2023 Rankings: Week 3, Division 2

It’s that time! We’re back again with rankings, both for teams and individuals. Three weeks into the season, plenty of rust busted, times dropped, and a bit of clarity towards our top teams and athletes.

If you’ve followed these over the past few years, you may know the gist of these, but let’s break it down once again:

The individual ratings take into account all the meets listed here. There are a few meets missing that I’ll link to, but pretty much any meet with a significant number of athletes will have been calculated. An individual’s rating takes their best 75% of rated races (rounding up, so 4 of 5, 5 of 6, etc.), weighs them with more recent races having a higher weight, then spits out a final rating. The team rankings score those individuals as if they were in a meet against their entire division.

There are a few changes from previous years:

• No more ratings of weekday, conference meets
  • Why? One, often these aren’t raced all out and end up underrating a runner. Two, to lessen my workload. I’d rather concentrate on these rankings and use the weekend invites that are more likely to be raced hard to determine the rankings.
• Using the top 75% of races instead of 67%
  • Why? If I’m gonna use fewer overall races from a runner’s resume, I have to make up for it in some way.
• No more individual rankings posted to social media
  • Why? I hate instances where a runner stagnates or falls back over the course of the season and it’s posted for the world to see. I recognize people want to know where they’re ranked, so just having it on the website is a happy medium.
• More writeups focused on the top teams and individuals, rather than just handpicking one each week
  • I’ve found that when it comes toward state time, I know all the numbers and what a kid might run, but have a tough time pointing toward a narrative. Hopefully writing a little recap and what to look forward to will help in that regard. I’ll start the story with three teams/individuals this week, then expand in future weeks.
• Posting these one division at a time
  • If you’ve noticed, I always go Division 4 first, trending towards Division 1. This is done intentionally! Traditional media always focuses on the larger schools. By focusing on the smaller divisions first, they get the love that they might not normally receive. It’ll be Division 4 first this week, then next week I think I’ll have enough stats to start on the Upper Peninsula, so they’ll go first.

Now I need to be serious for a minute. These are for fun. If you don’t like these fun rankings, you don’t need to participate, you don’t need to call me names, talk trash to your fellow competitors, or send rude emails. We good here? Enjoy.

Grand Rapids Christian

Conquered a strong field at Benzie then turned around and routed a very competitive OK White. Showing much strength early with frontrunners and depth, could very well put all five girls on the podium.

Otsego

Sadly, we won’t see the Bulldogs at a major Michigan invitational until Jackson, but when you have the opportunity to run at the legendary Detweiller Park, you take it. Their season is setting up very similarly to last year, a strong top four plus a solid fifth. Though it appears their 5^th spot might be improved from 2022.

Zeeland East

An easy victory in the OK Green was sandwiched between a 2^nd place in their division at Under the Lights and a 5^th at Bredeweg. Emma Drnek has come into her own this year, giving the Chix a formidable 1-2 combo.

Rank	Girls Team	Score	Region
1	Grand Rapids Christian	66	11
2	Otsego	236	13
3	Zeeland East	316	11
4	Goodrich	325	15
5	Frankenmuth	363	15
6	St. Joseph	409	13
7	St. Johns	412	14
8	East Grand Rapids	469	12
9	Spring Lake	487	11
10	DeWitt	509	14
11	Freeland	517	15
12	Ludington	535	10
13	Middleville Thornapple-Kellogg	613	12
14	Hudsonville Unity Christian	637	11
15	Petoskey	651	10
16	Alma	655	15
17	Croswell-Lexington	656	17
18	Owosso	668	14
19	Warren Regina	680	17
20	Dearborn Divine Child	697	16
21	Armada	733	17
22	Forest Hills Eastern	734	12
23	Chelsea	806	18
24	Linden	833	16
25	Pontiac Notre Dame Prep	848	16
26	Haslett	872	14
27	Stevensville Lakeshore	893	13

Forest Hills Eastern

That’s two years in a row that the Hawks have put the state on notice with an Under the Lights masterpiece. All five scorers were sub-17 on that humid, late August night. With three of those capable of low-16’s or better, much pressure will be placed on other teams to close that gap.

Grand Rapids Christian

Saw FHE throw down the gauntlet on a Friday night, then woke up Saturday and decided to match it. Winners of Pete Moss by 88 points, then put seven guys in the top-16 at a star-filled OK White Jamboree.

East Grand Rapids

Still missing a piece, but those who have competed have had success. That could come in the form of an Alex Thole, who pulled a massive upset at Under the Lights or a Jack Edison, who navigated his way into the 16’s for the first time ever at the OK White Jamboree.

Rank	Boys Team	Score	Region
1	Forest Hills Eastern	155	12
2	Grand Rapids Christian	338	11
3	East Grand Rapids	373	12
4	Allendale	384	11
5	Alma	405	15
6	Marshall	409	12
7	Adrian	412	18
8	Otsego	485	13
9	Gladwin	515	10
10	Sparta	522	10
11	Yale	536	17
12	Plainwell	561	13
13	Frankenmuth	615	15
14	St. Clair	618	17
15	Petoskey	623	10
16	Battle Creek Harper Creek	643	12
17	Clio	691	15
18	Spring Lake	708	11
19	Hamilton	723	11
20	Flint Powers Catholic	734	15
21	Holland Christian	802	11
22	New Boston Huron	810	18
23	Chelsea	847	18
24	DeWitt	857	14
25	Parma Western	862	14
26	Shepherd	863	15
27	Freeland	864	15

GIRLS INDIVIDUAL RANKINGS

Gail Vaikutis

Her 18-flat at Lakeview was a massive personal best and over 80 seconds faster than her 2022 performance. In track, she was able to display great speed and now we’re witness to her strength.

