Pair Powers Cranbrook Team Title Hopes
November 10, 2020
By Keith Dunlap
Special for Second Half
BLOOMFIELD HILLS – The Oakland County girls swim & dive meet in October perfectly highlighted the luxury Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood enjoys this season.
Depth is always great for any team – but it’s also nice to have two swimmers capable of winning one-third of a meet’s events by themselves.
Cranbrook has that possibility each meet thanks to the presence of seniors Gwen Woodbury and Justine Murdock, who might be the best tandem on any team in the state this year, regardless of school size.
They also are future Big Ten college swimmers, with Woodbury heading to Ohio State and Murdock to Northwestern.
Needless to say, having a duo like that has made it a seamless transition for first-year Cranbrook coach Paul Ellis.
“It’s a great example for the rest of our team on what hard work and dedication to your craft can do,” Ellis said. “They go above and beyond day in and day out. It really sets the tone for our practices. It helps with the culture you want to establish.”
Woodbury is a freestyle whiz who captured the 100-yard (51.29) and 200-yard freestyles (1:37.96) at an Oakland County event that also featured Division 1 power Farmington Hills Mercy and Division 2 power Birmingham Seaholm.
Woodbury, also the reigning Division 3 Finals champion in the 100 freestyle, said she started swimming when she was 4 years old, although it wasn’t exactly love at first sight with the sport.
“I actually hated it,” she said. “I only went because my siblings swam.”
But as she grew older, Woodbury started to enjoy the sport more and discovered she was starting to get good at it.
By the time her freshman year at Cranbrook was over, which concluded with her winning the Finals titles in the 100 freestyle and 200 freestyle and Cranbrook winning the team title in Division 3, she realized swimming was something she wanted to do beyond high school.
“I started to realize that it’s not just the sport of swimming, it’s everything that comes with it and the little things people don’t notice that much that made me fall in love with it so much more,” Woodbury said. “The team camaraderie when we won states my freshman year was a feeling of total happiness knowing that all these people had worked so hard.”
Murdock is different than Woodbury in that she swims the backstroke and individual medley, but the same in that she took up the sport at an early age, and already has numerous county and state championship titles on her resume.
Murdock won the 200 IM (2:08.19) and the 100 backstroke (56.76) at this year’s county meet, the 100 backstroke at the Finals as a sophomore and both the 200 IM and 100 backstroke at last year’s Division 3 championship finale.
“I’ve always been swimming backstroke ever since I was little,” Murdock said. “I loved backstroke, so it was an easy choice for me to continue. In high school, while finding my other strengths through my freshman and sophomore years to see where I was clicking with secondary events, the 200 IM ended up being that event. It gives me time to have good focus throughout the meet lineup.”
Woodbury and Murdock, who are also important members of Cranbrook’s relay teams, have swam together since middle school and have been able to bond through their similar career paths in swimming.
Not only have they been able to push each other during practices and meets, but they’ve had each other as sounding boards on topics such as college visits and their future ambitions.
Both assuredly will follow how the other is doing in college once their high school days are over.
“It will be weird, but the great thing about being in the same conference is that we will be able to compete and be friends at the same time,” Murdock said.
Before worrying about college, there’s some unfinished business to take care of at Cranbrook.
After winning the Division 3 championship their freshman year, Cranbrook has been Finals runner-up to East Grand Rapids each of the past two.
Last year, Cranbrook finished just 11 points behind East Grand Rapids, and Woodbury and Murdock are focused on ending their careers celebrating another team title.
“That 11 points, all you could think about was, ‘What did I do wrong?” Woodbury said. ‘“If only I could have gone a second faster.’ Everyone was thinking that. We don’t want to feel that again.”
PHOTOS: Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood’s Gwen Woodbury launches into one of her races during the 2019 Lower Peninsula Division 3 Finals at Oakland University. (Middle) Teammate Justine Murdock sets the pace on the way to winning the 200 IM at last year’s Finals. (Click to see more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
Pioneer Seniors Leave Legacy with 2nd-Straight Finals Win
By
Scott DeCamp
Special for MHSAA.com
November 20, 2021
HOLLAND – Ann Arbor Pioneer boasts one of the deepest traditions in MHSAA girls swimming & diving history.
It goes back to the days of legendary coach Dennis Hill, who guided the Pioneers to their first state title in 1979 and retired with 16 championships in Lower Peninsula Class A or Division 1.
