![](/sites/default/files/imported/Photos/190602_D3gtrack_2H3.jpg)
Gall Makes Most of Last Finals Run
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
June 1, 2019
JENISON – Shepherd senior Amber Gall withstood the elements and pressure to end her tremendous career the way she hoped it would.
Gall won the 800-meter run and the 1,600 on Saturday, and began the day helping her team to a first-place finish in the 3,200 relay (9:33.89) at the MHSAA Division 3 Track & Field Finals at Jenison High School.
Three weather delays – one that delayed the start of the finals until 3 p.m.; the second, a 30-minutes delay, halfway through the meet; and the last one just before the start of the final event (1,600 relay) that pushed the conclusion deeper into the night – caused athletes and officials to pack and unpack throughout much of the day.
The rain, wind and hail didn’t seem to bother Gall, who will attend University of Michigan in the fall on a track scholarship. She won the 800 run as a sophomore and also ran on the winning 3,200 relay that season. Gall finished second in the 800 last season, one hundredth of a second behind Judy Rector of Hanover-Horton, and she and her teammates also placed sixth in the 3,200 relay in 2018.
“I’m excited,” Gall said after crossing the finish line in the 800 with a time of 2:12.72. Lauren Freeland of Kent City was second with a time of 2:13.97. “Last year I lost by .01 to one of my best friends.
“Mentally, it takes a toll. Last year I had a good year, not my best. I couldn’t be happier with the way this year has gone. The 800 is probably the toughest to run. It’s the gutsiest. You have to find another gear. For me, my blood pressure drops really fast so I have to do a lot of prerace work.”
As far as strategy, Gall said it all depends on how the race is run. She trailed Freeland at the halfway point before making her move.
Gall spent two minutes immediately following the race talking and consoling her teammate, Amelia Gouin, a sophomore, who finished ninth in the 800.
“I told her she has some big races ahead of her,” Gall said.
Pirates capture title
Pewamo-Westphalia won its first team title since 2015 and fourth overall as it finished with 45 points. Last season’s co-champion, St. Charles, was second with 37.5 points and Shepherd took third with 35. Scottville Mason County Central was fourth with 31, and Quincy placed fifth with 30.
Kent City won the meet’s final event, taking the 1,600 relay with a time of 4:04.15. Mason County Central, with a time of 4:04.55, placed second, and those eight points moved it past Quincy for fourth place in the team competition.
No Pewamo-Westphalia athlete placed first, but two of its relays, in the 800 and 3,200, placed second. The top individual finisher for the Pirates was Sophie Thelen. She placed third in the 100 dash and took fourth in the 200.
Inspired
Motivation comes in many forms. For Elizabeth Gramza, a senior from Perry, it came from a fellow track athlete on the boys team at Perry.
Gramza did not place in any event last season but took first in the 100-meter hurdles on this afternoon.
She finished second in the Regional and was seeded ninth entering the finals. Seeded No. 1 was Brittany Bowman of Kingsley.
“I was perfectly getting over the hurdles,” Gramza said. “I was going against the top seed in the prelims and I beat her (with a time of 15.90. Bowman ran a 15.91). I felt really comfortable in the prelims. That gave me confidence.”
Gramza’s best finish last season was ninth in the 300 hurdles. Not only did she not score a point in 2018, but Perry as a team did not score.
“We came in to compete,” Gramza said. “I’m not sure what the difference was this year. I was with a very good hurdler (on the boys team) and he’s short. He said he works hard in practice day after day without getting much results. He said he watched me come out (last season) and saw that I just started running well. That flipped my switch. I started working a lot harder, every day in practice.”
Bowman did place second in the 100 hurdles with a time of 16.04.
Gramza was also scheduled to compete in the pole vault, 300 hurdles and 400 relay. She did well in the pole vault finishing third with a vault of 10 feet, 3 inches. Jael Wood of Scottville Mason County Central took first in that event at 11 feet, 6 inches.
Youth is served
It’s not supposed to be this easy, particularly when one considers Lexus Bargesser of Grass Lake is a freshman.
