Hart, St. Charles Share Historic Finish
June 2, 2018
By Jeff Bleiler
Special for Second Half
COMSTOCK PARK – Put the Hart and St. Charles teams together, and you’d have had a runaway winner in the Lower Peninsula Division 3 Track & Field Finals on Saturday at Comstock Park.
Hart’s dominance in the distance events and St. Charles’ performances in the sprints would have made it difficult for any other team to challenge for the title.
As it was, each team’s strength countered the other to near perfection as Hart and St. Charles tied for the Division 3 championship with 46 points, earning both their first MHSAA Finals title in this sport.
They finished 10 points ahead of third-place Onsted, which closed the gap by placing fifth in the final event, the 1,600-meter relay. Neither Hart nor St. Charles fielded a team in that event, and Onsted entered it 14 points behind with only 10 available to the winner – so the championship had been decided before that last race even got started.
Both Hart and St. Charles’ coaches were pleased with the shared championship, the first time that’s happened in Division 3 since Laingsburg and Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central split the crown in 2003.
“We had an idea we’d have a chance if we used (junior) Adelyn (Ackley) in three events but didn’t know where she’d end up,” said Hart coach Mindy Whitney, who actually inserted Ackley into a fourth event, which proved critical.
Ackley – who led the cross country team to the LPD3 title in the fall as well – won the 3,200 in 10 minutes, 45.54 seconds; finished runner-up in the 1,600 to Hanover-Horton’s Judy Rector; and placed sixth in the 800, all that after anchoring the winning 3,200 relay in the day’s first event. Alayna Ackley, her older sister, led off and sophomore Brenna Aerts and freshman MacKenzie Stitt filled the second and third slots, respectively, as the relay finished in 9:32.67.
Alayna Ackley also provided valuable points by placing third in the 3,200 despite coming back from a stress fracture injury just last month. The 3,200 was a boon of points for Hart, which picked up 20 in that event alone as the third Ackley sister, freshman Savannah, was fifth.
Whitney said her brother was keeping tabs on the team scoring but after the completion of the 3,200, she thought they came up a point short.
“I was very happy; it was a good day,” she said.
The same could be said for St. Charles, which did its damage in the sprints. Najiyah Holden did the most by winning the 200 in 25.61 seconds, finishing third in the 100 in 12.73 seconds and running the first leg of the winning 400 and 800 relays. The other members of the relays were freshman Hope Kushion and sophomores Erica Garcia and Celine Whiren.
Coach Andre Williams was especially pleased with the 800 relay team’s time of 1:44.97, which broke by three seconds the school record.
“I’m satisfied with (sharing the title),” he said. “After the 400 relay, I knew we had a shot. I told Najiyah she had a shot at winning the 200, and she did. We just don’t have any distance runners.”
Sprinter Jenna Odykirk of Farwell put to rest previous struggles at the Finals by winning the 100, edging reigning champion Shiyon Taylor of Parchment by two hundredths of a second, and finishing runner-up in the 200.
Odykirk, who finished a disappointing 16th in the long jump, took solace with her finishes in the sprints after she missed the finals in 2017 in the 200 by one spot and was a distant 16th in the 100.
“I didn’t do too well in the long jump, but I had decent times in everything else,” said Odykirk, whose time of 12.63 seconds in the 100 was a personal best.
Odykirk, a junior, credited the improvement to off season indoor work at Saginaw Valley State University with coach Kyle Payne and outdoor work with Farwell coach Matt Horodyski.
“Next year, my goal is to be state champ in the 200 and the 100, do better in the long jump and run in the 400,” said Odykirk, who qualified this year for the 400 after finishing sixth in the event at last year’s Finals. She opted not to run it Saturday.
In the field events, the shot put provided some late fireworks as Beaverton senior Alicia Aldrich and Clinton’s Amanda Schaare put on quite a show.
In her final attempt with Aldrich on deck, and with the crowd slow clapping as she readied, Schaare heaved it 43 feet, 9¼ inches to move into first. The crowd gave Aldrich a similar slow clap, and she responded with a launch of 44 feet, 7½ inches to take the championship.
“I was like shaking a lot,” Aldrich said. “It feels really great. I wasn’t expecting that at all. The competition really makes you want to throw it farther. I got nervous when I saw Amanda throw it, but then I heard the atmosphere and it pumped me right up.”
Aldrich, who just started competing in shot put last year, will continue in the sport at SVSU.
The runner-up finish for Schaare was not a disappointment as she already had repeated as the discus champion. Schaare won with a toss of 128 feet, beating Sheridan Dinsmore of Caro by six inches.
“(Repeating) was awesome; I really wanted to do that for myself,” Schaare said. “Words just can’t describe it. It’s a feeling that not everyone gets to experience. I just have the greatest support system.”
Schaare’s runner-up put was a personal record, beating the 41-9 she posted early in the season.
