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.)
'All-Time Seaholm Great' Clifford Looking to Lead Maples to 4th-Straight Team Title
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
November 10, 2022
BIRMINGHAM – Even in the days leading up to the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Girls Swimming & Diving Finals, Birmingham Seaholm coach Karl Hodgson might not know what to do about senior Samantha Clifford.
But make no mistake, that is a good thing.
Other than the breaststroke and diving, there’s really no event Clifford can’t excel at, which is giving Hodgson extra time to pause and think about lineup strategy.
“That part is nice,” Hodgson said. “It creates a lot of angst over making those decisions. But it is nice to have that problem.”
Unfortunately for Hodgson and the Seaholm program, there aren’t many more days left to enjoy having such a problem.
A standout for Seaholm since her freshman year, Clifford is about to finish her high school career as one of the all-time greats for the Maples.
She’s been a vital part of Seaholm winning the last three Division 2 titles, and odds are decent she’ll make it 4-for-4 in terms of being on a team champion when this year’s Finals title is decided next weekend at Calvin University.
Individually, Clifford won the LPD2 Finals title in the 100-yard freestyle last year in a time of 51.02, and was second in the 200 freestyle. She also anchored Seaholm’s winning 200 and 400 freestyle relays.
Hodgson said Clifford is among the top five in Seaholm’s top-times record book in half of the events.
“She’s meant everything to our program,” he said.
Clifford started swimming when she was 5 years old and started getting coached by Hodgson competitively with her summer club team when she was 6.
“I’ve known her all her life,” Hodgson said. “She was that dominant as a little kid. She’s one of the best racers I’ve coached.
“It’s something you can’t coach. She just has that ‘it’ factor.”
Clifford said she first got into the sport mainly because her older sister Megan was doing it, and they both pushed each other growing up and when they were swimming for Seaholm together during Samantha’s freshman and sophomore years.
Megan graduated after Samantha’s sophomore year, so the last two it’s been her time to be on her own and serve as a leader for the underclassmen on the squad.
“It was definitely very different,” Clifford said. “Not having her there was a big change, but I think the upperclassmen (last year) helped make that change easier.”
Since taking up the sport, Clifford said swimming always has had a soothing effect on her, especially when some days are harder than others.
“I just like racing a lot,” she said. “There’s just something about being in the water that calms me down.”
Water will definitely be a big part of Clifford’s life when she finishes up high school.
Clifford will swim and study at the U.S. Naval Academy. She said she’s always been interested in serving and that she clicked with the swim coaches there after a series of conversations.
She is also excited to be involved in STEM programs there and follow in the footsteps of her grandfather, who served in the Navy during the Vietnam War.
Before she turns her attention toward college though, Clifford, who is also a flute player for the school’s band, is fully focused on her final days as a swimmer at Seaholm.
Clifford said it will be a challenge to swim at Calvin because she’s never swam there before, and she’ll have to adjust to the surroundings of the pool.
She admits going for four titles in a row as a team has been a different challenge than aiming for those championships earlier in her high school career.
“The first two years, it was more fun and, ‘Let’s go and get after it,’” Clifford said. "These last two years, it’s like we have to prove ourselves. It’s definitely more intense.”
Hodgson may not fully know which events Clifford will swim in the days leading up to the meet, but one thing is for certain – whatever Clifford swims, points will follow.
“She’ll go down as one of the all-time greats,” Hodgson said.
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) Seaholm’s Samantha Clifford, middle, launches into the water for the 100-yard freestyle championship race at last season’s LPD2 Finals at Oakland University. (Middle) Clifford, right, talks with Birmingham Groves’ Madison Helmick at the conclusion of the race. Clifford won, and Helmick was third. (Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)