Practice Makes Champion for Saline
November 22, 2014
By Chip Mundy
Special to Second Half
YPSILANTI – Saline swimming coach Todd Brunty often ends practice the same way, setting up a relay with the atmosphere of a race that would decide the outcome of a meet.
Practice became reality Saturday afternoon at the Michael H. Jones Natatorium on the campus of Eastern Michigan University.
But this time, the final race – the 400-yard freestyle relay - didn’t decide a normal meet; it decided the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 1 swimming and diving championship.
“Every single time we finish practice, Todd always says, ‘Swim like it’s coming down to the last relay,’ and that’s exactly what we did,” said Saline senior Alex McPherson, who swam the second leg on the relay as Saline won it in 3 minutes, 28.13 seconds.
Farmington Hills Mercy, which led the meet by a half-point coming into the final event, was second in the relay in 3:31.26. Saline won the championship by a margin of 267.5-262.
Junior Amelia Armstrong-Grant swam the first leg for Saline, followed by McPherson, junior Allison Eppinga and freshman Lizzy Spears.
Brunty said he had no reservations about having a freshman swim the last leg in such an important race.
“She had a tough meet. It was her first year here, but we stuck with her,” he said of Spears. “She got a baptism by fire right there.
“She did a job, and that’s part of this team. We have expectations here, and no matter who you are, at any given time you have to be willing to swim.”
The girls made a point to say they were swimming more for each other than for themselves.
“When I was on the blocks, I just thought, ‘This is it. Swim for them, not for yourself,’” McPherson said. “I love these girls more than anything, and I just wanted to win for them. I consider all of those girls my sisters, and I’m not going to let down my family.”
McPherson was the only senior on the relay, and Spears – the freshman who swam the last leg – said winning for McPherson was important.
“I had to do it for Alex because it’s her senior year, and I had to do it for the rest of the team,” she said. “It’s such an honor to swim the last leg. All I was thinking was that I had to be the first one to the wall, and the team was counting on that.”
Saline had roughly a 3-second lead when Spears entered the water for her final leg, and the winning margin was roughly 3 seconds.
“I told them all I needed was a lead,” she said.
It was the third MHSAA team championship for Saline, and like the two previous ones, it came without an individual champion on the swimming side.
However, Saline did have a champion in diving, and it dominated the event with four divers finishing among the top 15. Sophomore Amy Stevens defended her title and won with 488.20 points – an LP Division 1 Final record – while Camryn McPherson was second, Miranda Eberle seventh and Emmi Ruela 15th.
Stevens had roughly a 10-point lead over McPherson after the semifinal and maintained that edge throughout the final. McPherson had won the Regional title by 19 points.
“You always want your teammates to do good, but you don’t want them to do better than you,” Stevens said. “It’s great competing with them because it’s a fun environment, and when you are having fun you always dive well.”
Brunty made a point to single out the divers for their contribution to the overall championship.
“The divers were paramount to our win,” he said, pointing to the trophy. “It does say swimming and diving, and a lot of people think it’s something else, but we’re going to make sure people understand that we are a program that believes in everything.
“We support diving. A lot of coaches sometimes forget how important it can be, but I think we proved today that diving is an integral part of the sport. It is a swimming and diving state championship, and we are the state champs.”
Armstrong-Grant finished second in the 200 freestyle and third in the 100 freestyle, while McPherson was runner-up in the 500 freestyle and fifth in the 200 freestyle. Eppinga also tied for fifth in the 100 freestyle and took sixth in the 100 backstroke.
Saline also was third in both the 200 medley relay and the 200 freestyle relay, and the meet took a dramatic turn in the latter. Farmington Hills Mercy was disqualified when its leadoff swimmer moved in the blocks before the race began. The Marlins finished third but had to forfeit their 32 points from that event.
“Everybody drops the ball every now and then,” Mercy coach Shannon Dunworth said. “Our girl flinched on the blocks. You have to remain motionless, and she twitched.
“The kids did marvelous. I think they’ve got their heads up, and my hat’s off to Saline for sure.”
Mercy won the meet-opening 200 medley relay in 1:45 with Katie Minnich, Maddie Loniewski, Alaina Skellett and Roxanne Griffore making up the team. Minnich, a freshman, later won the 100 backstroke in 55.06 for Mercy’s only individual championship.
The meet also was highlighted by record-breaking efforts by two Waterford swimmers who successfully defended their 2013 championships.
Senior Miranda Tucker, who plans to swim at Indiana University next year, broke her all-division record set last year in the 200 IM (1:59.14). She also broke her all-division record in the 100 breaststroke in the prelims on Friday (1:00.58) and again in the final (1:00.56).
Tucker admitted she was a little disappointed that she was not able to take her breaststroke time under 1 minute.
“I was pretty mad that I didn’t break that minute barrier that I’ve been hoping for all this time,” she said. “But I got to thinking it over. I’m just enjoying myself. I’m going all out to see what I can do. There’s always another chance.
“I felt like I could have done better, but I’ll take what I can get. I gave it my all.”
Waterford senior Maddie Wright closed out her high school career with her seventh and eighth Finals championships. She repeated in the 200 freestyle in 1:49.30 and had to come from behind to edge Morgan Bullock of Zeeland in the 100 butterfly with a time of 54.51.
“Morgan has incredible underwaters, and she was just beating me on all of those,” Wright said. “For a while, I was thinking maybe it’s someone else’s turn to be the champion, and then on the last turn I just saw her and said, ‘I know I can make that up. I know I can do it.’ It was very close.
“I loved every second of it.”
Another successful defense was turned in by Northville sophomore Laura Westphal in the 500 freestyle. She won in 4:54.46, less than a second ahead of Saline’s Alex McPherson.
