High 5s - 4/24/12
April 24, 2012
Each week, Second Half gives "High 5s" to multiple athletes and a team that have performed exceptionally on the field or made a notable impact off of it.
Please offer your suggestions by e-mail to editor Geoff Kimmerly at [email protected]. Below are this week's honorees:
Mallory Weber
Northville senior
Soccer
Weber, a two-time Division 1 all-state forward, leads one of the best teams in the state. Northville is 5-0-2 and ranked No. 3, with its most significant win so far coming last week, 1-0 over reigning Division 1 champion and current No. 5 Novi. Although Weber did not score that goal, she did help open up the field by drawing two and at times three defenders. She has nine goals and five assists this season, and has signed with reigning Big Ten regular-season champion Penn State after also considering the University of Maryland and the University of Miami (Fla.). She also played basketball at Northville.
For love of the game: "I love soccer. It's so competitive. It's just fun. It's fast-moving; basketball you stop so much, but in soccer you're always continuing."
I learned the most about soccer from: "Probably my (club) coach Andy Vanover. He was my coach for probably six years, and he taught me to never give up. That work ethic is part of what makes my game so hard to defend."
I model my game after: FC Barcelona star Lionel Messi. "Just how he's so good with his foot skills. That's the biggest part of my game I try to work on."
Up next: Weber is undecided on her major at Penn State, but is considering something in food science and nutrition. "I just like the whole thing of how food affects your body, how it plays into your performance."
Jake McFadden
Clare senior
Track and Field
McFadden won the 110-meter hurdles (14.9 seconds), the 300 hurdles (39.3) and the 200 dash (22.3) on Saturday at the Remus Chippewa Hills Invitational as Clare scored 174 points to finish first. He's the reigning MHSAA Division 3 champion in both hurdles races and helped Clare to a third-place team finish at the 2011 Final. He also owns school and Jack Pine Conference records in the 110 (14.82) and 300 (39.28), according to a report by the Mount Pleasant Morning Sun. McFadden played football in previous falls until this school year, when he switched to cross country to help him get into better shape for track season.
Up next: McFadden has signed to run track at Michigan State University, and will study biomedical engineering. "I just like the working-with-my-hands aspect, making new things (like) replacements for hips and knees, making innovations in that kind of stuff."
Quick learner: McFadden shot put and ran on a relay in junior high, but didn't try hurdling until high school. "I just watched a lot of film on myself, just fixed stuff there."
I look up to: "I'd say my brother (Mike McFadden, a 2010 Clare grad). He's the one who really got me into track. He played baseball freshman year and ran track sophomore year, and he really liked track. I wanted to follow in his footsteps and see what I could do."
Crossing over: "I played football every year but senior year. I ran cross country this year. It was a good experience, got me in shape. I ran about what I wanted to run, time-wise."
Stevensville Lakeshore softball
In a battle of top-ranked teams, Stevensville Lakeshore -- ranked No. 1 in Division 2 -- downed Division 1 No. 1 Mattawan 4-3 in eight innings to win Saturday's Mattawan Invitational. The Southwestern Michigan Athletic Conference rivals also met in last season's Mattawan championship game, with Mattawan winning in eight innings, and again in last weekend's Portage Invitational final -- a 4-2 Wildcats win. Mattawan had won 38 straight games before falling to Portage Central earlier Saturday.
Lakeshore also beat Division 1 No. 3 Grandville, 7-1, and Vicksburg 6-1. The Lancers improved to 11-2 with the tournament sweep.
This spring's previous honorees
Sarah Appold, Saginaw Valley Lutheran softball
Nick Stiles, Bath baseball
Chippewa Valley's Heard Has Big Plans to Add to All-Time Sprint Legacy
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
May 10, 2024
CLINTON TOWNSHIP — Clinton Township Chippewa Valley senior Shamar Heard admits he’s thought about it, and for good reason.
After all, why not at least entertain the thought of doing something unprecedented in state history when it comes to track & field?
Two years ago as a sophomore, Heard achieved the double in the fastest races, winning both the 100 and 200-meter dashes at the Lower Peninsula Division 1 Finals.
Last year, Heard completed the trifecta when it came to sprint state titles, focusing solely on the 400 dash and winning that event in 47.78 seconds while also running on first and third-place relays.
So, how about trying to train for and win all three events this year as a senior? Who in the state would be able to stop him?
“I definitely have been thinking about it,” Heard said. “Because why not? It probably hasn’t been done in a long time, if ever.”
But while the thought has crossed his mind, it won’t happen. It’s a little much on the body — in particular running the 100-meter dash — to try and do all three at once.
However, Heard in the coming weeks is still in a good position to cement what already is a place among the greatest sprinters to come through the state of Michigan.
First, he has big things in mind for his specialty race, the 400 meters. He has won two consecutive AAU national titles in that event in addition to the Finals title he won last year, but is craving more.
“I want to be at 45 seconds for the state meet,” Heard said noting the June 1 Finals at East Kentwood.
In addition, Heard plans on competing in the 200 meters at East Kentwood. He also is a part of Chippewa Valley’s 800 relay team that won last year in 1:26.41. He’s expected to qualify for all three at the Regional on May 17 at Romeo.
When Heard is done with high school, he will continue running track at Tennessee.
It’s all mighty impressive for a speedster that Chippewa Valley head coach Terry Wilson said hates lifting weights and is “barely above 150 pounds.”
“He doesn’t weigh a whole lot, but he generates a lot of power,” Wilson said. “His strength-to-weight ratio has to be astronomical. He’s just gotten better with his form.”
Throughout his entire life, Heard said he’s simply loved racing. When he was a kid, he would constantly pick out a stop sign on a street or another spot in a yard and race others to the finish, often beating them with ease.
When he was 10 years old, he was invited by a friend to come out for a track team, and he proceeded to beat others in races continuously.
As he got a little older, Heard discovered how gifted he was running the 400 meters and started to focus more on that event.
Heard said he loves the 400 meters so much mostly because he loves embracing a challenge many sprinters don’t want to face.
“I like that not many people want to go through that pain,” he said. “I take it as a compliment when people look at (the 400) and they say, ‘Hey, people are crazy for doing that.’ That makes me motivated to do it.”
Wilson admits there doesn’t have to be much coaching done with Heard. It’s just simply a matter of getting together before races to discuss how he feels and what his body can do that day.
“He understands his body a little bit better every year,” Wilson said. “He understands what he needs to get done in races. He’ll run the 200 in practice and I’ll have a stopwatch on him, and he’ll say, ‘That felt like a 24 (seconds). I look at my stopwatch and it’s a 24.2. He has that ability to gauge how fast he’s going. It’s just different with him.”
Heard also was a football player at Chippewa Valley, but gave the sport up before last fall to focus solely on his track career.
“I was just looking at the bigger picture,” Heard said. “I was more consistent in one sport than I was the other.”
He will run the 400 meters at Tennessee, and then the sky could be the limit given what he’s accomplished already on a national level.
Until then though, Heard will spend the rest of his high school career trying to win more hardware and leave a mark that might be impossible for future sprinters in Michigan to surpass.
“I want to give everyone a senior year that they will remember,” Heard said. “I want to go out with one of the most memorable years of a high school athlete.”
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 (Top) Chippewa Valley’s Shamar Heard crosses the finish line while anchoring the winning 800 relay at last year’s LPD1 Finals. (Middle) Heard prepares to run the winning 400 at last season’s championship meet. (Click for more from RunMichigan.com.)