Performance: Lakeland's Grace Stark
June 2, 2017
Grace Stark
White Lake Lakeland sophomore – Track & Field
The Eagles’ speedy standout has made significant strides – literally – this season, cutting more than a second off her fastest 100-meter hurdles time from 2016. How much she’s improved in that race gained the most notice at Friday’s Oakland County Championships when Stark won in 13.54 seconds, earning the Michigan Army National Guard “Performance of the Week.” If she can repeat that time at Saturday’s Lower Peninsula Division 1 Finals, she’ll break the all-Finals record set by Ann Arbor Pioneer’s Candice Davis in 2003.
Stark’s fastest 100 hurdles time as a freshman was 14.64 seconds, and she also ran 11.82 in the 100 dash. She approached the dash personal record as well at the Oakland County meet, winning in 11.86. She’s undefeated in both the 100 dash and 100 hurdles this season, plus won a Regional title in the 200 in a personal-record 24.99 seconds. Stark owns Lakeland’s records in the 100, 100 hurdles and 200 and as part of the 400 and 800 relays, the last two helped of course by a number of talented teammates, including a strong senior class finishing up this weekend.
After developing bursitis in a hip over the summer, Stark took six weeks off from training. She upped her workouts to near-normal in December and competed indoor before showing her advancing speed on the outdoor track. Also a gymnast during elementary and middle school, Stark focuses solely on track now but said her time on the mat helped her improve physically and become more disciplined. She carries a 3.9 grade-point average, showing discipline and determination in the classroom as well.
Coach John Kababik said: "Grace is the fastest sprinter that I have coached in 40 years of coaching Lakeland girls track. What makes her so good is not only the talent she was born with, but the single-minded determination to be the best. She runs track both in season and out as a club runner. Grace was very good as a freshman, but she has improved by a full second over the last year in the hurdles. For sprinters to improve that much is not common. She came into high school fast, but she’s getting better due to the fact she’s so conscious of her technique. She’s just driven. She wants to be better, and she’s so knowledgeable that she’ll talk to me about former Olympic champions and the techniques they used. Grace will continue to break records and improve because that is who she is: that is part of her personality."
Performance Point: “I think I had a better start that day,” Stark said of the Oakland County hurdles race. “I got out to the first hurdle, and actually I’ve been working on my arms – working on not raising over hurdles, but keeping them low and right in front of me. … I thought I’d pulled off a good time, but I didn’t know it was good enough for a state record. I hit the last hurdle, and I didn’t know how much that slowed me down.”
Give it up for Gail: “Gail Devers (a U.S. Olympic gold medalist in 1992 and 1996), she did the 100 and she did the hurdles too, and she’s the big person I look up to. I’ve been told she has a similar body structure to me, so I thought, well, she’s my height, she did the hurdles and the dash, so she’s very similar to me. And she’s someone I’ve been told to watch by my coaches."
Mat time pays off: “(Gymnastics) made me stronger, my whole body. I did a lot of sprints toward the vault table, and I thought that helped. And the technique we had; it taught me a lot about discipline, helped me prevent injuries, all the workouts that we did.”
Fun to be fast: “I like the pressure of (racing). I like being out on the line, going off and being in the race. I like the thrill of it, really. Not knowing who is going to win, how the race is going to turn out. And giving all of yourself to something you care about is really fun.”
Difference in the details: “I take time with things, make sure they’re done right before I finish them. I think that reflects in both (athletics and academics) how I get stuff done. I’m very critical of myself. If it’s not done almost perfect, I find something to work on or something to fix.”
- Geoff Kimmerly, Second Half editor
Every week during the 2016-17 school year, Second Half and the Michigan Army National Guard will recognize a “Performance of the Week" from among the MHSAA's 750 member high schools.
The Michigan Army National Guard provides trained and ready forces in support of the National Military Strategy, and responds as needed to state, local, and regional emergencies to ensure peace, order, and public safety. The Guard adds value to our communities through continuous interaction. National Guard soldiers are part of the local community. Guardsmen typically train one weekend per month and two weeks in the summer. This training maintains readiness when needed, be it either to defend our nation's freedom or protect lives and property of Michigan citizens during a local natural disaster.