The latest wave of talent was determined to carry on that tradition and leave its mark. Led by a strong group of seven seniors, Pioneer overwhelmed the competition in capturing a second-straight Division 1 title Saturday at Holland Aquatic Center.
The Pioneers claimed first place in five of 12 events, including all three relays, and showed off their superior depth in a runaway victory. They totaled a whopping 405.5 points to leave the rest of the pack far behind. Saline was runner-up with 247 points, followed by Brighton in third place with 217.5.
“We just had to take care of ourselves all season,” Pioneer sixth-year coach Stefanie Kerska said. “As nice as it may seem to be out so far in front, we made it a point to not get complacent, to not cut corners and, like I said, to not take our foot off the gas.
“So, that was really the challenge of the year, to just stay motivated, still being as dominant as we were this year.”
Last season, Pioneer captured the 17th Finals championship in program history in similarly dominant fashion. Pioneer racked up 368 points, ahead of Farmington Hills Mercy (184), which edged the Pioneers by only half a point for the 2019 Division 1 title.
Last year, and especially this weekend, the Pioneers were essentially competing against themselves. In five events, they had two top-six finishers, and three in another event.
Among the 19 all-state finishes (top eight in each event) for Pioneer, 15 placed in the top four of their respective races.
“It means everything. Last year was our first time winning a state championship in our four years,” Pioneer senior Vivian VanRenterghem said. “Obviously, with COVID, the experience was a little bit different – we didn’t get to do it until January.
“So, getting to do it here – prelims, finals, the real deal – definitely meant more, and I think to come out the other end of last year was everything for us.”
Senior Lily Cramer led the way for Pioneer with a first-place finish in the 200-yard free (1:48.95), plus she swam legs on winning 200 free relay and 400 free relay teams and took second in the 100 breaststroke. Sophomore Stella Chapman won the 200 IM (2:01.98), swam legs on first-place 200 medley relay and 400 relay teams, and placed second in the 100 backstroke.
VanRenterghem and senior Holly Pringle both swam legs on the Pioneers’ winning 200 free relay and 400 free relay teams. Senior Edwina Jalet swam a leg on the Pioneers’ first-place 200 medley relay, while senior Amelia Weyhing and junior Sophia Guo swam as part of the victorious 200 free relay.
Cramer said that the intrasquad competition pushes everybody to be better.
“Everyone wants to do well, and I think that makes everybody a little nervous, but also we knew what we were able to do and we were able to execute that to the best of our ability,” Cramer said.
“We do everything together, so to be able to win together is a really good feeling.”
Plymouth senior Brady Kendall was the lone two-event individual winner for the two-day competition. She swam to first place in the 50 free in 22.63 seconds and captured first in the 100 butterfly in 53.35.
Rockford sophomore Megan Jolly finished at the top in 1-meter diving with 419.20 points. Grand Haven sophomore Rosalee Springer captured first in the 100 free (50.55). Brighton junior Victoria Schreiber was first in the 500 free (4:57.27). Middleville Thornapple Kellogg senior Abby Marcukaitis took the top honor in the 100 backstroke (55.07). Livonia Stevenson junior McKenzie Siroky was first in the 100 breaststroke (1:00.85).
In addition to the seven seniors, Pioneer’s team featured two juniors, two sophomores and two freshmen.
“I’ve got a lot of seniors, and luckily they’ve been able to really leave their mark on this team over the last few years, and so those underclassmen sort of know what the expectations and requirements are to continue this,” Kerska said. “It’s definitely going to be a challenge from here on out. Those seven seniors have really built this program back up.”
Kerska wanted the senior group to leave a legacy, and those seven swimmers did just that. They carried on the rich Pioneer tradition and started another Finals-title string with their back-to-back achievement.
The Pioneers won four Class A championships in a row under Hill from 1989-92, and nine straight for the Hall of Fame coach from 2000-08. They also collected titles in 1985 and 1987.
Pioneer’s seniors did not lose a single dual meet in their high school careers, and five of them are headed to swim at the Division I collegiate level.
VanRenterghem and Cramer have been swimming together since fourth grade.
“This sport is a lot of work, but it’s always been worth it,” VanRenterghem said. “I think a lot of us have a really exciting next four years, but I think we’re never going to forget where we came from and I’ll always be cheering for Pioneer.”
Said Cramer: “We started this together and we ended this together, and I think it’s a really good way to go out.”
PHOTOS by High School Sports Scene.