#47 - State Finals Week!

Inside This Issue

• How To Follow The Finals

• West Ottawa Breaks A Record

• More Highlights

• Blackwell Dominates

• Old Misconceptions Die Hard

• What To Call Records?

• NCAA Championships Loading

• College Signings

• Other Stuff

How To Follow The MHSAA T&F Finals

Your first stop is the MHSAA track page, where you’ll get a download of the meet program, meet previews, lists of qualifiers, schedules and more.

Predictions? I don’t do that. As a historian, I’m much more interested in after-the-fact. However, Matt Armelagos of MI XC Speed Ratings has done an in-depth job of looking at all the divisions.

Live Results

Live Stream ($)

Holland West Ottawa’s State Record

Not sure there’s a better way to prepare for the state finals than by running the fastest time in state history. That’s just what West Ottawa’s crack sprint relay crew did at the MITCA D1 Team Meet. Charlie Sanders, Andrew Spilotro, Ruben Esparza and Desmond Chapa once again combined for a 41.11. That sliced 0.06 from the East Kentwood record that had stood since the 2010 Midwest Meet (that in itself is a story, and we applaud that the Midwest coaches had the wisdom that year to keep the EK championship team together and not paste together a last-minute relay of all-stars).

Some of the stats we saw about this race also illustrate how difficult it is to maintain a high-class sprint program with Michigan’s winter weather. The fastest relay in our state’s history and this year there have been some 49 warm-weather schools nationwide who have gone faster this season alone. Crazy.

Kudos to the Panthers—we are really looking forward to watching them tomorrow at East Kentwood!

More Highlights

• Other top marks at MITCA D1: Jeremy Dixon of Kalamazoo Central won the 200 in 21.63 (-0.8). Local hurdle rivals Owen Hager of Caledonia and George Brown of Rockford battled against a 2.2 wind, Hager winning 14.73-14.79. St Joe’s Gail Vaikutis ran 2:12.48 and West Ottawa’s Helen Sachs doubled in 4:55.74 and 10:45.90 after running on a 9:10.70 relay. EK soph Alana Bracey impressed with 45.08 in the 300H and the team’s relays won in 48.11 and 1:42.00. Team wins to Rockford (boys) and East Kentwood (girls).

• Oakland County Championships (4/24): As always, plenty of thrills. Oak Park soph Rondre Austion won the 200 (21.87, -0.4) and 400 (48.88). Walled Lake Northern’s Ty Parker ran 1:54.04 and led the top 12 guys in the 800 to PRs. Catholic Central soph Zacchaeus Brock blitzed a 13.90 in the hurdles (-0.6) to become No. 16 in history. State discus leader Brycen Anderson of Walled Lake Central, who will miss the D1 Finals, took his specialty with a 188-6. Crosstown rivals Troy Athens and Troy put together an amazing 4×8, Athens winning by 0.02 (7:51.11-7:51.13). Lakeland soph Andre Neumann came in with a shot best of 55-4 and went past that 4 times, finishing at 57-8. Oak Park ran away with the girls title. Frosh Nevaeh Burns won the 200 (24.99, -1.3) and the 400 (55.32). Kylee King PRed at 2:10.64. Morgan Roundtree won both hurdles in 14.35 (-0.7) and 42.14, the No. 7 performance in history. Plus OP relay wins of 47.51 and 3:53.12. Rochester’s Lena Cleveland jumped a meet record 18-7.25 into a -1.7, while Lucy Cook won her third-straight 1600 in 4:55.13.

• Got the chance to announce Distance Night Under The Lights at Houseman Field. A fun event! One thing I think the world should know is how many kids ran lifetime bests at the meet. Out of 1,183 participants (counting doublers), there were an astounding 833 PRs, or 70.41%! The headliner must have been Kalamazoo Central’s Jasper Cane, who blazed a 4:05.76 from the front to move to No. 8 all-time, just above Dathan Ritzenhein’s 4:05.9. Seth Norder of Grand Haven doubled with a PR 1:52.48 and 9:10.53. On the girls side, wins went to Selma Anderson of Ottawa Hills in 2:13.11, Stephanie DiPiazza of the Peregrines in 4:59.55, and Kaylie Livingston of Whitmore Lake in 10:49.12.

• At MITCA’s D2 Meet, Jake Machiniak of Berrien Springs zipped 10.61 with a 0.3 wind, then a 21.81. Freeland’s TJ Hansen tuned up for state with his 1:54.27 PR. Wayland’s Austin Graham hurdled a nice 14.75 (0.3), plus a 38.42. DeWitt (41.97) and Berrien Springs (1:27.84) ruled the sprint relays. On the girls side, Middleville’s Brooklyn Harmon hurdled 46.33 and DeWitt relayed 9:24.97. Team wins to Harper Creek (boys) & Frankenmuth (girls).

• Steeb Meet of Champions (5/28): The Washtenaw County meet (kind of… participants from as far away as Vicksburg) saw Pioneer’s Rachel Forsyth show she is ready for the finals with a solo 2:07.21 state leader. Chelsea’s Leila Wells hurdled 14.98. Anirudh Krishnan won the boys 800 in 1:54.00 ahead of Skyline’s Mason Jett (1:54.53). And Saline’s sprinters zipped 41.59 in the 4 × 100 for the No. 6 performance in state history, No. 5 school ever.

• Record-Eagle John Lober Honor Roll (5/28): Traverse City West soph Reese Smith zipped a 2:13.31 for 800.