Previous 2016-17 honorees:
May 25: Brendon Gouin, Gaylord golf – Read
May 18: Hannah Ducolon, Bay City All Saints softball – Read
May 11: Mason Phillips, Salem track & field – Read
May 4: Lillian Albaugh, Farwell track & field – Read
April 27: Amber Gall, Shepherd track & field – Read
April 20: Sloane Teske, East Grand Rapids tennis – Read
March 30: Romeo Weems, New Haven basketball – Read
March 23: Jaycie Burger and Maddie Clark, Pittsford basketball – Read
March 16: Camden Murphy, Novi swimming & diving – Read
March 9: Ben Freeman, Walled Lake Central wrestling – Read
March 2: Joey Mangner, Chelsea swimming & diving – Read
Feb. 23: Isabelle Nguyen, Grosse Pointe North gymnastics – Read
Feb. 16: Dakota Hurbis, Saline swimming & diving – Read
Feb. 2: Foster Loyer, Clarkston basketball – Read
Jan. 26: Nick Jenkins, Detroit Catholic Central wrestling – Read
Jan. 19: Eileene Naniseni, Mancelona basketball – Read
Jan. 12: Rory Anderson, Calumet hockey – Read
Dec. 15: Demetri Martin, Big Rapids basketball – Read
Dec. 1: Rodney Hall, Detroit Cass Tech football – Read
Nov. 24: Ally Cummings, Novi volleyball – Read
Nov. 17: Chloe Idoni, Fenton volleyball – Read
Nov. 10: Adelyn Ackley, Hart cross country – Read
Nov. 3: Casey Kirkbride, Mattawan soccer – Read
Oct. 27: Colton Yesney, Negaunee cross country – Read
Oct. 20: Varun Shanker, Midland Dow tennis – Read
Oct. 13: Anne Forsyth, Ann Arbor Pioneer cross country – Read
Oct. 6: Shuaib Aljabaly, Coldwater cross country – Read
Sept. 29: Taylor Seaman, Brighton swimming & diving – Read
Sept. 22: Maggie Farrell, Battle Creek Lakeview cross country – Read
Sept. 15: Franki Strefling, Buchanan volleyball – Read
Sept. 8: Noah Jacobs, Corunna cross country – Read
PHOTO: (Top) White Lake Lakeland's Grace Stark clears a hurdle during a race this season. (Middle) Stark begins to break away from the pack. (Action photos courtesy of the White Lake Lakeland athletic department; head shot courtesy of the Oakland Press.)
Northville's Abbott Takes Place with Stars
June 4, 2016
By Bill Khan
Special to Second Half
HUDSONVILLE — It was supposed to be the Sekayi Bracey and Anna Jefferson show.
And, to a great extent, it was.
Bracey added two more victories to her resume, finishing her outstanding career at East Kentwood with 10 individual championships in MHSAA track and field meets.
Jefferson led Oak Park to a third straight Lower Peninsula Division 1 team championship and all-division MHSAA Finals records in the 800 and 400 relays. The Knights had 81.5 points, while runner-up Ann Arbor Pioneer had 64.
While Bracey and Jefferson added to their legacies, Northville senior Chloe Abbott upstaged both all-time great Michigan sprinters by beating each of them head-to-head in events they've previously won.
First, Abbott ran 53.10 seconds to take down Jefferson in the 400-meter dash, an event Jefferson won in 2013 and 2014 before taking second in 2015. Jefferson took third Saturday.
Less than an hour later, Abbott pulled off a double that is extremely difficult under most circumstances, but more so considering her primary competition was going for her fourth MHSAA championship in the event. Yet, Abbott charged from behind to win the 200 in 24.03, while Bracey finished fourth in a race that featured six times of 24.51 seconds or faster.
Not yet worn out from those two exhausting races, Abbott anchored Northville to victory in the 1,600 relay, the final event, giving her three victories in the last six races of the day. She was also on the fourth-place 800 relay team, giving her a hand in 35 of third-place Northville's 50 points.
The first thing Abbott did after winning the 400 was try to forget about it.
