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Successfully Juggling 2 Sports, Richmond Chases Cross Country Title
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
October 27, 2021
Mary Richmond is too busy to run slow.
The Frankenmuth sophomore is splitting time this fall between the cross country and volleyball teams, while also working one day per week at an Italian restaurant in town. When those seasons end in the next month, she doesn’t exactly take a break. During the winter, school and work get balanced with travel volleyball. In the spring, track joins the fray, and in the summer, she plays travel softball.
“Both (fall) coaches are really accommodating with my schedules, and even with work, my boss is really good working with my schedules,” Richmond said. “My whole entire life I’ve been busy – I’ve always been going non-stop, so this isn’t a new thing this year.”
Richmond is passionate about each sport and the bonds created with teammates with whom she competes, which is why she wasn’t willing to give up volleyball or softball while becoming one of the state’s top runners.
Entering Saturday’s cross country Regional at Shepherd, Richmond shares the fastest time of the season in Lower Peninsula Division 2 (17 minutes, 56 seconds) with Grand Rapids Christian’s Madelyn Frens. She won a Regional title and placed fourth at the Division 2 Cross Country Finals as a freshman, and was all-state in a pair of events (third in the 1,600 meters, fourth in the 3,200) at last spring’s LP Division 2 Track & Field Finals.
“Mary works extremely hard in practice, and has learned to run on her own in most of our meets this season,” Frankenmuth girls cross country coach Mike Snyder said. “When there is a lead Gator, we simply tell her to chase the Gator. She loves competition and enjoys meets where she can compete with girls that have faster times than her. She has the potential to be the Division 2 state champion, and has the work ethic and focus to go after that goal.”
While Richmond is very busy, she said her focus is currently on the Regional race, which will be in the same location she ran her previous best – a time that is nearly a full minute faster than her closest competition.
“It’s a really good course, and I really want to work on my time and the little stuff, like my form and stuff, so I can get prepared for states,” Richmond said. “States are going to be really tough, because there are four or five girls within seconds of each other.”
Richmond has won nine of the 13 meets she’s run in this season, but her 17:56 came while she finished fifth. While running after the motorized vehicle that’s showing the way has provided some extra motivation in a lot of those meets, it’s racing the best that motivates Richmond the most.
“When my dad bikes next to me while I’m training, I always have him bike in front of me,” Richmond said. “With the Gator, I’m trying to catch it. It’s a racer’s mentality. I’ve never finished in first place when I’ve run a personal record.”
Anticipating she’ll get that chance again at the Finals has Richmond excited. And on that day, she said she won’t be concerned about time, just racing.
“Finishing at the top at states with those girls and being able to have a good race – being able to come out of it and saying I gave all I could give is probably my goal,” she said. “As long as I have no regrets afterward, I’ll be happy.”
In between the Regional and Finals, which are Nov. 6 at Michigan International Speedway, Richmond will be joining her volleyball teammates in trying to win a District title. Richmond, who stands 5 feet, 11½ inches tall, plays middle and outside hitter for the Eagles. She plays a reserve role on the volleyball court, but she’s enjoying it all the same.
“I’ve always loved volleyball, and I wasn’t ready to give it up,” Richmond said. “I don’t get much playing time, but we have such an athletic team that just being on the team and being there for all the practices has been great. I think I use volleyball as a little bit of a stress reliever from cross country. When I get to volleyball, I get to have fun with some of my friends, and at the same time compete.”
Frankenmuth will play in the District at Chesaning, and has a bye into the semifinal. Richmond thinks the team has the potential to make a run, and extend her busy fall.
“I think if we play like we can, those girls are just amazing when they come together,” she said. “Volleyball is barely any of their main sport, but when they come together, the athleticism in that group is nuts.”
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) Frankenmuth’s Mary Richmond crosses the finish line during last season’s MHSAA Lower Peninsula Finals at Michigan International Speedway. (Middle) Richmond leads the pack during this season’s Tri-Valley Conference championship race. (Top photo by RunMichigan.com, middle courtesy of the Frankenmuth cross country program.)
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'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.)