Girls Team

Place	Team	Score	1st Girl	2nd Girl	3rd Girl	4th Girl	5th Girl	6th Girl	7th Girl
1	East Grand Rapids	55	2	7	10	16	20	33	41
2	Petoskey	132	5	22	23	36	46	170	188
3	Grand Rapids Christian	140	1	4	28	35	72	78	102
4	Forest Hills Eastern	161	19	21	24	37	60	74	94
5	Otsego	230	13	45	50	55	67	79	82
6	Freeland	244	9	12	29	96	98	145	154
7	Goodrich	290	8	31	51	97	103	162	163
8	Mason	306	3	49	57	92	105	125	150
9	Spring Lake	340	17	43	47	114	119	130	140
10	Marshall	347	26	62	64	95	100	178	183
11	Williamston	366
12	Warren Regina	371
13	Shepherd	386
14	Pinckney	388
15	Zeeland East	390
16	Allendale	405
17	Chelsea	409
18	Cadillac	421
19	Tecumseh	429
20	Dearborn Divine Child	451
21	Grand Rapids South Christian	466
22	Holland Christian	500
23	Marysville	511
24	Remus Chippewa Hills	527
25	Alma	558
26	Bloomfield Hills Marian	578
27	Croswell-Lexington	583

The East Grand Rapids dynasty continues.  They’ve been such a face of Division 2 success that everyone should know their home run hitters.  Cammy Bodine is the 800m star, Drew Muller has range for every distance, and MIS may very well be Ainsley Workman’s home course (three straight top-10’s).  But let’s concentrate on a few others: Abigail Petr returns from a few disjointed seasons to shore up the back of their speedy pack.  Sophia Lado has run in the low-19’s on multiple occasions.  Sadey Seyferth has to be a mudder, her best performance of the year came at Regionals.  While we’re at it, let’s not forget Katie Edison, the senior security blanket who’s been in the low-20’s all year. 

Some were wondering, especially after the loss of Smith, Squires, Liederbach, and Harris – why was Petoskey ranked so high in the summer?  Their returning runners, although not featured as often because of their outstanding 2021 class, had posted some solid times in 2020.  The pre-season rankings don’t account for this, but if they did, this would be a factor.  The North(wo)men just get better throughout the year.  A prime example of that would be CamBrie Corey.  She was above 21:00 at Spartan and has been sub-20 in her past three races.

Grand Rapids Christian is so young, oh so young.  Behind Madelyn Frens, their main group consists of four sophomores.  They’re in a tough conference, constantly running against East Grand Rapids, so the Eagles are gunning for it in any conference meet.  And in the final OK White Meet, they suffered a narrow defeat by the slimmest of margins.  Can they summon another effort on the big stage?

Girls Individual

Place	Grade	Name	Team	Rating
1	10	Mary Richmond	Frankenmuth	155.3
2	12	Madelyn Frens	Grand Rapids Christian	153.5
3	10	Drew Muller	East Grand Rapids	151.0
4	10	Meghan Ford	Mason	149.9
5	10	Natalie VanOtteren	Grand Rapids Christian	148.3
6	12	Noel Vanderwall	Petoskey	141.3
7	12	Sarah Storey	Remus Chippewa Hills	140.3
8	11	Camryn Bodine	East Grand Rapids	137.9
9	9	Kamryn Lauinger	Goodrich	137.0
10	10	Emma DeVries	GR West Michigan Aviation	136.8
11	12	Whitney Farrell	Freeland	135.4
12	12	Ainsley Workman	East Grand Rapids	134.7
13	10	Allison Kuzma	Zeeland East	134.2
14	12	Mara Longenecker	Freeland	134.1
15	10	Megan Germain	Otsego	133.6
16	12	Lily Mataway	Flint Powers Catholic	133.5
17	12	Grace Zdankiewicz	Warren Regina	133.1
18	12	Julia Finley	Belding	132.7
19	12	Kendall Schopieray	Cadillac	132.1
20	9	Sadey Seyferth	East Grand Rapids	131.6
21	12	Alyna Lewis	Parma Western	130.6
22	10	Clara Fletcher	St. Johns	130.5
23	11	Lily Parker	Spring Lake	129.5
24	12	Mackenzie Hill	Plainwell	129.4
25	9	Nicole Schafer	Williamston	128.0
26	11	Ellory Clason	Forest Hills Eastern	127.0
27	10	Sophia Lado	East Grand Rapids	126.8
28	11	Sarah Dixon	Forest Hills Eastern	126.6
29	12	Caroline Farley	Petoskey	126.3
30	10	CamBrie Corey	Petoskey	125.9
31	10	Ashlyn Smith	Forest Hills Eastern	125.4
32	10	Emily Tomes	Grand Rapids Catholic Central	125.4
33	9	Ava Crews	Middleville Thornapple-Kellogg	125.0
34	10	Cecelia Thorington	Pinckney	123.9
35	11	Lauren Hunter	Haslett	123.4
36	10	Camille DeCola	Marshall	123.3
37	9	Josie Jenkinson	Owosso	123.1
38	11	Chesney Wilke	Tecumseh	122.8
39	10	Payton Holtz	Grand Rapids Christian	122.7
40	12	Haileigh Bissett	North Branch	122.5
41	12	Maggie Duba	Grand Rapids West Catholic	122.3
42	9	Landrey Kuhn	Freeland	121.7
43	11	Ariel Warner	Shepherd	121.0
44	10	Olivia Giza	Goodrich	120.8
45	12	Hannah Fisher	Marysville	120.4
46	11	Abigail Petr	East Grand Rapids	119.7
47	10	Zoe Hoke	Pontiac Notre Dame Prep	119.6
48	10	Alyssa Butterfield	Allendale	119.4
49	10	Naomi Nelson	Grand Rapids Christian	119.3
50	11	Emma Janesak	Sparta	119.2

