Bucs use home-course advantage for second place at OK Red race
Sep. 22—GRAND HAVEN TWP. — After training partner Seth Norder took home a race victory at Friday's event in Grand Rapids, Grand Haven junior Nolan Clark wanted to get in on the act too.
His 15-minute, 51-second time at Tuesday's OK Red cross country jamboree wasn't just a personal-best, it was good enough for a comfortable race win. Good running from the rest of the Buccaneers' depth secured second place in both the boys and girls races, a strong mark against two teams that will have state title aspirations later in the year.
"There's no rivalry between us, but we're a bit competitive and it helps in training," Clark said. "We're really happy, we were undefeated up until today, and it was pretty cool which helped with times."
Norder wasn't far behind in 16:04, holding off a challenge in the last 100 meters to secure third place. Junior Logan Vining was one of a number of personal-best times across both teams, taking 13th in 16:34. A pair of late sprints earned second place on 64 points, one place ahead of Rockford's 65.
"We've been training in a lot of hot weather," Norder said. "Every day's felt really tough, because the 5Ks are so long, cooler weather is definitely better."
On the girls side, it was a pair of freshmen that led the way for the Bucs. West Ottawa dominated, placing four of the top five and seven of the top 15, but Valerie Beeck was fourth in 19:06 to break up the dominance up top.
Gracey Barry was seventh in 19:23, while sophomore Payton Hosley was ninth in 19:33 — all three were season-best times. The girls finished with 65 points, just ahead of Rockford for second.
"We can be a lot more confident when it's our course," Beeck said. "It's been a lot of fun and very challenging in these bigger meets, so being back here is so nice."
Cooling weather and a lack of rain led to a firmer course behind Grand Haven's main building, and that meant nearly all of the Bucs' varsity runners had their best times of the season to date. Freshman Addison Smith was 16th in 19:56 and sophomore Laurel Tolliver was 31st in 20:43 to round out the scoring for the girls.
Senior Jonathan Tysman was just under 17 minutes at 16:54, good for 21st, and freshman Ben Held won his sprint to the finish for a 26th-place finish in 17:12.
"I had to go back and check the course to make sure it was long enough," boys coach John Tarr joked. "Some of those times were very fast today, we haven't had a guy win at a conference meet in many years."
Clark was part of the leading group for the first half of the race before taking the lead in the second mile. He opened up a small gap and built it in the last mile to win by 10 seconds. Caledonia won the team totals thanks to a stranglehold on the top 10 — they placed five runners there in a 20-second spread.
In the girls race, West Ottawa junior Arianne Olson broke away early and won ahead of a pair of teammates. It was almost two minutes before Beeck and the rest of the chasing pack crossed the line — part of Grand Haven's strategy was forgetting about trying to stick with the leaders.
"We really just wanted to focus on ourselves," Barry said. "Days like today make the hard work at practice worth it."
Being "best of the rest" isn't exactly a bad spot for either team, especially the girls, where all five point-scorers were freshmen or sophomores on Tuesday.
"There are some tough teams in our conference," girls coach Scott Przystas said. "For us to beat Rockford after they were ahead of us on Friday, it was an awesome job today. The freshmen are enjoying the work, they're really embracing it and getting faster each race."
Both teams aren't racing again until next Saturday, when they head to Allendale.
You can email Kyle at kturk@
grandhaventribune.com or find him on Twitter @KyleTurkGHT.
