2024 Rankings: Division 2, Week 3

Race by race ratings, summer writeups, social media work, Excel, Word, Photoshop. Occasionally tedious, usually fun, but all leading to these – actual rankings!

If you’ve followed me over the past seven years (!), you know the gist of these and you know I’m always changing an aspect or three.

The individual ratings, which then are sorted into team rankings, take into account all the meets listed and linked here. An individual’s rating takes their best 2/3 of their rated races (rounding to the nearest whole number, so 3 of 5, 5 of 7, etc.). The races are weighed based on recency, field size, and competitiveness. The team rankings are compiled by combining all teams in a division into a hypothetical meet based on those individual ratings.

There are a few changes from last year:

• Coming back to rating weekday meets
  • Believe it or not, I’m still learning and I’ve figured out some ways to do these faster
  • I will be judicious in how many of these are performed
• Using the top 67% instead of last year’s 75%
  • More meets = a comparatively lower % that a runner will truly race all out
• Actual Upper Peninsula/Home School/other rankings
  • These more efficient methods mean I actually have data now and can post
• Writeups focused on the overall state of the division
  • Always a struggle here finding how much to write! Last year, I took up wayyy too much time writing about teams (who deserved the attention, but effort must be managed over here).  
  • I think this fall, I’ll briefly sum up how it’s looking like for the state title contenders, plus anything that catches my eye.

Similar to previous years:

• 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.
• One division at a time
  • I know I’d get lost sifting through every division in one post. Focusing on the smaller ones first gives attention to the divisions who might not receive as recognition as the more populated ones.

These are through Saturday’s meets.

These are for fun. And I do this for free. I’m positive toward every runner in the state. Abiding by that golden rule, you should reciprocate. Capisce? Enjoy.

Recap

Early on, Grand Rapids Christian has put their stamp on the top D2 spot. Five under 16:45 at Pete Moss, which allowed the Eagles to hang right there with Jenison, one of the better D1 teams. They were overwhelmingly dominant at Christian Schools, with 4 boys in the top-5 spots. Just reloading over here. Their Christian brothers down the road at Holland Christian have been pretty darn successful as well, racking up wins in D1-centric fields at Bredeweg and Under the Lights.

Looking Forward

Two races in particular are loaded: the D2 race at Spartan, which features five teams in the top-14 (#3 Alma, #6 Allendale, #8 Otsego, #11 Three Rivers, #14 DeWitt) and an early morning sesh at Riverside Park that only has #1 and #2 toeing the white line together.

Top 27

Rank	Team	Score	Region	Top 5 Avg.
1	Grand Rapids Christian	225	12	192.2
2	Holland Christian	282	11	188.9
3	Alma	339	14	190.0
4	Forest Hills Eastern	347	12	189.2
5	East Grand Rapids	364	12	185.9
6	Allendale	413	11	184.9
7	Frankenmuth	431	15	182.3
8	Otsego	462	13	181.1
9	Marshall	469	13	186.8
10	Gladwin	524	10	183.0
11	Three Rivers	551	13	179.8
12	Shepherd	572	15	180.5
13	Cedar Springs	583	10	178.0
14	DeWitt	614	14	175.9
15	Flint Powers Catholic	627	15	179.4
16	Pinckney	640	16	176.4
17	Sparta	699	10	175.1
18	New Boston Huron	746	18	173.9
19	Freeland	756	15	178.1
20	Plainwell	799	12	171.1
21	Grand Rapids Catholic Central	832	11	173.0
22	Corunna	843	14	168.9
23	Zeeland East	857	11	169.0
24	Edwardsburg	863	13	168.7
25	Hudsonville Unity Christian	897	11	167.2
26	Parma Western	901	14	169.1
27	Adrian	950	18	167.0

Recap

I expected Goodrich and Grand Rapids Christian to be in the mix, Zeeland East is a bit of a surprise. Megan Kuzma and Meredith Cook both matched or hit their personal bests at Under the Lights, helping the Chix win the Starlight Division. Missing Kuzma at Bredeweg, ZE still picked up a 3^rd place finish in the D1-filled field. At Benzie, we already received a little preview of GRC and Goodrich, the Eagles claiming a little 3-point victory. This race is gonna be tight.