Elena Figueroa

Right alongside Vaikutis at both their home invite and the PC Early Bird. Missed out on a great time at Lakeview, I hope for non-injury reasons. Regardless, her early season best is already an improvement from her sophomore year.

Ava Schafer

Adjusting very well to the high school scene. After taking her lumps with a second-place finish at Under the Lights, she’s ripped off two consecutive victories. All mid-18 efforts from this young freshman. The Redwings have some light racing in their future, so we’ll see how much she’s improved come late September at Shepherd.

Rank	Grade	Name	Team	Rating	Region
1	12	Gail Vaikutis	St. Joseph	155.5	13
2	11	Elena Figueroa	St. Joseph	155.4	13
3	9	Ava Schafer	St. Johns	153.4	14
4	12	Meghan Ford	Mason	148.2	14
5	12	Natalie VanOtteren	Grand Rapids Christian	148.1	11
6	10	Katie Berkshire	Gaylord	146.2	10
7	12	Mary Richmond	Frankenmuth	145.8	15
8	12	Naomi Nelson	Grand Rapids Christian	145.7	11
9	10	Emma Hoffman	Otsego	145.1	13
10	10	Lilah Poel	Grand Rapids Christian	144.2	11
11	12	Allison Kuzma	Zeeland East	143.2	11
12	11	Summer Brower	Ludington	142.7	10
13	10	Ellie Scholma	Grand Rapids Christian	142.5	11
14	12	Jenna Pilachowski	Monroe Jefferson	141.2	18
15	11	Emma Drnek	Zeeland East	140.4	11
16	9	Jaelyn Ray	Pinckney	139.8	16
17	11	Sophy Skeels	Adrian	139.7	18
18	9	Clara Kaczor	Freeland	139.5	15
19	12	Logan Brazee	Otsego	138.8	13
20	11	Natalia DeMea	Chelsea	138.6	18
21	10	Natalie Foltz	Frankenmuth	136.3	15
22	11	Ava Crews	Middleville Thornapple-Kellogg	136.3	12
23	11	Eva Thompson	Croswell-Lexington	135.9	17
24	9	Johanna Mulder	Holland	135.9	11
25	11	Mea D’Agostino	Orchard Lake St. Mary’s	135.3	16
26	11	Ezgi Kurt	Alma	134.4	15
27	12	Emma DeVries	GR West Michigan Aviation	134.3	12
28	11	Sadey Seyferth	East Grand Rapids	134.0	12
29	12	Camille DeCola	Marshall	133.9	12
30	12	Payton Holtz	Grand Rapids Christian	132.9	11

BOYS INDIVIDUAL RANKINGS

Connell Alford

Cross country is definitely his thing. Facing some fierce competition at Lamplighter, Connell laid down the hammer early en route to a large margin of victory.

TJ Hansen

Just continuing and building from his track accomplishments. 15:39 at Under the Lights was a personal best, 15:13 at John Bruder was a massive personal best. It’s a shame Freeland is on the smaller side of D2 schools, we sadly avoid a matchup with Evan Loughridge at Holly.

Evan Loughridge

Opener at Possum Hollow was a 20+ second win over a ton of talented D1 runners. He’ll be facing some potential D2 All-Staters this weekend at Holly.

Rank	Grade	Name	Team	Rating	Region
1	12	Connell Alford	Chelsea	216.7	18
2	11	TJ Hansen	Freeland	215.2	15
3	12	Evan Loughridge	Pinckney	213.4	16
4	12	Alex Thole	East Grand Rapids	209.9	12
5	12	Nate Carmody	Haslett	205.5	14
6	12	Brendan Hoving	Forest Hills Eastern	205.2	12
7	12	Noah Lambers	Holland	205.1	11
8	11	Jack Bidwell	Marshall	204.8	12
9	12	Braylon Petty	Adrian	204.6	18
10	12	Gregory Janesak	Sparta	203.5	10
11	12	Logan Ruffner	Riverview	202.5	18
12	12	Elliott Sirianni	Clio	201.1	15
13	11	Colin Murray	Dearborn Divine Child	201.1	16
14	11	Simon Triezenberg	Grand Rapids Christian	201.0	11
15	12	Caleb Palmreuter	Gladwin	200.9	10
16	12	Liam Hinman	Forest Hills Eastern	199.9	12
17	11	Kilian Whalen	Allendale	199.9	11
18	11	Henry Dixon	Forest Hills Eastern	199.3	12
19	10	Owen Metzger	Sparta	199.0	10
20	11	Alex Doneth	Mason	198.9	14
21	11	Dylan Lydic	Haslett	198.8	14
22	10	Jonah Workman	East Grand Rapids	198.7	12
23	11	Dominic Lowrie	Battle Creek Harper Creek	197.9	12
24	12	Nolan Pinion	Lake Fenton	195.8	16
25	12	Luke Glasgow	Spring Lake	194.9	11
26	11	Nolan Longuski	Shepherd	194.8	15
27	11	Abatu Dykstra	Hamilton	194.4	11
28	11	Sullivan Zietlow	Three Rivers	194.2	13
29	9	Bryce Cahoon	Shepherd	194.2	15
30	12	Connor Griffith	Marshall	193.7	12