If there’s some sort of career achievement award, Madelyn Frens deserves it.  Not just for her accomplishments and accolades, but the curveballs thrown her way.  She didn’t complete her 2019 State Meet, having to be helped off the course.  She came back from that to finish top-5 the following year, and then the next spring, capture her first State title.  This fall, she busted out a 17:56 opener at Benzie.  The following week, it was unbearable to even run.  The Alter-G became home as she worked through a thigh split (12 years of working in run specialty and I’ve never heard of this), and she’s back and ready to hurt for another title. 

Mary Richmond, on the other hand, has run a TON of races this year.  And at first glance – are there any poor performances?  Quite amazingly, no.  Her lowest rated races came in victories at TVC 8 meets, understandable.  Her defeats to other competitors, she was pulled along to a 17:56 at Shepherd. 

After a bit of a slow start (though I was at each of the races, she was cruising), Meghan Ford has come back into her own in October.  She’s posted three 150+ races in October, the equivalent of 18:30 and below.  She’s won her second consecutive Regional championship.  Hard to not mention this as well – she’s the top returner in the field.

Boys Team

Place	Team	Score	1st Boy	2nd Boy	3rd Boy	4th Boy	5th Boy	6th Boy	7th Boy
1	Otsego	132	6	18	20	36	52	56	97
2	Chelsea	147	3	9	40	46	49	107	132
3	Pinckney	181	1	29	43	45	63	70	85
4	Grand Rapids Christian	186	7	10	47	58	64	90	130
5	St. Johns	191	15	21	24	57	74	163	194
6	Adrian	200	14	19	32	39	96	119	125
7	Linden	273	16	17	72	81	87	151	167
8	Freeland	284	11	13	25	67	168	174	187
9	East Grand Rapids	310	28	61	62	76	83	95	121
10	St. Clair	331	44	51	53	73	110	135	145
11	Petoskey	334
12	Fremont	348
13	Flint Powers Catholic	381
14	Ionia	399
15	Mason	421
16	Battle Creek Harper Creek	424
17	Yale	428
18	Clio	429
19	Dearborn Divine Child	458
20	Spring Lake	464
21	Sparta	468
22	Holland Christian	529
23	Grand Rapids South Christian	536
24	Allendale	558
25	Grand Rapids Catholic Central	580
26	Three Rivers	587
27	Hamilton	606
28	Armada	689
29	Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood	753

The Otsego boys were aghast at their pre-season ranking and rightfully so.  As the season started revving up, so did the Bulldogs ranking.  Their coming out party was at Spartan, where they placed 6^th and beat many top tier D1 teams.  They continued that hot streak to Cougar Falcon, Otsego Bulldog, and haven’t been challenged since.  Nick Cockerel has been the low stick at the front, but their rise was fueled by two “newcomers”, Tristin Canales and Chase Brown.  Chase has had an unfortunate string of injuries derailing his career, but he’s completed this entire season, a wonderful accomplishment.  Tristin took the 2020 season off and in that two year absence, managed to drop a minute+ from his 2019 best.

