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.)
Preview: Historic Collection of Contenders Setting Bar High for UP Girls Finals
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
May 31, 2024
Lineups filled with past champions and emerging stars in all three divisions could make Saturday’s Upper Peninsula Girls Track & Field Finals an event we recall for years to come.
Headlining the day, Lake Linden-Hubbell junior Emily Jokela will attempt to win four individual events for the second straight season and bring her career Finals title total to 11, while fans will watch one last time as nine-time individual event winners Danica Shamion from West Iron County and Lola Korpi from Ishpeming complete their careers.
All three divisions will again be contested at Kingsford High School, with preliminaries leading off the day at 9 a.m. local (Central) time. Tickets cost $11 and are available digitally only via GoFan.
MHSAA.tv will live-stream the meets beginning at 9 a.m. (CDT)/10 a.m. (EDT), viewable with subscription. Check out the Girls Track & Field page for meet information and lists of all qualifiers. Those described as "seeded" below have received those seeds based on Regional performances.
Following is a glance at team contenders and individuals to watch in all three divisions:
Division 1
Team forecast: After Marquette dominated most of the last decade, the Sentinels and Negaunee have taken turns winning Division 1 and finishing runner-up most of the last six seasons. Marquette was first last year by 34 points ahead of the Miners. But Gladstone and Sault Ste. Marie have several high seeds heading into Saturday – and a team title won by either would be the first not claimed by Marquette or Negaunee since Escanaba shared the 2007 championship.
Ella Fure, Marquette sophomore: She made her Finals debut last season by winning the 3,200 and finishing third in the 800, and she’ll run those two races and also is seeded first in the 1,600 (5:37.84).
Danielle Lund, Manistique senior: She’s seeded first in both discus (101-11) and shot put (35-8) and will run on two relays after winning shot put and finishing third in discus, and running on the winning 400 relay and runner-up 1,600 relay in Division 2 a year ago. She also won Division 2 shot put as a sophomore.
Lexi Olson, Ishpeming Westwood junior: The reigning champion in the pole vault will again compete in that event and the high jump, and also run on the 800 relay.
Madison Pekrul, Negaunee junior: After winning the 100 hurdles and finishing second in the 300 as a freshman, she flipped those results with a 300 title and 100 hurdles runner-up finish last spring. She’s seeded second in the 300 (49.43), third in the 100 hurdles (17:37) and will run on the 1,600 relay.
Tessa Rautiola, Houghton sophomore: Her Finals debut in 2023 included championships in the 1,600 and 3,200 relay and a third place in the 3,200 run, and she’s slated to run all three events again with the top seed in the 3,200 (12:28.02) and second in the 1,600 (5:38.85).
Faith Spiroff, Ishpeming Westwood junior: She’s won the high jump the last two seasons and also won long jump and finished fifth in the 100 as a sophomore. She’s top-seeded in the long jump (17-1¾) and high jump (5-4) and will also run the 100 and 800 relay.
Jacie Tuljus, Gladstone junior: She’s seeded first in the 100 (12.73), 200 (27.06) and 400 (1:02.33) and as part of the 400 relay (51.50) after finishing third in the 100 and 200 as a sophomore.
Division 2
Team forecast: Bark River-Harris has won the last two championships, last year 13 points ahead of runner-up Ishpeming. The Broncos will again turn to a pair of standouts this weekend among several others. But the Hematites again feature a big points scorer in the distance races in Lola Korpi, and West Iron County boasts the same potential in the sprints with Danica Shamion – which could make for another tight race at the top.
Mya Hemmer, Ishpeming sophomore: Her Finals debut last season included a championship in the long jump and runner-up finish in the shot put, and she’ll compete in those two plus long jump and also run on the 800 relay.
Mckenzie Hoffmeyer, Bark River-Harris senior: After winning long jump as a freshman and sophomore, she finished second to Hemmer in that event last spring but was also third in the 100, second in the 200 and added a second relay championship to her career total. She’s seeded first this weekend in the 100 (13.19), 200 (26.83) and long jump (13.19) and will run on the top-seeded 800 relay (1:52.43).
Lola Korpi, Ishpeming senior: Regardless of what happens Saturday, she’ll graduate as one of the most accomplished distance runners in U.P. Finals history after already winning the 800, 1,600 and 3,200 her first three years and running on winning relays two of those seasons. She enters this time as the second seed in the 800 (2:33.18), top seed in the 1,600 (5:40.23) and 3,200 (12:28.98) and running on the top-seeded 3,200 relay (11:24.83).
Danica Shamion, West Iron County senior: Shamion is to sprints what Korpi is to distance, having won the 100, 200 and 400 all of her first three seasons and setting the UPD2 Finals records in the 200 and 400. She enters Saturday seeded fourth in the 100, fifth in the 200, but first in the 400 (59.95) and also fifth in the high jump after finishing runner-up in that field event a year ago.
Lauren Zawada, Bark River-Harris senior: Another major scorer for the reigning team champ, Zawada has been on winning relays the last two years – including two in 2023 when she also was second in the 300 hurdles and fifth in the high jump. She’s top-seeded in the high jump (4-10), 100 hurdles (17.61), 300 hurdles (50.76) and will run on the top-seeded 1,600 relay (4:25.07).
Division 3
Team forecast: Lake Linden-Hubbell and Stephenson shared the championship last season, breaking Ontonagon’s two-year hold on the title. Four-event winner Emily Jokela is back for Lake Linden-Hubbell after scoring 40 of her team’s 72 points a year ago, but the standings also could see some shifting with St. Ignace moving in from Division 2 and Newberry showing several high-seeded qualifiers across the meet.
Kaylen Clark, Newberry senior: After running to the 1,600 and 3,200 championships last season, and as part of second and fourth-place relays, she’s top-seeded in the 3,200 (12:53.95) and as part of the 3,200 relay (10:23.81), third-seeded in the 800 and fourth-seeded in the 1,600.
Abi Codere, Lake Linden-Hubbell senior: She won the 100 hurdles for the third time last season, and also was part of the winning 400 relay and runner-up in pole vault. She’ll run on 400 and 800 relays Saturday and is top-seeded in the pole vault (9-8).
Emily Jokela, Lake Linden-Hubbell junior: After winning the 100, 200, 400 and 300 hurdles last season – and the 200, 400 and 300 hurdles as a freshman in 2022 – Jokela is top-seeded in the 100 (13.35), 400 (1:00.75) and 300 hurdles (48.81) and third-seeded in the 200 (27.29).
Nora Keranen, Dollar Bay junior: Last year’s long jump champion will compete in that event plus high jump, pole vault and as part of the 400 relay.
Mariska Laurila, Carney-Nadeau junior: She won discus, was second in shot put and seventh in long jump as a sophomore, and returns as the top seed in the shot put (33-7) and competing in the shot put, long jump and this time as part of the 400 relay as well.
Avery Visnaw, St. Ignace sophomore: She made her Finals debut last season with the pole vault championship, a runner-up finish in the 100 hurdles, fifth place in the 300 and as part of the runner-up 400 relay in Division 2. This weekend she’s third-seeded in pole vault, fourth-seeded in 300 hurdles and fifth-seeded in 100 hurdles, and running on the top-seeded 400 relay (54.56).
PHOTO Ishpeming Westwood's Faith Spiroff competes on the way to winning the high jump at the Mid-Peninsula Conference championship meet May 22. (Photo by Cara Kamps.)