Bargesser won the sprint double, the 100 and 200 dashes, with times of 12.56 and 25.43, respectively. The time in the 100 is a personal best. She won the 200 by more than half a second.
“That’s my favorite race,” she said of the 200. “I love the energy. You feel yourself, on the run, having all that energy. It’s one of those races, a long sprint that I love. The energy of this meet made me better. I was hoping (to win both). Anything can happen. I was thinking this morning, I can win this.”
Jayden Humphrey of Manchester placed second in both (12.82 in the 100, 26.04 in the 200).
Sprint relays go to reigning co-champ
St. Charles won both the 400 and 800 relays last season on its way to the school’s first Finals team title, which it shared with Hart. On Saturday, St. Charles won both again – and there were some familiar faces leading the charges.
Celine Whiren, a junior, ran on both relay teams each of the last two years, and this time she ran anchor on the 800.
“Pewamo-Westphalia was winning when I got the baton,” she said. “Oh, it must have been four or five strides and I just ran my normal race.”
St. Charles won the 400 relay with a time of 49.95 seconds and the 800 with a time of 1:46.05.
Well worth the wait
Mikayla Williams of St. Charles competed in three field events and in the last one, the long jump, she recorded a personal best of 17 feet, 2 inches to place first. Last year she placed second in the long jump.
“It actually came on my first jump of the (event),” she said. “I jump three events (high jump, pole vault and long jump), and lately I’ve been babying my (left) knee. I jump off my left knee, and today it felt great.”
Williams will attend Wayne State next season and expects to compete in the triple jump and the long jump.
She also played volleyball in the fall. So why risk injuring your knee playing two sports?
“I jump off two knees in volleyball,” she said.
Makes sense.
Repeat champion
Renae Kutcha of Jackson Lumen Christi said she felt the pressure of winning the 400 dash as a freshman last season. To offset this she decided to work harder, a regiment that included running the 800, to improve her leg strength. It worked.
Kutcha’s time of 57.81 in the 400 on Saturday was good enough to get her past Josee Behling of Boyne City, who placed second in 58.04.
“Doing the (800) helped me,” Kutcha said. “I wasn’t running well early in the season, and then I remembered that this was my event. So I got my legs stronger, and my times started to go down.”
Winners all
Byron sophomore thrower Sarah Marvin won both the shot put and discus Saturday, ahead of Caro's runner-up Sheridan Dinsmore in both events. Marvin had taken third in both as a freshman.
Muskegon Western Michigan Christian freshman Abby Vanderkooi won the 3,200 in 10:36.17, clearing the field by more than 21 seconds.
Onsted junior McKenna Russell repeated as champion in the 300 hurdles. Hillsdale junior Bailey Morgret won a close competition in the high jump.
PHOTOS: (Top) Shepherd's 3,200 relay, including Amber Gall (second from left), celebrate a win Saturday at Jenison. (Middle) Pewamo-Westphalia breaks past the finish line for more points on the way to winning the team title. (Photos by Annette Tipton. Click to see more from RunMichigan.com.)
![](/sites/default/files/imported/Photos/130602_D4gtrack2H.jpg)
Heartbreak Pushes St. Francis to Finish Strong
June 1, 2013
By Chip Mundy
Special to Second Half
HUDSONVILLE – After finishing as runner-up last year, the Traverse City St. Francis girls track and field team did not need any emotional motivation Saturday at the MHSAA Division 4 Final at Baldwin Street Middle School in Hudsonville.
St. Francis got it, anyway. But it came in a painful way.
Senior Kaitlyn Hegewald tore her Achilles tendon in her left foot as she began the third leg of the 800 relay and could not return to action. With Hegewald sidelined, the Gladiators posted three victories and captured their first MHSAA championship in track and field.
“I got the hand-off and took a few steps, and I just couldn’t step on my foot anymore,” Hegewald said while sitting in a golf cart with her left foot wrapped in tape.
