Sinke Family Has Bear Lake Primed to Compete for Championships Now, In Future

By Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com

October 25, 2024

One Sinke is nearing the end of a high school running career seeking to qualify for a fourth-straight MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 4 Cross Country Final.

Northern Lower PeninsulaA few other Sinkes are right in the middle of possible team and individual title opportunities.

Mason Sinke, who broke the Bear Lake cross country race record earlier this season, is about to finish his stellar career on 5K courses. He still has the spring track season ahead, and then he’s moving on to run for Hope College. Saturday, he hopes — or rather expects — to qualify for his fourth Final while vying for the individual Regional title at Benzie Central.

His team will not qualify for the Final due to an insufficient number of healthy runners. But the Bear Lake girls team – led by freshman Callie Sinke – has its eyes on qualifying for the Final and can’t help but think a state championship is obtainable in the near future.

A future boys title also isn’t out of the question as the Lakers have a strong middle school program as well. The middle school’s current number one runner is Johnny Sinke. 

And all the Lakers cross country teams are coached by Tony Shrum and Kim Sinke. Shrum has headed up the cross country program, which co-ops with Onekama, since 2012. Kim Sinke, a former college distance runner, joined the staff this year. She is also the mother of Mason, Callie and Johnny Sinke.

The Bear Lake girls team take a trophy photo after clinching the West Michigan D League title.Bear Lake is really hoping to start some strong winning streaks this weekend after long Regional championship streaks were common up until a decade ago. The Lakers are not unfamiliar with Finals appearances, but they’re looking for their first in a decade with the Regional trophy earned.

“For the girls, as long as we’ve got everybody healthy and racing, the goal is to win,” Shrum said of the upcoming Regional. “It would be our seventh girls Regional title in the program’s history, so they would be on a list with a pretty exclusive group.”

Shrum hopes the resting and recovering this week will allow the Lakers to put their best foot forward in the Regional. Bear Lake’s girls, the West Michigan D League champions this year, will be racing against some familiar foes.

There will be disappointment if there aren’t several Lakers listed among the top 10 finishers – and a handful in the top five are pretty much expected.

Callie Sinke, who is fighting through normal running injury challenges, and Addy Zeller are the Lakers’ top two runners and arguably the top two rated runners in the region. But injuries have slowed down the top two Lakers a bit.

“Right now Callie is about 20 seconds ahead of everybody in the field Saturday,” Shrum pointed out. “We have three of the top five girls when healthy in the region, and our fourth girl has top-15 ability and our fifth girl has been coming on.”

And these Lakers are young. Callie Sinke is a freshman and Zeller, hampered lately by a quad injury, is a sophomore. Melodie Hulinek, the number three runner who is coming back from a knee injury, is also a freshman. Natalie Brown, the current fourth runner, is a junior. Two other freshmen, Isabella Card and Peyton Buckner, may run for the fifth scoring spot, along with two other juniors, Lauren Pulido-Huber and Libby Daugherty. The co-op is without a senior on the girls side.

Mason Sinke, middle, takes a photo with Bear Lake head coach Tony Shrum and assistant and mother Kim Sinke.Shrum is excited about the opportunity this year and really the next three. He notes two current middle school runners will likely compete for varsity spots next fall.

“We’ve got a good core of girls coming back for the next four years,” Scrum said.

Zeller and Sinke attend Onekama High School. The rest of the girls team are enrolled with Bear Lake. 

Mason Sinke is a senior at Onekama. He too has sat out a few races recently to rest and prepare for his last two career high school meets.  

All season, he’s had a special partner and coach, Kaden Forward. The school record Sinke broke this year had belonged to Forward, who finished 13th in last year’s Final. Sinke was a few seconds behind Forward in the Final last year and finished 16th. He’s looking to take one of the top spots – if not first place – this Saturday and go on to a top 10, if not top five, at the Final.

The West Michigan D League features one of the top runners in the state in Alex Tyndall from Mason County Eastern. Tyndall finished 18th in last year’s Final, a few seconds behind Sinke. Tyndall and Eastern will be among many competitors Bear Lake has raced against week after week. A handful of other runners familiar to Mason Sinke will challenge him for a top-five Regional finish.

“Right now Mason would be the number two guy behind Alex coming in,” Shrum acknowledged. “We’ll see if he wants to chase Alex and push him and see if he can take Alex down. but otherwise I think silver at the Regional is a definite possibility for him.”

