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Marvin Seeking Record-Setting End to Marvelous Byron Career
By
Tim Robinson
Special for MHSAA.com
June 1, 2021
BYRON — In a bare-bones weight room that appears more like a garage to passers-by, Sarah Marvin is working to finish her quest to rewrite the record books in the shot put for girls track & field.
Not just in the Lower Peninsula’s Division 3, in which she won Finals titles in both the shot put and discus in 2019, but for all divisions.
Marvin, who has a track scholarship to the University of Michigan, has had 11 throws this season beyond the LPD3 Finals record of 46 feet, 9 inches, set by Becky Breish of Edwardsburg in 2001.
She twice has surpassed the all-Finals record of 49 feet, 11.75 inches set by Division 1’s Corinne Jemison of East Kentwood in 2018 – the first time during last summer’s National Scholastic Athletic Foundation’s virtual meet, and then again May 26 at a meet in Comstock Park with a throw of 50 feet, 9 inches.
“Throwing is so technical,” she said, “and you have those days where you’re just clicking and firing on all cylinders. I think I’ll be close to being there soon in these few meets I have left.”
It starts with the Division 3 Finals on Saturday at Jenison.
Marvin and her fraternal twin sister, Becky (a strong thrower in her own right) are familiar with the Jenison layout, which was the site of the 2019 Division 3 Finals.
“We’ll get there Friday,” Marvin said. “We like to go to the throwing rings and feel it out, get a good dinner, then stay at a hotel so we don’t have to ride for an hour and a half in a car (before the competition).”
Throwing is a sport that comes naturally to the Marvins, both for the twins, their sister Jessica and their mother, Theresa, who competed at Michigan after winning two state titles in the discus for Byron during the 1990s.
“Their older sister (Jessica) and brother T.J.) did AAU, which isn’t as big here, but is in the Detroit area,” Theresa Marvin said. “We started a club and had kids that weren’t ours on the team as well. It was a lot of fun for us. Other families were doing T-ball and soccer, and we were doing track.”
The Marvins installed a pair of throwing rings on their property about a decade ago, and the twins picked it up from there. The family took its vacations at AAU national meets, driving all over the country.
Both of the Marvin twins (Sarah is two minutes older, Becky an inch taller) played multiple sports at Byron. Becky also ran cross country and played basketball and wrestled, while Sarah was a starting offensive lineman on the Byron JV football team and did some wrestling in addition to playing basketball, where she was a three-time Owosso Argus-Press Player of the Year.
After her junior year, Sarah gave up football and wrestling.
“I had switched my (shot put) technique to rotational, and I needed more time, more months that I could devote to throwing,” she said. “I tried to train and throw during football season, but I was just too physically tired to do it the way you need to do it. I decided to put my effort and time into throwing.”
As she mentioned, Marvin had switched her throwing from a glide technique, where one effectively pushes the shot in the throw, to the rotational, where the shot comes out like it is slung.
“I’m very comfortable with it now,” she said. “But I’m looking forward to getting more comfortable with it. It’s so technique-heavy. You have these guys who have been doing it for more than a decade, and I’ve been doing it for two years. The more you do it, the more you develop the muscle memory.”
Certainly the results have been there. All of Marvin’s throws this season have been well beyond the 44-11.5 she threw to win at the 2019 Finals.
“It’s helped me make a big improvement,” she said. “But we knew that it would.”
But Sarah Marvin also has a key element in her makeup that has spurred her success.
Asked what she thinks makes her sister stand out, Becky Marvin said, “her work ethic, for sure. She’s always working harder than everyone else. She’ll go out and lift without me sometimes. She has talent, for sure, but her drive makes her stand out.”
During last year’s pandemic, the Marvin sisters were without a place to work out after Byron High School closed.
“We got online and on Facebook Marketplace and put the word out,” Theresa Marvin said. “People gave us stuff, and we made an at-home weight room in our barn.”
Their sister Jessica, who competes at Northwood University, came home along with her boyfriend, who like Jessica is a thrower at Northwood. They all worked out.
“It was a houseful,” said Theresa, a mother of six.
Theresa Marvin realized early on that her twins would need more specialized coaching than what she could provide, and for the last couple of years they have worked with Dane Miller, a private coach based in Fleetwood, Pa.
“I do still coach them at meets, and I try to facilitate what Dane’s trying to do,” said Marvin, who also coached her daughters on the Byron varsity girls basketball team the last two years.
Speaking of basketball, the extension of the season into late March cut into the Marvins’ training time for track.
“Her strength levels go down in basketball from all the running,” Theresa Marvin said of Sarah. “It took her a good 4-6 weeks to get back to speed, and I don’t think she’s there yet. Last year, she didn’t peak until mid-July.”
The Marvin sisters, whom Byron girls track coach Byron Schartzer calls “The Wonder Twins,” feed off each other in competition.
“Just to have another person to hold you accountable to train with definitely helps,” Sarah said.
And while they’re serious about their sport, they also keep things light-hearted.
“If I throw big, she throws big, sometimes,” Becky said. “I made fun of her at the Comstock Park meet; I fouled on my first throw and made the second.
“Then she fouled on her first throw and made the second, and I’m like, ‘OK, you can just copy me, then,’” she added, chuckling. “But if one of us hits a big throw, we try to drive off that.”
While there are other amateur meets later this month, the Marvins have their attention set on Saturday’s Finals.
In the shot put, Sarah Marvin has the top throw this season entering the week, but Becky Marvin is in the top 10, seventh in a pack where spots 3-8 are within 21 inches.
