VanderKooi, Hart Extend Title Streaks
November 7, 2020
By Jason Schmitt
Special for Second Half
BROOKLYN – Muskegon Western Michigan Christian’s Abby VanderKooi did so well Saturday at the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Girls Cross Country Finals that she can’t wait for next year to get here.
The junior won the Division 4 championship as both a freshman and sophomore. This year, her team was bumped up to Division 3. The team did not qualify for the Finals. But VanderKooi did, and she shined on the state’s biggest stage.
“My motivation was to break the course record (for Division 3),” VanderKooi said. “That was my goal. Hopefully, next year we move back to D4 because I want to break that record too.”
Her time of 17:12.47 bettered the previous-best Division 3 time by more than 30 seconds. And she did it running in the first of two races of the session. All teams that finished third at their Regional, as well as all individual qualifiers, ran first. All Regional champions and runners-up competed in the second race. They were split to help limit the number of competitors in each race.
VanderKooi led her race from start to finish, and her split times would have had her leading the second race at each of the three mile marks, and of course the finish. She crossed the finish line 1:31 ahead of her nearest competitor, Allison Chmielewski of Roscommon (18:43.76), who finished sixth overall.
“I ran my best. I ran my hardest, and that’s all I could do,” said VanderKooi, who if given the opportunity will look to make amends for her less-than-stellar performances in her previous two Division 4 races. “I ran very poorly the last two years at states. I ran an 18:11 last year, which for me is not good. My iron was low, and we didn’t know it. The year before, that course was ridiculously awful.”
She was extremely happy with Saturday’s performance.
“I’m very happy with that (time),” she said. “I broke the record. I just got this new watch, and it told me that my predicted 5K time was like a 17:22, and I was like, ‘I’d love to run that time.’”
Hart captured its fourth straight Division 3 team championship, finishing three runners among the top five and four in the top 10 while piecing together a team score of 59. Freshman Alyson Enns was second overall in a time of 18:05.97. Senior Savannah Ackley was third, junior Audrianna Enns fifth and senior Lynae Ackley 10th overall. Junior Lauren Vanderlaan rounded out the team’s scoring.
“It never gets old, but you never know until the day comes,” Hart head coach Terry Tatro said. “We just take things one day at a time and hope that you have your best race of the season here. The girls ran pretty well today. As a coach, I always think they can do better, but winning a state championship, they ran as good as I could expect them to.”
Ithaca, led by junior Lani Bloom’s fourth-place finish (18:32.26), placed second as a team with 114 points. Senior Grace Weburg finished 23rd overall for the Yellowjackets.
Grandville Calvin Christian was third overall (121 points), followed by St. Louis (195) and Benzie Central (217) among the top five.
PHOTOS: (Top) Western Michigan Christian’s Abby VanderKooi closes in Saturday on her third MHSAA Finals championship. (Middle) Hart freshman Audrianna Enns approaches the finish line leading for the eventual team champ. (Click for more from RunMichigan.com.)
Rochester's Cook, Dakota's Harberts Finding Fastest Strides at Championship Time
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
October 27, 2022
Peaking right before the biggest events is obviously something every athlete wants to do. But executing such a desire is way easier said than done.
Fortunately for cross country runners Jayden Harberts and Lucy Cook – top-10 finishers at last season’s Lower Peninsula Division 1 Final – that hasn’t been an issue.
With Regional meets this weekend and this season’s Finals at Michigan International Speedway the Saturday after that, Harberts and Cook reaching their top form right now might be bad news for other runners around the state.
Harberts, a junior at Macomb Dakota, earlier this month won her third consecutive Macomb County championship in a time of 18:25 at Stony Creek Metropark.
But Dakota coach Tom Zarzycki said that’s not all she’s done.
“She’s run three of her four fastest times within the last month,” Zarzycki said. “She’s definitely on the upswing.”
The same can be said for Cook, a sophomore at Rochester.
Cook won her second-straight Oakland County championship at Kensington Metropark in a time of 18:45.5.
Despite being slowed by an illness earlier in the year, Cook appears to be at full strength at the right time.
“She’s got a tremendous amount of passion and she is 110 percent into everything she is doing,” said Rochester coach Amy Oppat. “She’s easy to coach from that aspect. She’s hard on herself because she cares.”
For Harberts, she hopes to better her seventh-place Finals finish from last year.
She ran a personal record of 17:31 on Oct. 22 at the Macomb Area Conference championships, and she credits enhanced mental strength for her performances this fall.
“For me this year, it’s been a lot of mental growth,” Harberts said. “Last year, I didn’t (personal record) in cross country, so I’ve been waiting a while. I think physically I’ve gotten a lot stronger too. But it’s a lot of mental strength for me.”
Cook, who finished sixth at the LPD1 Final in 2021, followed up her Oakland County title by winning the OAA White championship Oct. 20 in a time of 18:34.1.
The comfort and confidence she gained doing so well at the Final last year has obviously showed this fall, and Oppat said Cook is ahead of where she was at this time last season.
“It was my first big meet,” Cook said of running at MIS in 2021. “I was just going to see how it went and try my best. It was a pretty big personal record.”
Both Harberts and Cook also shined during track season this past spring.
At the LPD1 Track & Field Finals on June 4, Harberts placed third in 3,200 meter run with a time of 10:26.16 and 11th in 1,600 meter run in a time of 4:57.87, while Cook was second in the 3,200 run in a time of 10:23.24.
Cook said distance running is “better for me than sprinting,” while Harberts echoed that sentiment that distance races have long been a better fit for her.
“I like to build my race up,” Harberts said. “It’s not like a sprint where I have to be fast the whole time. It’s more strategic.”
Harberts and Dakota will run Saturday in a Regional at Goodells Park in Wales Township, while Cook and Rochester will run at Hess-Hathaway Park in Waterford.
Given what each has achieved lately, it’s a good bet they’ll still be peaking after the weekend, with all eyes then toward the Finals race.
“I just have to remember to keep running my own race,” Harberts said. “Hopefully I can continue to do that again this year.”
Keith Dunlap has served in Detroit-area sports media for more than two decades, including as a sportswriter at the Oakland Press from 2001-16 primarily covering high school sports but also college and professional teams. His bylines also have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Boston Globe. He served as the administrator for the Oakland Activities Association’s website from 2017-2020. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS Rochester’s Lucy Cook, left, and Macomb Dakota’s Jayden Harberts finished sixth and seventh, respectively, at last season’s LPD1 Final at Michigan International Speedway. (Click for more from RunMichigan.com.)