“It was really fun,” Westphal said. “I enjoyed it. I was a little concerned as they were gaining on me the last bit. I think we all went faster because we had better competition. I’m glad how it turned out.”
Grand Blanc sophomore Emma Curtis took the 50 freestyle in exciting fashion as she out-touched Erin Hudson of Rockford to win by one hundredth of a second in 23.60.
“Honestly, I didn’t know if I had won,” Curtis said. “I had no idea. As it was getting close to the end, I took a breath and saw her. She was right next to me, so I knew it could have went either way.”
Hudson was part of Rockford’s winning 200 freestyle relay team that finished in 1:35.88. Other members of that relay were Meegan Snyman, Dakota Noble and Peyton Rayburn.
Brighton sophomore Taylor Seaman won the 100 freestyle in 51.16, while Rockford won the 200 freestyle relay in 1:35.88.
But the day belonged to Saline.
“I’m just proud of the girls and the resolve they showed throughout the day,” Brunty said. “We didn’t swim our best, but we swam good enough to be state champs, so we’ll take it.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Saline's Amy Stevens performs a dive en route to repeating as champion of the Lower Peninsula Division 1 Final on Saturday. (Middle) A Saline swimmer competes for the eventual team champion at Eastern Michigan University. (Click to see more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
Standish-Sterling Builds on Early Investment
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
November 19, 2019
Shawn Maison said he started to see things turn around for Standish-Sterling’s girls swimming & diving team when athletes who had come up through the youth program began to populate his team.
Now he’s doing what he can to make sure that keeps happening.
“Whenever we get these successes, I have all these posters on the wall with the conference championships. And the little kids see that, and maybe then they aspire to want to swim at that level and enjoy that success,” said Maison, who is in his seventh year leading the Panthers varsity.
“We gave the kids a picture and had all the girls sign it. We have a swim buddies thing, where they all write to each other back and forth, so all the different levels encourage each other. That’s just kind of the connection we want the youth to have with us, so they don’t forget about us.”
The Panthers recently wrapped up a second-straight perfect dual-meet season in the Independent Swim Conference and won their second straight conference meet. On Friday, they will send a school record five swimmers to the Lower Peninsula Division 3 Finals at Oakland University, where they’ll look to put an exclamation point on an already historic season.
“It’s been so much fun to be a part of all these girls coming up, and each year we’ve been getting better,” said sophomore Sierra Maison, Shawn’s daughter. “We’ve shot through so many barriers that haven’t ever been broken before by our swim team. Like winning our ISC conference two times in a row – before, the girls team was just struggling to even win a dual meet.”
Maison will be joined at the MHSAA Finals by Mady Ahleman, Savanna Kurchak, Sareena Kurchak and Emily Ratajczak. Maison, Ahleman and Ratajczak will swim with Savanna Kurchak in the 200-yard medley relay, and Sareena Kurchak in the 400 freestyle relay. Ratajczak also qualified for the 100 breaststroke, while Ahleman qualified for the 100 backstroke.
Sierra Maison – who has now been named ISC Swimmer of the Year in each of her first two seasons – qualified in the 200 freestyle, 200 individual medley, 100 butterfly, 100 freestyle, 500 freestyle, 100 breaststroke and 100 backstroke. She will swim the IM and breaststroke at the Finals.
A year ago, Maison advanced to the consolation “B” final in the 200 IM, finishing 13th after placing 11th in the preliminary round. That was the highest ever finish for a Standish-Sterling swimmer, but she plans to break that record this year.
“Nobody has ever made it to the finals at the state meet,” she said. “Last year was a rough meet for me. This year, I’m hoping to redeem myself a little bit and get into that A final. It would be awesome. I’m really going for top three here. Training has been amazing so far.”
Maison is one of those swimmers who came up through the youth program. But while her arrival has helped take the Panthers to new heights, the rise didn’t start there.
“When some of the girls that had been with the youth program started to come up to the varsity level and had that structure at practice at all different levels,” Shawn Maison said of when he began to see the program turning a corner. “The first one was Emily Ratajczak (now a senior), then Mady Ahleman (now a junior), then Sierra. Really in the last three to four years we started to see long-term swimmers who had taken swimming seriously starting to show up on varsity. Now, 70 to 80 percent of the team is like that.”
Shawn Maison makes it abundantly clear that while those swimmers may have changed the direction of the program, all his athletes are playing a major part in the team’s success.
That goes beyond coach speak, as the ISC meet sees all swimmers score, making each race for each swimmer vital. This year’s meet came down to the final event (400 freestyle relay), and while the Standish-Sterling A team came out on top, it was the B team finishing among the top eight that clinched the meet.
“We cut the conference pretty close this year,” Shawn Maison said. “It’s come down to the last relay both years. I always say we would have lost if we wouldn’t have had any one of our team members. The beauty about a school our size is that kids know they’re valued by the team, and they can see that in the score at the end of the year.”
The future looks bright, said Maison, who mentioned there are several strong swimmers coming up through the youth ranks. Thanks to seven years of hard work put in by those before them, they’ll be strengthening an already solid core, and not having to pave their own way.
“I’ve gotten to be with him through the whole journey,” Sierra Maison said. “It’s been super cool to see how much the numbers have grown. It went from maybe five people when he first started to now a 20-member team.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) The Standish-Sterling girls swimming & diving team huddles up during a meet this fall. (Middle) Sierra Maison launches at the start of the 200 IM consolation final during last season’s Lower Peninsula Division 3 Finals at Holland Aquatic Center. (Top photo courtesy of the Standish-Sterling girls swimming & diving program; middle by HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)