Callie Sinke runs a race this fall.The Bear Lake boys team has no chance of qualifying for the Finals as two of its five team members are out with injuries. But Shrum holds strong hopes senior Greyson Hoeflinger will also qualify for the Finals as an individual.

Over the 35 years of the co-op’s existence, Bear Lake’s boys teams have won 23 Regional titles and the girls have won six.

“Between Mason and Kaden, they have really changed the mindset of our program,” Shrum said. “Callie is leading the girls on the same path.”

Bear Lake is looking forward to an influx of talented young runners on the boys side too.

“Our next set of boys teams could be banner raising, winning teams of the state final,” Shrum predicted. “We’re on the comeback collectively as a program.”

The future is bright, but the current boys and girls teams members should get the credit for getting Bear Lake back to its winning ways.

“To me it is exciting to get back on that level and compete for state titles and Regional championships in the next five, six years,” Shrum noted. “A lot of it really has to do with the current group of kids that we have and their dedication, their discipline, their excitement and enthusiasm for the sport.”

Tom SpencerTom Spencer is a longtime MHSAA-registered basketball and soccer official, and former softball and baseball official, and he also has coached in the northern Lower Peninsula area. He previously has written for the Saginaw News, Bay County Sports Page and Midland Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.

PHOTOS (Top) Mason Sinke runs to his school record-setting 5K time Sept. 7 at the Bear Country Invitational. (2) The Bear Lake girls team take a trophy photo after clinching the West Michigan D League title. (3) Mason Sinke, middle, takes a photo with Bear Lake head coach Tony Shrum and assistant and mother Kim Sinke. (4) Callie Sinke runs a race this fall. (Photos courtesy of the Sinke family.)

Norder Leaves No Doubt with 1st Finals Win, Northville Breaks Away for Repeat

November 4, 2023

BROOKLYN — All that stood between Grand Haven’s Seth Norder and his cross country dreams last year were 1.63 lousy seconds.

That was the margin when Norder took second place in the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 1 Final to then-senior Benne Anderson of Grand Rapids Ottawa Hills.

Looking back, Norder believed his mistake was allowing that race to come down to a sprint to the finish line.

He wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice.

When Norder looked over his shoulder down the stretch, he didn’t see a serious threat as he put the finishing touches on an individual Division 1 championship Saturday at Michigan International Speedway. Norder finished in 14:54.3.

Northville's Benjamin Hartigan (318) leads a pack down the stretch.Norder was part of a three-runner lead pack at the mile mark, closely pursued by about a dozen other hopefuls. By the two-mile mark, Norder opened up a 4.7-second lead over New Baltimore Anchor Bay senior Thomas Westphal, who would go on to finish second by 3.6 seconds.

“Last year, I lost on a sprint-off with like 200 (meters) to go,” Norder said. “I wasn’t going to let that happen again. I believed I had the strength to pull away from the field. I guess I had the strength and ended up holding it down that stretch. That felt like forever.”

Norder finally has a championship on his resume after placing second both of the last two years. As a sophomore, he finished 23.5 seconds behind Hartland senior Riley Hough, who went on to win the Eastbay National Cross Country Championship.

“It feels so good,” Norder said. “Sophomore year — I lost to Riley, OK. Junior year, I wanted to win. I lost by a second. I decided I wasn’t going to lose again. If I was going to lose, it was not going to be a sprint-off. It was going to be the toughest man.”

Norder did have one MHSAA championship going into Saturday, having won the 3,200-meter run in 9:04.68 on the track last spring.

The team championship came down to a clash between Kensington Lakes Activities Association rivals Northville and Brighton, who split four meetings during the regular season.

Northville emerged with a second straight championship, scoring 128 points to edge Brighton by 13. Norder’s Grand Haven team was third with 187 points.

Northville had three all-staters, with senior Brendan Herger placing third in 15:05.6, junior Ethan Powell 13th in 15:28.0 and sophomore Benjamin Hartigan 24th in 15:37.7. Rounding out the Mustangs’ team score were junior Nick Barretto in 16:05.1 and senior Nicholas Yaquinto in 16:14.8.

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PHOTOS (Top) Grand Haven's Seth Norder closes the MHSAA Finals with a Division 1 win Saturday. (Middle) Northville's Benjamin Hartigan (318) leads a pack down the stretch. (Photos by Dave McCauley/RunMichigan.com.)