Sarah also is ranked No. 1 in the discus, while Becky is ranked sixth.
“They’re both having great seasons,” Theresa Marvin said. “But you never know. You just can’t take anything for granted. We focus on being healthy, being ready to peak, and then being ready to go on that day.”
And then, before they know it, the twins will be separated. Sarah is going to Michigan to study movement science with an eye toward, perhaps, a medical career.
Becky is going to Tiffin University, where she plans to compete on the track team while pursuing a business degree.
“It’s like 2½ hours from Byron,” Becky said. “Ann Arbor’s on the way home, so if I’m driving by and she wants to come home, I’ll pick her up.”
It’s family, after all, that Sarah cherishes the most about her athletic career.
“I can’t imagine where I would have been in my sports, or my success in sports, without my family,” she said. “In basketball, it was my older sister playing. My three brothers are all wrestlers. I have huge family support and a huge extended family that comes to all my games. They’ve all grown up playing sports, and it’s just fun.”
PHOTOS: Byron senior Sarah Marvin shows her shot put form; she’s the reigning Division 3 champion in the event. (Middle) Sarah and twin sister Becky Marvin are workout partners and make up one of the top throwing pairs in the state again this spring. (Photos by Tim Robinson.)
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Chip Hills Caps Perfect Season Perfectly
May 31, 2014
By John Leerar
Special to Second Half
GRAND RAPIDS – Remus Chippewa Hills coach Sally Schafer wasn’t optimistic about her team’s chances halfway through the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 2 Finals on Saturday at Houseman Field.
“Things weren’t going the way I thought they had to go the first half of the day,” Schafer said. “I thought we were going to have to score in the upper 40’s to win. And even with a perfect second half of the meet, that wasn’t going to happen. It was going to be an OK day.”
When asked where she thought her team would finish at that point in time, Schafer responded, “Third or fourth.”
However, the lower-than-anticipated point total turned out to be enough, as the Warriors won the meet and their first MHSAA Finals title with 34 points. Lansing Waverly was second with 31.
Chippewa Hills did not win a single event, but scored points consistently enough to build a lead.
“We scored in six events today, which is the most we’ve ever scored in since I’ve been coaching,” Schafer said. “All of the girls came through at the end and ran consistently across the board today. We faltered a little bit, and were disappointed here and there, but when it came down to the last race, they got it done and did what they needed to do.”
The race Schafer was referring to was the 1,600 relay, the last event of the afternoon. The Warriors came into that race 10 points ahead of Waverly, the top seed for that event. Chippewa Hills had to place in the top eight to secure the championship and did so, finishing sixth in a time of 4:03.87.
Senior Megan O’Neil was a major contributor for Chippewa Hills, scoring 16 points by herself with second-place finishes in the 800 and 1,600 runs.
“It hasn’t sunk in yet that (the 1,600) was Megan O’Neil’s last race,” Schafer said. “But she’s going to go on to bigger things. I’m sure she’s very happy her high school career ended like this.”
Schafer also made sure to give credit to her entire team. “This championship still took our entire team. We had 10 girls here today who all helped us win,” she added.
Chippewa Hills finished the season unbeaten.
The LP Division 2 1,600-meter record fell at Houseman Field. Junior Karrigan Smith of St. Johns edged out the previous record of 4:51.67 in that event, running a 4:51.53 while beating the rest of the field by more than two seconds.
“It’s such a great feeling,” Smith said. “This is the first state championship in my school’s history for the girls, so it’s a really important moment for me as well as my team. I’m just so thankful to be here.
“My goal during the race was to stay behind the lead girl and kick it in the last 200 meters. I’m just happy that I could execute today, and it’s a great feeling. I had no idea I was even close to the record until my teammates informed me.”
Spring Lake also made its presence known. The sister duo of Allie and Gabriella LeRoux took first and second, respectively, in the pole vault. Allie, a senior, finished with 11 feet, 8 inches, while her freshman sister Gabriella vaulted 11-5. Junior Carlyn Arteaga won the 800, finishing in 2:16.09.
“I’m happy with my performance today,” Arteaga said. “I’m glad everything worked out. My best time before this was 2:17, so this is a PR (personal record) for me. I qualified for the 400 as well as this race, but I decided to just concentrate on the 800. I wanted to go all in on this race and it paid off. I just started running the 800 as my main event this year, so I’m very happy about how it turned out.”
Senior Brittany Casey of Zeeland East dominated the field events, winning both the shot put and discus. She threw 43-1¼ in the shot put and a 138-10 in the discus.
“I’m still in shock about today. I’m so excited about my performance,” she said. “I was especially satisfied with my discus throw, which was a personal record by about six feet.”
Other field winners include Charley Andrews of Battle Creek Harper Creek in the high jump and Gabriella Collins of Mount Morris in the long jump. Race winners include Alison Rich of Haslett in the 100 hurdles, Josie Yesmunt of DeWitt in the 100 and 200 dashes, Zoe Eby of Carleton Airport in the 400, Hannah Coverdill of Marine City in the 300 hurdles and Kaela Theut of East Grand Rapids in the 3,200 run.
PHOTOS: (Top) Remus Chippewa Hills’ Kylie Schafer runs her leg of the 3,200 relay Saturday at Grand Rapids Houseman Stadium. (Middle) Chippewa Hills celebrates its first MHSAA championship. (Head shot) Karrigan Smith, St. Johns. (Click to see more from RunMichigan.com.)