids to go out. Pretty soon, they started going out in high school. He would write them running charts and how many miles they should run in the summer. Kids hooked on to it and are running pretty well now.”
Freshman Savannah Ackley took sixth in 18:51.3, senior Alayna Ackley was seventh in 18:52.0 and Lynae Ackley was 20th in 19:23.7. Lynae is the first cousin of the other three Ackleys, who are sisters.
Sophomore Brenna Aerts was 37th in 19:51.7 to complete Hart’s scoring.
“We train every day over the summer and through the winter together,” Adelyn Ackley said. “It’s fun. We like to push each other.”
There was nobody to push Ackley as she repeated as individual champion.
She was 24.8 seconds ahead of Shepherd junior Amber Gall, who made the top five for the third time.
It was quite a contrast from last year when Ackley won a sprint to the finish with Lansing Catholic’s Olivia Theis by 0.7 seconds in 17:40.6.
“I kind of wish I had somebody closer to me, so they could push me,” Ackley said. “I was looking to beat my time from last year. I couldn’t quite push myself hard enough. I had a girl with me last year. I went out pretty hard so I could get out of the crowd. It felt pretty easy at first. The second mile was definitely the hardest.”
Gall was third in 2015 and fifth in 2016.
“I decided coming in to just run my own race,” Gall said. “I thought that would be the smartest. Usually, I started really fast. I have a condition called hypoglycemia. My sugar runs at a certain level, then it just drops. It’s hard when I start out super fast, because I waste the sugar immediately. Pacing myself at the start was necessary. I don’t usually wear a Garmin, but I did just because I had to watch my time.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Hart’s Adelyn Ackley (1589) begins to break away from the pack during Saturday’s Division 3 Final. (Middle) Alayna Ackley (1590) leads another pack around a curve in helping her team to its first MHSAA championship in any sport. (Click for more from RunMichigan.com.)
Marquette Carrying Confidence Into Finals After Downstate, Out-of-State Successes
By
John Vrancic
Special for MHSAA.com
October 20, 2023
MARQUETTE — Marquette’s cross country teams are both seeking to continue championship runs at Saturday’s Upper Peninsula Finals at Farmhouse Cross Country Course in Gladstone – the girls for the second-straight season and the boys attempting a fifth-straight title.
Their travels far and wide this fall have the teams confident that success will continue.
The Marquette girls did something Sept. 15 no other Upper Peninsula team had been able to do, winning the Green division race at the Spartan Invitational at Michigan State University by edging Novi 142-143.
That was the first of multiple successful trips downstate, and Marquette also ran exceptionally closer to home and in Wisconsin against some of that state’s elite.
“I think we’re just really excited,” junior Monet Argeropoulos said. “We’re really looking forward to pushing each other as a team. That’s what keeps us strong. We just need to go down there and take care of business.”
Sophomore Ella Fure was seventh individually at MSU, and senor Abby Harma ran ninth against a field of Lower Peninsula Division 1 schools.
“That’s probably the highlight of the season from a team standpoint,” Fure said during Tuesday’s practice at the Marquette High School track. “We were all crying. At first they announced Novi had won from the unofficial results. We were a little disappointed, although we gave our best effort. Then they found a scoring error and discovered we had won. I think a lot of people were really excited. The car ride home was very good. It kind of flew by.”
After dominating the El Harger Invite at Munising on Sept. 26, Marquette traveled downstate and ran in the Shepherd Bluejay Invitational four days later where the boys placed fifth and the girls were 16th in the Elite division.
“It’s real different running downstate. We needed to get used to that situation and become more comfortable. I think our athletes know what to expect down there now,” Marquette coach Derek Marr said. “(The girls’) confidence really grew after winning at MSU, and a lot of that carried over into Shepherd.
“Many coaches believed the U.P. teams couldn’t compete downstate, and that upset me. I think we can compete with anybody if we believe in ourselves. We’ve trying to break that limitation.”
Marquette opened this season with two victories at home, dominating the Queen City Invitational on Aug. 18 and edging Macomb Dakota for the title in the Wildcat Invite on Aug. 26.
“I think that set the tone,” Harma said. “Downstate runners come up here for camps. They’re very fast. It’s easier to run fast with faster people. Winning the Spartan Invitational was very exciting, and three of us going under 20 minutes at Shepherd was a highlight. It has been a long time since a team from Marquette has done that.”
“I would say we had an exceptional season,” added junior Seppi Camilli, who covered the 3.1-mile course at Shepherd in a personal-best 16 minutes, two seconds. “Derek and Paige (assistant coach DuBois) did a great job preparing us. The girls winning by one point at Spartan was definitely the highlight. Competing downstate allowed us to exemplify our depth and talent. I think it makes us execute to show our skills.”
Senior Cullen Papin had similar thoughts about the early-season meets.
“Everybody showed up and really worked hard in our first meet,” Papin said. “In the Wildcat meet it was good to get pushed by the biggest school in the state, and it came down to a sixth-runner tie-breaker. That’s what it’s all about. It shows every runner is important.”
The Marquette boys were runners-up to nationally-ranked Stevens Point, Wis., at Neenah, and the girls placed fourth.
“That was definitely a confidence builder going down to Neenah,” Papin said. “It was exciting to see all the hard work the girls put in really pay off against some of the D-1 powers in the state at Spartan, and all seven of us going under 16:50 at Shepherd was cool. There’s lots of good teams down there.
“The atmosphere in practice is pretty good.”
John Vrancic has covered high school sports in the Upper Peninsula since joining the Escanaba Daily Press staff in 1985. He is known most prominently across the peninsula for his extensive coverage of cross country and track & field that frequently appears in newspapers from the Wisconsin border to Lake Huron. He received the James Trethewey Award for Distinguished Service in 2015 from the Upper Peninsula Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association.
PHOTOS (Top) Marquette's Ella Fure (526), Monet Argeropoulos (514) and Abby Harma (527) make up part of an early pack during the Wildcat Invitational. (Middle) Marquette's Seppi Camilli (497) runs to first place in the boys Wildcat race held on the campus of Northern Michigan University. (Photos by Cara Kamps.)