Looking Forward

Similar to the boys, the D2 elites will be concentrated around Ottawa Hills and Spartan. Although it’s not the highly anticipated top-2 matchup, #1 and #4 ain’t too bad. Early morning XC spectators and athletic.net viewers will be able to see how Grand Rapids Christian and Holland Christian relate to one another. Spartan will be split into the D2 race (#6 Otsego and #7 DeWitt) and the Elite (#2 Goodrich and #11 Frankenmuth). Coming back to Ottawa Hills, Zeeland East and Unity Christian will be in the evening session. A fun-filled day.

Top 27

Rank	Team	Score	Region	Top 5 Avg.
1	Grand Rapids Christian	184	12	127.7
2	Goodrich	191	15	126.2
3	Zeeland East	198	11	128.2
4	Holland Christian	239	11	122.0
5	East Grand Rapids	269	12	121.6
6	Otsego	301	13	124.6
7	DeWitt	306	14	118.9
8	Adrian	381	18	119.2
9	Freeland	397	15	115.4
10	Hudsonville Unity Christian	461	11	111.2
11	Frankenmuth	522	15	110.9
12	Linden	536	16	107.0
13	Ludington	600	10	107.7
14	Spring Lake	645	10	100.9
15	Cadillac	725	10	100.1
16	St. Joseph	726	13	104.9
17	Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard	737	18	98.5
18	Grand Rapids South Christian	765	12	95.4
19	Owosso	839	14	93.0
20	Dearborn Divine Child	847	16	92.5
21	Sturgis	850	13	98.4
22	Shepherd	886	15	92.7
23	Forest Hills Eastern	911	12	90.8
24	Pontiac Notre Dame Prep	913	16	92.1
25	Coopersville	925	11	91.4
26	Middleville Thornapple-Kellogg	934	12	93.1
27	Plainwell	955	12	88.8

Individual Rankings

Recap

4:43, 4:47, 5:18 (4:47 pace). TJ Hansen in his opener did his best to affirmatively shut the door on any doubts concerning his senior year. Last year, we were in awe of his win at Bluejay when pushed, last week at John Bruder contained a 10+ second gap at the mile, 30+ seconds at two. In any normal year, Henry Dixon and Jack Bidwell would be dueling for the win. Both have had wow-inducing moments, Bidwell laying down a dominant win at Bath and Dixon the same at Under the Lights.

Looking Forward

Both TJ Hansen and Bidwell will be elites on the line at Spartan. Usually, you’ll see some of the better teams in Ohio bring their ringers, and it appears Ohio’s D1 4^th place finisher in the 1600m will be there. I expect Michigan to hold the home court, adding in the fact that we have D2 standouts such as Colin Murray and Seth Mead in that section as well.

