Garcia, 'Perfect' Again, Keys Holland
November 23, 2013
By Chip Mundy
Special to Second Half
YPSILANTI – Holland High School junior Taylor Garcia had a perfect day Saturday at the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 2 girls swimming and diving championships.
Again.
One year after winning four titles (two individual and two relay), Garcia successfully defended all four championships at the Michael H. Jones Natatorium on the campus of Eastern Michigan University.
Garcia’s performance led Holland to its third consecutive Division 2 team championship in convincing fashion with 287 points – far ahead of runner-up Portage Central (235) and third-place Bloomfield Hills.
“It’s definitely very humbling,” Garcia said. “It definitely was a great experience.”
It definitely was a great performance, too.
Garcia and teammates Anna Giesler, Abi Johns and Clara Steeby opened the meet by winning the 200-yard medley relay. Last year, Holland won the same event with Garcia and three others.
Garcia went on to win the 100 butterfly for the third year in a row, breaking her LP Division 2 record with a time of 54.01 seconds – slightly faster than the record-setting 54.39 she swam in 2011.
“That was a fun little add-on,” Garcia said of the record. “It was something that I definitely had in the back of my mind that I wanted to accomplish.”
A few events later, she successfully defended her championship in the 100 backstroke in 52.95 – a second off the LP Division 2 record but faster than her winning time in 2012. The final MHSAA title came in the 400 freestyle relay – the final event of the meet – as Garcia teamed with seniors Holly Morren, Cassie Misiewicz and Emily Johns to finish first in 3 minutes, 27.79 seconds.
It meant a lot to the three seniors to swim that final race – the final race of their high school careers.
“It really sunk in during the 4 by 1(00),” Morren said. “We all kind of looked at each other and said, 'This is our last time,’ and we all started crying a little bit.”
Holland led that race from first splash to final touch.
“This is really a great moment, not only for this group but for all the groups that went before us and the younger girls who will be coming into this program,” said Garcia, who will enter her senior year with 12 individual and relay MHSAA championships and three team titles.
Holland had one other individual championship as Morren won the 50 freestyle in a side-by-side battle with Hanna Pfershy of Birmingham Groves. After winning the preliminary on Friday by two-hundredths of a second over Pfershy, Morren won Saturday by three-hundredths of a second over Pfershy (23.59 to 23.62).
“It was really hard to tell (who finished first), so I just looked at the board really quickly,” Morren said. “I couldn’t tell going into it.”
She said having Pfershy there to push her was a help.
“I think it definitely helps – it pushes you,” she said. “Like when you get tired and there’s not someone there pushing you, you kind of give up. But if there is someone right there, you find another gear.”
Morren also had a runner-up finish as she failed to successfully defend her 2012 title in the 100 freestyle, while Misiewicz was runner-up in the 200 and 500 freestyle events. Morren, Misiewicz, Giesler and Emily Johns also took second for Holland in the 200 freestyle relay.
Mollie Pulte of Bloomfield Hills Marian was the other individual double winner in the meet. Pulte won the 200 in 1:48.37 – a day after breaking the LP Division 2 Finals record with a time of 1:47.90 in the preliminaries. Then, Pulte set another meet record as she won the 100 in 49.87 seconds. The previous record of 49.96 was set by Emily Bos of Holland in 2009.
“It was awesome,” Pulte said. “I came out (Friday) and broke the state record, and I got my momentum going (Saturday) and did the best I can.”
Pulte also swam the anchor leg for Marian as it won the 200 freestyle relay in 1:35.24, again setting a meet record. Maren Taylor, Hannah Richard and freshman Sophia Schott swam the first legs and put Pulte in position to come from behind to win the event.
“They did a good job of keeping us up there, and I just wanted to get out there and race,” Pulte said. “You can normally see the person next to you when you breathe, but I just kept my head down and raced.”
Runner-up Portage Central had one champion in junior Madison Umberger, who won the 200 individual medley in 2:03.79, and Battle Creek Lakeview senior Brooke Rowe won the 100 breaststroke in 1:04.53.
Fraser senior Alli Shereda came from behind to win the diving with 412.10 points. She was in second place after the preliminaries and semifinals on Friday, and she was still second before her final dive – a front two-and-a-half tuck.
“Actually, that dive is one of my worst dives. So I just went at it like I meant it, and I really thought I went over a lot (on the entry),” said Shereda, who finished 10th last year. “I just focused and acted like it was a practice, because I always do my best at practice. I just acted like it was a bigger, fancier practice."
The best finish of the day might have been turned in by Bay City Western junior Krissy Harmon in the 500 freestyle. Harmon trailed Holland’s Misiewicz – the two-time defending champion in the event – by a substantial margin entering the final 50 yards and never grabbed the lead until the final few. She beat Misiewicz in 4:59.42; Misiewicz finished in 4:59.46.
“I didn’t see her until the finish,” Harmon said. “I’ve been working really hard on my back half, so I’m glad it paid off. I didn’t know if I could win; all I wanted to do was break five minutes. That was my goal.”
Misiewicz is one of several seniors who will be missed next year at Holland, and Morren felt it was a special group.
“I just felt like the seniors had a lot more leadership this year, and it was fun to be able to lead a bunch of the younger girls,” Morren said. “We’ve all grown really close, especially in the last two weeks. It’s been a lot of fun getting to know everyone on the team.”
Holland also had a first-year coach in Dan Kimble, the son of former coach Don Kimble, who coached the Holland girls for 10 years. Don Kimble moved on to Byron Center.