• The Greater Lansing Honor Roll Meet caught the full fury of the storms that swept through on Tuesday. For the first time in the meet’s history it had to be cancelled on account of weather, after only a few field eventers got a chance to compete.

Blackwell Dominates World Para Meet

Oak Park alum Jaydin Blackwell rose to the occasion at the World Para Track & Field Championships in Kobe, Japan, winning the 100 in 10.86 and then the 400 in 48.87. Now he is gearing up for the Paralympics in Paris. NBC had a great story on Blackwell’s achievements.

Old Misconceptions Die Hard (or Records 101)

One of the reasons I started Michtrack and took the lists and records I was keeping public was that 40 years ago, I used to hear from everyone in the sport in the state: “State records must be set at the state meet.” It even showed up in the newspapers, tagged on to articles about Athlete A running faster than any Michigan high schooler in history, but oh darn, it doesn’t count because it wasn’t at the MHSAA Finals.

As someone who had been reading Track & Field News religiously for years, this struck me as absolutely crazy. We had national High School Records that could be set at any meet, just like World Records and American Records. Every school kept a set of records that could be set at any meet the team competed in. But Michigan high schoolers, statewide, were denied recognition for record efforts outside of the MHSAA Finals. It simply made no sense, and it limited the publicity and media attention that our sport was getting.

However, the blame doesn’t fall at the MHSAA’s feet. Since at least 1978, the official meet results refer to records set at the MHSAA Finals as “New Finals Meet Record” or some variation thereof. The latest example I can find of the MHSAA using the term “state record” is in the 1971 official results. So sometime about 50 years ago the MHSAA itself stopped using the “state record” terminology and got in step with the rest of the sport and started calling the records set at its finals “meet records.”

Yet as recently as 2006, the Detroit Free Press was writing, “state records can only be set at the state meet.” And even last week, I was “corrected” by coaches for using the term “state record” to describe Holland West Ottawa’s 41.11 relay. Old misconceptions die hard, I guess.

Some backstory on why the MHSAA only deals in meet records: About 20 years ago, the MHSAA reached out to me to get my help in developing an actual list of state records, but one that did not include out-of-season meets as the Michtrack list does. They wanted all FAT timing, legit wind-legal performances, etc. I produced the list, but in the end, the organization decided not to pursue the venture. The explanation I remember getting was quite straightforward: “We decided we don’t want to get into the business of policing those records—we have enough on our plates.” And since then the MHSAA has linked to Michtrack from its website and directed record inquiries our way.

A Quick Visual Guide On Records Terminology, the Whos & Wheres of Record-Setting:

NCAA Championships Loading

Maybe more on this next week, or maybe I won’t have survived announcing D1 this weekend. So for now, here are the Michigan high school alumni I see on the qualifier list for the NCAA D1 Championships. Note that anyone listed in a relay is a maybe—coaches can change the lineup until the last minute. Let me know if I’m missing anyone!

• Benne Anderson - Syracuse (1500)

• Nick Foster - UM (1500)

• Caleb Jarema - UM (Steeple)

• Dylan Targgart - South Carolina (SP)

• Zane Forist - Michigan (DT)

• Chandler Ault - Washington (JT)

• Ryan Talbot - MSU (Decathlon)

• Kaila Jackson - Georgia (100, 200, 4×1)

• Sophie Novak - Notre Dame (Steeple)

• Gabby Hentemann - Oklahoma State (10,000)

• Grace Stark - Florida (100H)

• Aasia Laurencin - UM (100H)

• Fatouma Conde - Ohio State (4×1, 4×4)

• Leeah Burr - Texas A&M (4×1)

• Victoria Faber - Alabama (PV)

• Corinne Jemison - UM (DT)

College Signings

If you know of one that wasn’t previously reported here, please let us know! [email protected]. This has been a feature since issue #28. To check back issues, go here.

• Cameron Cheetham (Hartland) - Michigan State

• Jackie Flores (Sturgis) - Spring Arbor

• Merrick Hocking (Midland) - Michigan State

• Jack Joyce (Traverse City St Francis) - Alma

Other Things

• Summer Throws Training: Available on the west side of the state through SC Amicus. Details here.

• Shamar Heard to USATF U20: The state record holder in the 400 is planning to head to Eugene to make his bid to represent the United States at the World U20 Championships. There is a Gofundme to help support his travel.

• A New Hall of Fame Gold Sponsor: And a fitting tribute it is, to John Fundukian, who was very well known throughout the Michigan track & field community, and who passed away two years ago. I value my own memories of John, and am deeply appreciative. Visit the Hall of Fame.

• A Quick Look at Eastern Michigan’s New Track (under construction):

• Remember when? The old-timers among us might remember the frequent use of the term “all-weather track.” There was a time when everybody raced on dirt or cinder, and the fancy tracks didn’t come to the state finals until 1972 (Flint’s Guy Houston Stadium). But they were around at least 10 years earlier in our state. Among the first were Battle Creek, East Lansing, Livonia and Northville. By 1965, MHSAA officials were talking about how they liked to put regionals on all-weather tracks for fewer rain delays (6 of 24 regionals were on all-weather tracks that year).

• That’s all for this week. I need to get some rest for tomorrow! Sorry for the typos! And thanks to all of our supporters who continue making this newsletter possible.

• Oh Yeah! Did I mention that feedback is welcome? There are some weeks where the only person I hear from is my 90-year-old dad. And while I love that, I worry I am in violation of that old maxim of journalism: “If you’re not ticking someone off, you’re not doing your job.” Send vicious complaints or gushing praise to [email protected]