Norinh Fueled for Final HS Title Chase
May 24, 2018
By Dean Holzwarth
Special for Second Half
ZEELAND – Suenomi Norinh was disappointed when she didn’t qualify for the MHSAA Track & Field Finals as a freshman.
It turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to the Zeeland East standout.
Norinh used it as motivation, and it helped create an inner desire to excel through the remainder of her high school career.
“It definitely opened my eyes to see that I needed to work a little harder at it,” Norinh said. “I think it shaped me into the person I am today.”
And that person is now an accomplished and versatile track star who has won back-to-back Lower Peninsula Division 2 titles in the high jump and is headed to the University of Missouri.
Zeeland East coach Josh Vork said Norinh’s absence from the 2015 Finals was a major turning point in her development.
“She had a really rough day at Regionals that year, and I could tell that really motivated her,” he said. “She wasn’t going to let that happen again, so her sophomore year she came in ready to attack every single practice and not take any days easy.
“Now that she has grown and matured and gotten stronger, she continues to push and push and wants to see the most she can get out of herself.”
Norinh, 18, will compete in her final high school meet next Saturday on her home track at Zeeland.
She’ll take part in four events: high jump, long jump and the 100 and 300-meter hurdles.
Norinh hopes to again repeat in the high jump while avenging a pair of narrow losses from a year ago.
“It will be special to be running at home for the last time, and the high jump event means a lot to me,” Norinh said. “I’m going to do everything I can to defend that, but if it’s not meant to be then it’s not meant to be and that’s OK, too. But I really want that one.”
Norinh took second in the long jump last season, as well as in the 100 hurdles. The latter is an event she’s been eyeing since last year’s painstakingly close finish.
She was runner-up in the 100 by the narrowest of margins to South Christian’s Mariel Bruxvoort – Bruxvoort edged Norinh by two thousandths of a second. Norinh also took sixth in the 300 as Bruxvoort, now a senior, won that race as well.
“She’s been looking forward to going against Mariel again this year, and all year she asked me if there were any meets the same as South Christian,” Vork said. “She really wants to go against Mariel, and it will be a good match-up.”
“She beat me by one thousandth of a second, and that pushes me because one thousandth of a second is nothing,” Norinh said. “It’s crazy, and it’s like a hair crossing the finish line before someone else. She pushes me to be even better, and that’s a good thing. We talk all the time, and we’re friendly rivals.
“I kept asking coach if she was going to be at one of our meets because I was excited for some competition. I don’t get that very often.”
Norinh won four Regional championships last weekend in preparation for the Finals as the Chix edged Holland Christian for the overall team title.
Vork said she possesses all the physical abilities, and the work ethic, to cap her career in style.
“She’s incredibly physically gifted, and you don’t get to this point without having great physical tools, but she is, and has always been, the hardest worker on our team,” he said. “Nobody pushes themselves more than Suenomi does, and no one wants to be great more than Suenomi does – and that shows every day at practice.
“There have been days where she asks for more to do at practice because she doesn’t feel like she got a good enough workout, and I think that’s the kind of mentality that creates the champion that she is.”
Norinh’s martial arts background, as well as support from her parents, helped stir her competitiveness.
“I’ve done sports all my life, and my parents always drive us to work as hard as we can and give our all in everything,” Norinh said. “Martial arts taught me a lot, and I’m super competitive. No one likes to lose, and if I lose, I’m not going to give it to you easily.”
Norinh will be the catalyst in Zeeland East’s bid to win the team Division 2 championship as well. The Chix finished runner-up to Lansing Waverly by a single point last season.
“If things go our way, we have a good chance at it,” Vork said. “It’s a tough field, but I expect us to be in the mix.”
Dean Holzwarth covered primarily high school sports for the Grand Rapids Press and MLive for 16 years and more recently served as sports editor of the Ionia Sentinel and as a sports photojournalist for WZZM. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Allegan, Kent and Ottawa counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Zeeland East’s Suenomi Norinh clears the bar on the way to repeating as Division 2 high jump champion last spring. (Middle) Norinh sprints toward the finish during the 300 hurdles championship race in 2017. (Click for more from RunMichigan.com.)
Freshman Rewriting Whitmore Lake Record Book, Eyeing More Finals Success
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
May 21, 2024
The COVID-19 pandemic was a different, often difficult time for student athletes.
It also gave aspiring young athletes a little free time. Whitmore Lake’s Kaylie Livingston didn’t waste it.
Livingston, then in grade school, got serious about running – and it grew into a passion.
In the fall, the Whitmore Lake freshman finished second at the Lower Peninsula Division 4 Cross Country Final. She’s gearing up for the LPD4 track & field championship meet June 1 and enjoyed a remarkable day just over a week ago at the East Jackson Dome Classic when she set school records in the 1,600, 3,200 and as part of the 3,200 relay – the three longest races – all in the same day.
“She has the motor to do both (the 1,600 and 3,200),” said her coach and father, Casey Livingston. “She was really focused that day and posted a couple of really good times.”
Livingston won the 3,200 with a time of 10:46.29. She was second in the 1,600 with a time of 5:03.24. The 3,200 relay team finished second with a school record 9:43.57, which has since been lowered.
“It was a normal day for me running those events,” Kaylie said. “It’s a lot of fun to run as many races and run as fast as I can. I had a pretty good day.”
Livingston started running in elementary school. Her dad was the head cross country coach at Whitmore Lake, which was then a member of the Tri-County Conference. After the regular TCC meets had finished, the league held an “open” race where anyone could run. Most times, Kaylie would join the fun.
“That’s really the first time she ran competitively, if you can even call it competitive,” Casey Livingston said. “She really enjoyed running, especially with the older kids. She liked that.”
During the pandemic, Livingston said the family began running together.
“When COVID hit and we were shut down, we were outside trying to get exercise,” he said. “Obviously, track season was canceled that spring, but our league did some COVID games, where you would do different events and you would record it. She did that.
“Then, that summer, we started our summer training, and she would have been in fifth or sixth grade and started running our workouts. She kind of just took off with it.”
And then some.
“She’s been running times that had rivaled our records when she was in middle school,” added Livingston, who has coached basketball, cross country and track & field at Whitmore Lake. “I remember her saying, ‘I can’t wait to be a freshman so I can set some of those records.’”
This past weekend at her team’s Regional, Kaylie qualified for the Lower Peninsula Division 4 Finals in four events – the 1,600, 3,200 and as part of the 1,600 and 3,200 relays. She was the Regional champion in three of those races. Overall this season, she finished outside first place only five times – with four runner-up finishes and a third place in a relay.
She said those records have remained on her mind.
“I beat them by a pretty decent amount,” she said. “It was definitely one of the goals for the track season.”
The three-sport athlete (cross country, basketball, and track) enjoys track & field but says cross country is her favorite sport. She runs anywhere from 30 to 40 miles a week. Her individual runner-up finish in cross country helped Whitmore Lake win the LPD4 team title, and she has similar aspirations for her track & field team in two weeks.
“My goals are to continue to grow and always get faster,” she said. “Hopefully we could come in with a state title too.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Kaylie Livingston runs one of her races this season as a freshman for Whitmore Lake. (Middle) Livingston has qualified for the MHSAA Finals in two individual races and two relays. (Photos courtesy of the Whitmore Lake athletic department.)