“I knew coming into this that there were some pretty big shoes to fill,” Dan Kimble said. “Luckily, I swam for him for a long time, and last year I was able to assist both the boys and the girls teams so I kind of got to see him in a bit of a different light on the deck.
“I feel like I had a decent amount of experience knowing the program and what’s been done in the past, and I just tried to continue it as much as possible.”
PHOTO: (Top) A pair of Holland swimmers talk poolside during Saturday's Finals. (Middle) The Holland girls swimming and diving team poses with its Lower Peninsula Division 2 championship trophy after winning the meet for the third straight season.
Performance: DeWitt's Jordyn Shipps
September 13, 2019
Jordyn Shipps
DeWitt junior – Swimming
The Panthers’ standout won the 200-yard freestyle (1:56.91) and 100 butterfly (58.77) at her team’s DeWitt Invitational on Saturday against a field that included ranked teams Chelsea and Grand Rapids Northview. Although the season is only a few weeks old, both times would’ve placed at last year’s Lower Peninsula Division 2 Finals and she finished ahead of 2018 Finals placers or qualifiers in both races – earning Shipps the first MHSAA “Performance of the Week” of the 2019-20 school year.
Shipps finished fifth in the butterfly and sixth in the 200 individual medley at last year’s LPD2 Finals, swimming also on the seventh-place 200 medley and 13th-place 200 freestyle relays. She was sixth in the butterfly and fourth in the IM in LPD3 as a freshman in 2017, also swimming on two placing relays along with her oldest sister Sydney. Jordyn is the third daughter and youngest sibling from this generation of one of the best-known swim families in the Lansing area; Sydney was a six-time Finals individual placer over her last three seasons of high school and competes now at Saginaw Valley State University, and their father Steve Shipps was a five-time LP Class B Finals champion from 1986-88 who went on to earn All-America honors at Michigan State University. Middle sister Ashley was a standout distance runner, graduating from DeWitt this spring, and is a freshman competing at Western Michigan University.
Jordyn changed up her swim training this summer from sprint-based to more middle distance to “branch out a bit,” she said, and the 200 free is among races she’s also considering swimming at this season’s Finals in November. She’ll no doubt have an opportunity in two years to follow her sisters and compete at the college level in addition to shining academically – Jordyn carries a 4.0 GPA and ranks among the top 10 percent of her graduating class academically. She’s considering engineering and pre-medical studies as possible options when that time comes – she enjoys the math and process of engineering, and the opportunity to impact people’s lives in medicine. For now, she’s making another giant impact on a DeWitt swimming & diving team that finished fourth Saturday coming off a 12th-place LPD2 Finals finish a year ago – and doesn’t have a senior this fall.
Coach Gregg Brace said: “Jordyn sets high standards for herself. She is frequently the first person in the water at practice. She works hard all the time and doesn’t back off when practice gets hard. She expects to be challenged in practice, and if she feels she isn’t getting challenged she will let me know. … Having a student like Jordyn on the team helps to build our positive team culture. Win or lose she always reaches out to her opponents to congratulate them after every race. She encourages her teammates and leads by example. She is the first to start on setup and cleanup before and after meets. Her attitude really helps build our team-first focus.”
Performance Point: “Early this season we started to create a very positive and fun environment within our team, so that’s helped me swim faster – it’s easy to swim faster when you’re having fun,” Shipps said. “So now that we’ve created that positive and fun environment, I feel more motivated to go fast and wanting to go fast because I have the most supportive team ever. And the other thing that helps with the invitational and going fast was Coach Brace – we’ve been doing some different training this year, just those tough sets that he always gives us to challenge us have really been helpful. … I really wasn’t expecting to swim that fast last weekend. We had great competition there – we never get to see Northview or Chelsea or places like that, so it was just nice to have competition like that. To have those people to race against I think really helped me to pace off of them and try to go fast.”
On a mission: “This year we have a pretty young team. We’re not graduating any seniors, so everyone on the team will be coming back next year. I think (Coach Brace) sees a lot of potential with us. We have some freshmen with a lot of potential (and) they have a background in club swimming. I think he’s trying to make a base for us, so we can continue it throughout the year and continue to do good this year and next year.”
No seniors, but many leaders: “Our junior class has seven or eight kids in it, so all seven or eight are stepping up to leadership roles. We all play a part in how we lead the team and in showing the underclassmen what to do in certain situations. It’s been nice to not only have captains step up but have everyone in the junior class help the underclassmen to get into a routine with training and school. The balance is always hard between school and swimming, and our junior class is very helpful with helping other people, which is good.”
Shipps sail together: “I really wasn’t going to join swimming until my older sisters did – they kinda pushed me to join the sport. I saw them at practice and meets and said I was like, ‘Wow, I want to do that. That’s looks fun.’ (My dad) was the head of our club, so he guided me into program, but it was really my older sisters that made me want to do the sport. … It’s super fun and supportive. As a family we always have that competitive edge. So it helps to have people guide me through different situations, and it’s just nice to have people there for me who know what it’s like to be in that stressful situation and that stressful race and what to do. They’ve been super helpful and supportive toward me. I couldn’t imagine it any other way.”
Ready to race: “I’m super confident about where I’m at right now this year, especially with the way Coach Brace has been training us. I’m very confident leading up to the state finals. I have different goals this year: I’m trying to be at the top of the state of course; first place or second place is where I’m aiming now, (and I have) a lot of best times I’m hoping for. I think this might be the year where I have those breakthrough swims.”
– Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
PHOTOS: (Top) DeWitt's Jordyn Shipps races in the 100 freestyle during a dual last season against St. Johns. (Middle) Shipps swims the backstroke; she won both events at that meet. (Photos by TCP Photography.)