As Jacob Tanner noted in his “Top Fives” (seriously cannot thank him enough for putting that out earlier in the week, makes this job a ton easier), Chelsea has been a bit polarizing in their performances.  Their great performances are title worthy (Region 18, Spartan), their subpar performances are Top 5 worthy.  They’re basically the D2 Boys version of Brighton, although they have recent evidence of a great race.  Bram Hartsuff and Connell Alford should be able to mix it up with Canales and Cockerel, their 3^rd through 5^th will need to give a similar effort to Lake Erie to stoke the upset.  Jonas Norwood seems to be the bellwether, at Spartan and Lake Erie, he ran the equivalent of 16:30-40.

As the weather began to change, so did Grand Rapids Christian.  The Eagles rise began to come about at Otsego Bulldog, where they bested an Adrian squad.  Tinsae Nelson and Ben Zwart have been frontrunners all year, almost inseparable.  That combination is lethal in a pressure-filled setting, they can key off each other deep into the race.  But the aforementioned rise was the result of Simon Triezenberg, Dylan Clark, and Reuben Wiering decreasing their time and upping their game.

Pinckney has been extremely selective in their racing and that should leave their squad fresh and ready to compete.  Caleb Jarema is a known quantity, their success will come from the rest of the pack.  In the Pirates victory over Chelsea at SEC 2, their pack of Ben Richards, Zach Debeauclair, and Evan Loughridge finished in front of Chelsea’s 3^rd boy.  The task is expanded for this race, can they stay ahead of everyone’s 3^rd boy?

St. Johns is the biggest riser of the bunch.  Unbenownst to myself prior to the season, Joey Bowman transferred in from Lansing Everett.  Joey was an outstanding freshman, having finished the year breaking into the 16’s.  It’s taken a bit of time to find that form, but it’s been found come championship season, especially prominent in his Region 14 victory.  Griffin Armbrustmacher and Michael Dennis are holdovers from last year’s runner-up squad, Isaac Staib and Tyler Dohm are rapidly improving.  If these ratings only included the past month of racing, I have no doubt the Redwings would be a top-3 outfit.

Boys Individual

Place	Grade	Name	Team	Rating
1	12	Caleb Jarema	Pinckney	218.1
2	12	Ian Hill	Spring Lake	210.2
3	10	Connell Alford	Chelsea	204.7
4	11	Michael Hegarty	Dearborn Divine Child	204.0
5	12	Conor Somers	Fremont	203.7
6	12	Nick Cockerel	Otsego	202.6
7	12	Caden Meyer	Zeeland East	200.1
8	12	Ben Zwart	Grand Rapids Christian	199.8
9	12	Parker Lambers	Holland Christian	199.7
10	12	Garrett Winter	Parchment	199.6
11	11	Bram Hartsuff	Chelsea	199.3
12	12	Tinsae Nelson	Grand Rapids Christian	198.9
13	11	Braydon Honsinger	Freeland	198.2
14	9	Killian Whalen	Allendale	198.1
15	9	TJ Hansen	Freeland	198.0
16	10	Braylon Petty	Adrian	197.1
17	12	Ethan Leitner	Tecumseh	197.1
18	11	Aiden Sullivan	Forest Hills Eastern	197.0
19	12	Griffin Armbrustmacher	St. Johns	196.6
20	11	Kyle Eberhard	Linden	196.4
21	12	Race Bettich	Stevensville Lakeshore	196.3
22	11	Camden Johnecheck	Williamston	196.0
23	12	River Meckstroth	Linden	195.9
24	12	Mason Kolhoff	Otsego	195.6
25	11	Aiden Smith	Adrian	195.0
26	12	Tristin Canales	Otsego	194.9
27	11	Joey Bowman	St. Johns	194.0
28	12	Josiah Magley	Ionia	193.3
29	11	Carter McCalister	Monroe Jefferson	192.8
30	12	Lucas Danic	Flint Powers Catholic	191.8
31	12	Michael Dennis	St. Johns	191.4
32	12	Jacob Singleton	Parma Western	191.1
33	12	Jacob Wurtzel	Freeland	191.0
34	11	Lukas Kriesch	Yale	190.6
35	12	Samuel Smith	Petoskey	190.6
36	10	Alex Thole	East Grand Rapids	190.0
37	10	Evan Loughridge	Pinckney	188.9
38	12	Owen Gilbert	Battle Creek Harper Creek	188.9
39	12	Gabriel Phillips	Clio	188.9
40	11	Bryce Soule	Adrian	188.7
41	12	Kyler Dean	Vicksburg	188.1
42	12	Chase Dietrich	Flint Powers Catholic	187.9
43	10	Shane Izzard	Petoskey	187.7
44	12	Jackson Jones	Sparta	187.5
45	11	William Winter	Parchment	186.8
46	10	Nolan Pinion	Lake Fenton	186.8
47	12	Chase Brown	Otsego	186.2
48	11	Jake O’Neil	Remus Chippewa Hills	185.4
49	12	Landon Buskirk	Mason	185.4
50	9	Alex Doneth	Mason	185.2

