#TBT: Legends Made at 1997 LP Finals
August 10, 2017
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
MHSAA Lower Peninsula Finals race day in 1997 looks a little gray as the Class B participants are taking their first strides above.
But it turned out to carry plenty of significance in the four-decade history of Michigan girls cross country.
The LP Class B race at Michigan International Speedway was memorable for Fremont, which claimed its first and still only title by edging runner-up Whitehall 111-118. Harmony Dykhuis claimed the individual title for Fremont in 19:41.
The Class A race included a few more significant details. Rochester Adams freshman Katie Boyles won the race in 19:07, by more than four seconds, claiming her first of what would be four individual MHSAA cross country championships. She remains the only girl in MHSAA history to win four Finals titles in Lower Peninsula Class A or Division 1, and one of seven total to win four Finals in any division or class. Her string of four titles beginning in 1997 also was significant because that season was the first that the MHSAA awarded only one individual champion per class/division, rather than an individual champion from the team qualifiers and an individual champion from those who weren't running as part of a team finalist.
Ann Arbor Pioneer was an easy champion in the Class A team competition with 68 points, 46 fewer than runner-up Rockford with Emily Magner leading the way with an eighth-place individual finish. The team was coached by the legendary Bryan Westfield, who previously had led his 1987 and 1988 teams to LP Class A titles and also eventually guided the Pioneers' girls track & field program to 16 MHSAA Finals championships with the most recent coming in 2008. He died after a fight with cancer in 2015.
Kalamazoo Hackett won the Class C team title, its first in the sport, and Mendon also was a first-time winner in Class D before repeating as champ a year later. Saginaw Valley Lutheran's Bethany Brewster claimed the Class C individual title in 18:46 after also winning the individual race championship in 1996, and Mendon's Kasey Culp was the 1997 individual champion after finishing first in the team race the year prior.
Century of School Sports: Cross Country Finals Among MHSAA's Longest-Running
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
October 23, 2024
While we are celebrating multiple milestones this fall – the beginning of the MHSAA’s 100th anniversary, and our 50th Football Playoffs – we already can circle another notable date for the first season of the 2025-26 school year.
This time next fall, we’ll be on the cusp of our 30th Lower Peninsula Cross Country Finals at Michigan International Speedway, which has drawn an average of 9,332 fans to those four championship races since becoming their home in 1996.
Boys cross country actually was one of the first sports to have postseason events organized by the newly-formed MHSAA. Annual boys cross country championship races had been run since 1922 (according to L.L. Forsythe’s “Athletics in Michigan High Schools – The First Hundred Years”), and although the 1924 Open Class Final – won by Ann Arbor High School – was competed before the MHSAA’s official start date that December, it is counted on the list of official MHSAA championships. Cross country would be joined that inaugural school year by boys basketball, boys swimming & diving, boys tennis and boys track & field as the first sports with MHSAA-sponsored championship events. Girls cross country would be added in 1978 – the 10th girls sport introduced that decade – as the first steps were taken to provide opportunities for all high school athletes.
Several changes over the 55 years have led to a Michigan high school cross country competitive format that has remained mostly unchanged over the last four decades.
Initially, Lower Peninsula and Upper Peninsula teams ran Finals together until the break in championship meets for World War II during the 1942 and 1943 seasons. Since 1974, the Lower Peninsula has been separated into four Class (previously) or Division (currently) groupings for postseason competition, and the Upper Peninsula into three. Also, from 1971-96, two individual champions were awarded in each Lower Peninsula Class/Division – a winning runner from a race of team qualifiers, and another winning runner from a race of only those who had qualified for the Finals as individuals. The current field again includes all team and individual qualifiers in one race.
The distance of the championship race was two miles through 1969, then 2.5 miles in 1970 and 1971, and then three miles through the end of that decade. In 1980, the race became the standard five kilometers (or 3.1 miles) run today.
As noted above, the Lower Peninsula Finals moved to MIS in 1996, and annually a course is charted that begins on the stadium infield, continues into the surrounding property and concludes alongside the racetrack’s finishing stretch.
The Upper Peninsula Cross Country Finals are among the most picturesque of any MHSAA championship competitions, run in late October generally against a backdrop of reds, oranges, yellows and greens as tree leaves begin to change and fall. This past weekend, Upper Peninsula winners were celebrated at Pictured Rocks Golf Course in Munising. The Division 1 Boys Final featured the three fastest times run in the history of U.P. championship races.
Lower Peninsula teams will run their Regionals this Friday and Saturday, with Finals qualifiers convening at MIS again Nov. 2 while chased and cheered by an anticipated 10,000 fans in Brooklyn.
Previous "Century of School Sports" Spotlights
Oct. 15: State's Storytellers Share Fall Memories - Read
Oct. 8: Guided by 4 S's of Educational Athletics - Read
Sept. 25: Michigan Sends 10 to National Hall of Fame - Read
Sept. 25: MHSAA Record Books Filled with 1000s of Achievements - Read
Sept. 18: Why Does the MHSAA Have These Rules? - Read
Sept. 10: Special Medals, Patches to Commemorate Special Year - Read
Sept. 4: Fall to Finish with 50th Football Championships - Read
Aug. 28: Let the Celebration Begin - Read
PHOTOS (Clockwise from top left) The 1998 Lower Peninsula Class D Final begins at Michigan International Speedway. (2) Caro’s Yami Albrecht (542) holds onto the lead ahead of Bridgman’s Brian Njuguna during the 2016 LP Division 3 Final. (3) Eventual runner-up Leah Kiilunen of Calumet (9) leads a pack at the 2012 UP Division 1 race in Munising. (4) Runners begin the 1949 LP Class B Final at Washtenaw Country Club. (Photos of 1998 and 2016 Finals by RunMichigan.com; 2012 Finals photo by Paul Gerard; 1949 photo from MHSAA archives.)