"I talked to my friends," she said. "I relaxed myself a little bit, kind of numbed myself to the 400 zone. If you think about it for a long time, you're like, 'Wow, I did so good in the 400.' You kind of get comfortable with it. I wanted to forget it and focus on the 200. I'm so glad I was able to pull out another win. I'm surprising myself today."
Abbott didn't have the MHSAA Finals pedigree of Bracey or Jefferson.
In 2013, when Bracey and Jefferson were winning championships as freshmen, Abbott was 27th in the 200, her only event that year. She took sixth in the 100 and ninth in the 200 as a sophomore, while helping Northville get two top-three finishes in relays. As a junior, she was third in the 400 and seventh in the 200, adding a third-place finish on the 1,600 relay.
Abbott didn't beat Jefferson in the 400 until last summer, after the high school season.
"Ever since then, I didn't want to get beat by her again," Abbott said. "So, I kept pushing and knew I could do it."
Abbott had never beaten Bracey until Saturday.
"I never even dreamed of beating Sekayi," Abbott said. "I knew how great she was. She hasn't had a lot of competition all season. I figured she was going to come out and push it today, because she finally has some competition. I was nervous about that, because she's very good. I wanted to make sure I got that out of my head, forget about the people and just focus on my race and what I can control."
Bracey lost in a 200 final only once in her four-year career before Saturday, that coming her freshman year when Rockford's Sammy Cuneo beat her in the Michigan Interscholastic Track Coaches Association Division 1 team championship meet.
"I don't even know what happened," Bracey said. "I was so frustrated when they were all coming up on me. I'm like, 'What's going on?' I never had that in my life. It was confusing."
Abbott and Bracey will be teammates at Purdue University beginning next season.
"I told her, '1 and 2, that's it, because now we're a team,'" Abbott said. "I wanted her and me to show out for Purdue and show out for our schools."
Bracey won the 100 for the fourth straight year in 12.08 seconds. She won her third long jump title with a leap of 18 feet, 10 inches. She jumped only once in the Finals to preserve herself for her track events.
Jefferson helped Oak Park break two all-division Finals records set by Detroit Mumford in 2005 with times of 1:36.66 in the 800 relay and 46.28 in the 400 relay.
"That was special," Oak Park coach Brandon Jiles said. "We knew we could run fast in the 4x1 and 4x2. It was all about putting it on the track. Those times are the fastest times by far that have been run in the state. For those kids to run that fast, they were really rolling. Everything had paid off, the hard work."
The Knights got off to a shaky start, with Jefferson failing to qualify for the championship race in the 100 hurdles and the 3,200 relay team placing out of the scoring with a ninth-place finish.
"It started out tough, but the kids were resilient and they fought and they showed they could win a tight meet, as opposed to a blowout like the last couple of years," Jiles said.
Oak Park's individual champions were sophomore Dorriann Coleman, who took the 800 in 2:10.20, and senior Brianna Holloway, who set a meet record in the 300 hurdles with a time of 42.71.
Greenville junior Landon Kemp was another of the stars of the meet. The highlight of her day was breaking the all-division Finals record in the pole vault with a leap of 13 feet, 4 inches. She also took second in the long jump at 18-5.5 and fifth in the 100 hurdles in 14.87.
Other individual champions were Ann Arbor Pioneer's Britten Bowen in the 100 hurdles (14.08); Port Huron's Rachel Bonner in the 1,600 (4:49.29); Farmington's Maddy Trevisan in the 3,200 (10:35.85); Grand Blanc's Quiara Wheeler in the discus (136-2); Grosse Pointe South's Kayli Johnson in the shot put (44-7.75); and Macomb Dakota's Kayla Dobies in the high jump (5-7).
Ann Arbor Pioneer won the 3,200 relay in 8:56.52.
PHOTOS: (Top) Northville's Chloe Abbott takes the lead on the way to one of her two championships Saturday. (Middle) East Kentwood's Sekayi Bracey won the ninth and 10th individual Finals titles of her career. (Below) Oak Park's 800 relay was among significant contributors to the team's overall LP Division 1 championship. (Photos by Carter Sherline and John Brabbs/RunMichigan.com.)