I realize that I control a lot of the narrative and discussion on XC in this state, so this is partially my fault (and partially Riley Hough’s fault), but Caleb Jarema has ran under the radar all year long.  He’s slipped under the 15:00 barrier at Portage, he’s been undefeated against D2 competition all year.  He was part of that blistering fast New Balance 3200m in May. 

Ian Hill ran 15:33 on that same day at Portage, although there was a bit of weather change throughout said day.  Against a field of D2’s biggest hitters, Ian sped away with the crown by a 15+ second margin.  His only defeat was at Benzie, since then he’s been undefeated. 

I have to explain a little bit on the ratings.  Mike Hegarty and Connell Alford have gone against one another twice this year, Mike coming ahead both times.  But Connell is rated higher.  What the ratings try to do is compare when runners aren’t racing.  In the most appropriate scenario, these will be two runners from separate areas of the state on different courses on different days.  When they haven’t faced one another, Connell has run some of his better races.  But that begs the question: what if Mike had run with Connell at Coaching Legends or the SEC White meets? 

Enough of my rambling, Mike is Mr. October year in, year out.  This year’s version of his exploits was a 15:34 at Otsego.  Connell has been Mr. Consistent in his sophomore campaign.  His only “subpar” efforts were equivalent the very low 16’s. 

If we were judging on the final three races of the year, Conor Somers would be a clear #3.  Breaking 17:00 on the legendary Branstrom Park course might go unnoticed by many, but not to the Fremont folks and myself.  That itself was the equivalent of a 15:30 effort and that was almost duplicated in the hills of Remus.

TUCK COMIN’

This section is dedicated to all the college football coaches, players, and teams that are rollin’ hot through the season, ready to beat Ohio State in November and crash the MIS party on Saturday.

I have been hearing talk in the Cross Country Heartland about how I had Shepherd underrated.  And that is valid talk given their past results.  They’re always at State, they’re always a D3 contender, but THIS IS D2.  It’s a whole different ballgame, right?  Well, I thought I was right until Carly Judge had to ruin it.  In her past two meets, she’s gone under 20:20 both times.  Neither effort is a personal best, but if they’re a glimpse at her State Meet, that may be enough to move the Bluejays near the Top 10.

Our first glimpse (other than if you scour middle school results, who would do that?) of Kamryn Lauinger’s talent was a runaway victory at Holly.  She’s built on that victory with four consecutive 140+ ratings, the equivalent of sub-19.  That area between Flint and Detroit is known for its tough courses.  Kayla O’Mara is hilly, Lake Fenton was a mudbath.  On a fair, dry course, watch out.

Has Ionia all collectively peaked at the right time?  You can point to any of the Bulldog boys and see progress from their St. Francis Regional to meets earlier in the year.  Jacob Montgomery, Ellis Yokom, Josiah Magley, and Heath LaPointe all crushed expectations last Friday and if you plug in their ratings at St. Francis for the rest of the season, Ionia is capable of finishing in the Top 10.

Parker Lambers is hot off a regional effort where he dispatched a number of the state’s best.  And he did it pulling away as well.  I know Otsego is traditionally fast, but 15:36 is an impressive time nonetheless.  Parker has the attributes necessary to be successful (and if anyone is able to spot talent, it’s MSU).  He’s shown it’s not a one-time occurrence either, his wins at Cougar Falcon and Under the Lights were against similarly tough competition.