St. Francis coach Julie Duffing was watching from across the field and did not realize what had happened.
“I actually thought she got spiked, and then she kept trying to go,” Duffing said. “Coach finally yelled at her to stop, and that’s when she went down. We were expected to win that race, and we were ahead.”
It could have had devastating consequences, but the Gladiators regrouped.
Freshman Holly Bullough came through with victories in the 800 (2:16.53) and the 1,600 (5:07.37), while senior Lauren Buckel defended her Finals championship in the 400 in 59.54 seconds and was runner-up in the 200, which she won last year as well.
“We had one of our top runners tear her Achilles in the 800,” Buckel said. “I think it broke everyone’s heart.
“She’s a senior. It really kind of dampened the mood because we were hoping to come away with a state title in the beginning, then it kind of gave us a ‘let’s do this for Kaitlyn’ mentality.”
Buckel and Hegewald had a special bond that went beyond teammates.
“Lauren and Kaitlyn have done handoffs together since the seventh grade,” Duffing said.
Buckel’s title in the 400 was especially gratifying as that event has caused her both grief and happiness during her career. In fact, she calls the 400 “my beast.”
“That race has kind of been my beast, kind of something that I’ve struggled with,” she said. “It’s been a challenge for me. I’ve ran it now for nine years, ever since the fourth grade.
“It’s always been such a hard race.”
Duffing has seen first-hand how Buckel has struggled with the event.
“Last year she didn’t want to run it, so we did the whole ‘you’re not running it, and you don’t have to run it,’ thing until she asked me to run it,” Duffing said. “And when she asked, it was hers.
“She’s a beast, and the beast conquered the beast.”
Meanwhile, Bullough broke through in her first MHSAA Final in amazing fashion. She won the 800 by more than 5 seconds and took the 1,600 by more than 10 seconds. She also was runner-up in the 3,200 and anchored the 3,200 relay team that finished second.
“In the mile I was seeded first, and I won that, so it was very exciting,” Bullough said. “It wasn’t as close as I thought it would be, but they still pushed me as hard as I could go. In the 800, I was seeded second by like milliseconds, and that one was very hard – harder than I expected. But in the end I had extra power to pull through, and that’s what I did.”
And Bullough spoke of how the injury to Hegewald affected her during the meet.
“That was heartbreaking,” she said. “She’s a senior and everything, and that just made us so sad. But it also made us want to win more for her.”
Runner-up Reading, which finished second to Traverse City St. Francis by 14 points, won three events, including the 400 and 1,600 relays. Junior Michelle Davis won the 300 hurdles in 44.92 seconds, breaking the LP Division 4 record of 44.98 set in 2010 by Megan Heffner of Kinde-North Huron. Davis also ran on both winning relays, as did sophomore Jennifer Davis and freshman Sam Pfeiffer.
The other double winner was Miranda Johnson of Ottawa Lake Whiteford, which placed sixth. Johnson, a junior, repeated as champion in the long jump and also won the 200. Johnson broke the LP Division 4 meet record with a leap of 18 feet , 2 ½ inches, topping the previous record of 17-11¾ set by Amanda Weber of Portland St. Patrick in 2004.
Other repeat champions were senior Elizabeth Herriman of Sand Creek in the shot put, junior Addie Schumacher of Beal City in the high jump, senior Chantel Davenport of Athens in the 100 hurdles and junior Kirsten Olling of Breckenridge in the 3,200.
The other champions were junior Jade Madison of New Buffalo in the discus, junior Amanda MacDonald of Coleman in the pole vault and junior Ashley White of Detroit Edison Academy in the 100.
Royal Oak Shrine won the 800 relay, and Hillsdale Academy took the 3,200 relay.
PHOTOS: (Top) Sprinters approach the finish line during a 100-meter dash preliminary Saturday. (Middle) Ottawa Lake Whiteford's Miranda Johnson (middle) finished first in the long jump and 200 and second in the 100. (Photo by Carter Sherline. Click to see more photo coverage from RunMichigan.com.)