Top 30

Rank	Grade	Name	Team	Rating	Region
1	12	TJ Hansen	Freeland	227.2	15
2	12	Henry Dixon	Forest Hills Eastern	214.5	12
3	12	Jack Bidwell	Marshall	214.3	13
4	12	Colin Murray	Dearborn Divine Child	210.7	16
5	11	Thomas Larson	Alma	208.3	14
6	12	Sullivan Zietlow	Three Rivers	206.3	13
7	10	Ezekiel Baltierra	Alma	206.0	14
8	12	Dominic Lowrie	Battle Creek Harper Creek	205.4	13
9	11	Bryce Gross	Flint Powers Catholic	205.1	15
10	12	Elijah Christensen	Gladwin	205.0	10
11	10	Bryce Cahoon	Shepherd	204.1	15
12	12	Will Engbers	Holland Christian	203.0	11
13	9	Lennox Naswell	Flint Powers Catholic	202.5	15
14	12	Jeb Hillary	Grand Rapids Catholic Central	202.4	11
15	12	Simon Triezenberg	Grand Rapids Christian	201.8	12
16	11	Ronnie Silveira	Allendale	201.4	11
17	11	Vincent Pattison	Goodrich	200.8	15
18	12	Seth Mead	Gladwin	200.5	10
19	11	Jonah Workman	East Grand Rapids	200.5	12
20	12	Lucas Kuhn	New Boston Huron	199.7	18
21	11	Edison Lopeman	Parma Western	199.3	14
22	11	Sean Ryan	Grand Rapids Christian	198.9	12
23	12	Alex Doneth	Mason	197.9	14
24	12	Reece Davis	Marshall	197.9	13
25	12	Nolan Longuski	Shepherd	197.8	15
26	12	Jack Lillywhite	Flint Kearsley	196.7	15
27	12	Abatu Dykstra	Hamilton	196.6	11
28	10	Abraham McHugh	Marshall	196.6	13
29	12	Zachary Newman	Pinckney	196.1	16
30	12	Simon Erfourth	Owosso	195.7	14

Recap

Emma Hoffman has been the story of the season thus far. The Otsego junior had already operated at a high level, racking up All-States on the grass and around the oval. She’s seemingly hit a new level, extending her school record well into the 17’s. Ava Schafer is up there too, under 18:00 in a much quicker fashion than her wildly successful freshman year. Elena Figueroa has been a bit more judicious in her efforts, cruising to two victories, though truly pushing it in her Under the Lights opener.

Looking Forward

The Redwings are traveling over to Ottawa Hills, so we’ll get to see Schafer experience that lightning quick course. We’ll get a little rematch of the D2 finals (Elena Figueroa placing 3^rd and Ava 4^th) and an early look into the fitness of the two. Hoffman’s world tour of outstanding performances will be taking a stop at Forest Akers, where she’ll be at the front, hopefully leading her top-10 Bulldogs to success.

Top 30

Rank	Grade	Name	Team	Rating	Region
1	11	Emma Hoffman	Otsego	167.9	13
2	10	Ava Schafer	St. Johns	163.6	14
3	11	Katie Berkshire	Gaylord	155.9	10
4	10	Jaelyn Ray	Pinckney	150.6	16
5	12	Elena Figueroa	St. Joseph	150.4	13
6	12	Emma Drnek	Zeeland East	148.3	11
7	12	Courtney Bovair	Carleton Airport	147.6	18
8	11	Natalie Foltz	Frankenmuth	146.6	15
9	10	Clara Kaczor	Freeland	146.5	15
10	12	Ayla Holben	DeWitt	145.6	14
11	11	Berkley Holtz	Sturgis	145.4	13
12	12	Mea D’Agostino	Orchard Lake St. Mary’s	145.1	16
13	10	Adeline Armstrong	East Grand Rapids	143.4	12
14	12	Sophy Skeels	Adrian	143.1	18
15	11	Ellie Scholma	Grand Rapids Christian	141.9	12
16	10	Johanna Mulder	Holland	141.4	11
17	11	Marie Gates	Hudsonville Unity Christian	140.8	11
18	10	Ayda Skeels	Adrian	137.9	18
19	12	Ava Crews	Middleville Thornapple-Kellogg	137.4	12
20	11	Meredith Cook	Zeeland East	135.9	11
21	10	Annabelle Lowman	Ludington	135.8	10
22	10	Lane Isom	Richland Gull Lake	134.7	12
23	10	Alivia Ottinger	Goodrich	134.6	15
24	12	Grace Evanoff	Flint Powers Catholic	134.1	15
25	10	Mia May	Sparta	133.0	10
26	12	Joy Evans	Alma	132.0	14
27	12	Nadia Grierson	Ludington	131.7	10
28	11	Brooklynn Brown	Cadillac	130.2	10
29	11	Lilah Poel	Grand Rapids Christian	129.9	12
30	12	Layla Jordan	Goodrich	129.4	15