“I didn’t finish first in the shot put, but I’m OK with that because with the discus, that would have been icing on the cake,” said Schaare, who will compete in track for the University of Michigan.
Marlette senior Emily Schaub swept the hurdles, winning the 100 hurdles in 15.01 seconds and taking the 300 in 46.96 seconds. She was third in the 100 hurdles a year ago and did not qualify for the 300 final after placing 15th in her 2017 preliminary.
Jackson Lumen Christi freshman Renae Kutcha won the 800 in 58.75 seconds, and Hanover-Horton’s Rector won the 1,600 in 4:52.59. Kutcha also led off the opening leg of Lumen Christi’s winning 1,600 relay team, joining junior Allison Rand, junior Marilyn Schonhard and senior Audrey Warriner with a finish in 4:01.9.
Boyne City senior Anna Harmeling won the pole vault in 11-6, Millington senior Hannah Hall won the high jump at 5-3 and Onsted senior Harlie Sweet won the long jump with a leap of 17-3½.
VIDEO: Holden On For A Bulldogs Co-Championship
PHOTOS: (Top) A pair of St. Charles runners execute a handoff during a relay Saturday. (Middle) Hart's Adelyn Ackley, left, stays a step ahead during one of her relays. (Photos by Annette Tipton. Click for more from RunMichigan.com.)
Warriors Continue Decade of Dominance
May 25, 2012
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Remus Chippewa Hills girls track coach Sally Schafer tells her athletes that each season is a chapter of one book that is the Warriors’ program.
For the last decade, it’s been an award winner – and a best seller as class after class has kept going one of the state’s most impressive runs in any sport.
Chippewa Hills – despite just one senior and seven upperclassmen total – won its 10th-straight league meet last week by once again dominating the Central State Activities Association field. The Warriors also this season pushed their dual meet winning streak to 68, their last loss all the way back on April 25, 2002. And they added a Division 2 Regional championship last week, edging Mount Pleasant by 1.5 points despite being the smallest school in the division.
Track and field can be a sport of highs and lows, especially for a school of Chippewa Hills’ size and the massive effect one or two elite athletes can have. But the Warriors’ consistency makes the run more incredible – over that decade, they competed in four leagues against some schools that were smaller but also many that were much bigger.
“We’ve seen it all,” Schafer said. “We’ve seen Ludington; I remember seem them show up when I was starting coaching, and we hated seeing them getting off the bus, 80 of them. They’d clean you up, get on the bus and leave. And finally, one of the things I said was, 'What are we going to do? What do we need to do to beat them?'
“We were at Regionals one year, and I said we’ve got to figure out how this is done. I was tired of being in the middle of the pack, or on the low end. We sat down and said we have to develop everything across the board – not just be a distance school, or a sprints school. We need to have it all.”
She and her staff have built that machine – which also has allowed the program to annually plug in parts even in seasons like this one.
Most of Schafer’s athletes this spring were still waiting to start kindergarten when the winning streaks began. Of 37 competitors total, there are 26 freshmen. The team also graduated seven significant contributors off last season’s team, including two now competing at the college level.
Still, Chippewa Hills – recipient of this week's Second Half team High 5 – won six events at the Regional. Sophomore Megan O’Neil took first in the 800, 1,600 and 3,200-meter runs. Junior Corey Robison won the discus, and sophomore Erin Drouillard won the pole vault. And O’Neil, and freshmen Emily Starck, Kylie Schafer and Larissa Umbleby won the 3,200 relay by a healthy seven seconds.
The Regional title was the team's fourth in the last five seasons.
“Winning breeds itself, but losing does too. (So) every year we try to continue tradition. We just reload,” Schafer said. “A lot of times we go year to year, but we look at ourselves more as a program. We know what we have coming.”
This season’s success is atypical of a freshman-dominated squad because Warriors freshmen are atypical. While a talented bunch, Chippewa Hills freshmen generally join the high school program with an advanced knowledge of the sport after competing through full junior high schedules and working out alongside and with mentoring from the older athletes during those seventh and eighth grade seasons.
And the veteran coaching staff keeps the gears turning smoothly. Sally Schafer’s father, Don Foreman, was the boys track coach for 28 years, and Sally was a senior on the first girls Regional champion in 1985. She joined the coaching staff in 1993 and took over in 1999, and the coaches from junior high up have mostly remained the same throughout her tenure.
“The boys coaches, the girls coaches, the boys team, the girls team; we really are like one. We work out together sometimes, and it’s a family,” Schafer said. “The kids come in, and they’re not sure what to expect. But by the end, my goal as a coach is to have them only wanting more.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Chippewa Hills freshman Kylie Schafer runs during this season's Alma Invitational. (Middle) Warriors sophomore Megan O'Neil takes a hand-off from teammate Emonee Anderson during the CSAA championship meet at Hesperia. (Below) The Warriors celebrate their 10th-straight league meet championship. (Top and middle photos courtesy of Vickie Starck.)