The Regional Previews: Division 1, Region 2

Last Year

SUMMER PREVIEW

MID-SEASON

REGIONAL PROJECTIONS

THE RESULT

Girls

1. Okemos (14^th)
2. Traverse City West (12^th)
3. Traverse City Central (18^th)

Boys

1. Traverse City Central (2^nd)
2. Saginaw Heritage (18^th)
3. Bay City Western (26^th)

Top 27 Teams

Previous years had top-25 teams, but there’s 27 (and sometimes more) team qualifiers and what does it hurt to add another two?

Girls

Traverse City West (6^th), Okemos (8^th), H.H. Dow (11^th), Traverse City Central (16^th)

Boys

Traverse City Central (14^th), Okemos (27^th)

(If your team isn’t listed in the images above or the scores below, you probably don’t have five returners, at least on ol’ athletic.net. I’m sure many of these teams will fill out their rosters by late October)

Projected Scores

Place	Girls Team	Score
1	Traverse City West	59
2	Okemos	71
3	H.H. Dow	73
4	Traverse City Central	108
5	Bay City Western	138
6	Grand Ledge	214
7	Midland	215
8	Alpena	236
9	Mt. Pleasant	244
10	East Lansing	249
11	Holt	251
12	Saginaw Heritage	289
13	Greenville	322
14	Lansing Everett	480
15	Saginaw Arthur Hill	488

Place	Boys Team	Score
1	Traverse City Central	59
2	Okemos	101
3	Traverse City West	107
4	Bay City Western	127
5	Grand Ledge	132
6	H.H. Dow	149
7	Saginaw Heritage	151
8	East Lansing	156
9	Midland	208
10	Mt. Pleasant	234
11	Alpena	337
12	Holt	357
13	Greenville	420
14	Lansing Everett	459
15	Saginaw Arthur Hill	460

Top Runners

I’m making a slight change for the Division 1 folks. Previous regional writeups had the top finishers, even if they were mentioned in the Top 10’s or 50 Tickets. Because so many Division 1 kids make up the top 50 returners (which makes sense, since D1 covers about 60% of the state), I’ll write about a few returners beyond those 50. This will hopefully extend a bit more coverage towards more deserving athletes. Some of the 50 have been covered, others will get their own post. Check the Summer Preview page or keep checking back until Thursday for those.

Katie Watkins, H.H. Dow

She’s reached the 18’s in every single season, this past season getting there the most times of any – four. A 3^rd place finish in the SVL tied her best conference finish yet and she easily had her best track season yet, dropping 25+ seconds in the 3200m.

Alexis Ball, Traverse City Central

In search of a proper way to close her track season, in mid June, Alexis took the multi-hour trek down to Davison. A PR is a PR, and she left that Saturday 0.16 seconds faster in the 1600m, her 5:14.40 being the fastest performance of her career.

Lauren Walker, Holt

Capitalized on the 18:59 she earned at the end of her freshman year and turned that into a sophomore season with three sub-19 efforts. One of those was her massive personal best of 18:29 to finish 3^rd here.

Ella Kirkwood, Traverse City Central

When she wasn’t advocating for the environment, she was busy having the best track season of her career, knocking off almost 20 sec. from her freshman 3200m best.

Willem DeGood, Traverse City West

Check out his places at regionals throughout these years. 38^th to 15^th to 8^th. His first top-10 came last fall and he seemed to love this course, setting a huge PB here in early October, then nearly matching that with two 16:1x efforts late.

Zack Truszkowski, Traverse City Central

Here again for my favorite topic, year to year growth. Zack’s been on some good teams, learning from some of the best in the State. While he didn’t compete at the regional stage as a freshman, I’m sure the lessons accrued early turned him into the kid that placed 10^th this past year.

Colin MacGregor, H.H. Dow

2022 was truly the return of the Mac. Colin concluded his year with four consecutive sub-17’s, one of those being the 12^th place here that greatly outperformed the 30^th+ place he was in his first two years.

Caleb Keller, Traverse City Central

Perhaps the next generation and leader in the Grand Traverse area. Hard to pin down his best event during his 9^th grade track season, but I’ll go with his 4:27 in the 1600m, which ranked #5 across all freshmen in the State.

Eden Lampi, East Lansing

19+ minutes all throughout his freshman year, 18+ minutes all throughout his sophomore year, then last year hovered around 17-flat for the majority of the season. His 17^th here at Shepherd qualified him as an individual for State.