Cedarville/DeTour, Marquette Sweep Finals Wins, Rudyard Reigns with Tie-Breaker
By
John Vrancic
Special for MHSAA.com
October 25, 2026
HOUGHTON — The race for the Division 2 team title race was as close as could be at Saturday’s Upper Peninsula Boys Cross Country Finals.
Rudyard and Munising both scored 42 points, with the Bulldogs from the Eastern U.P. getting the nod on the sixth runner tie-breaker.
Painesdale Jeffers, which won Division 2 titles the past five years, placed third this time with 50 points.
“Our boys have been runner-up to Jeffers the past two years,” Rudyard coach Brad Hall said. “It feels great to win this one.”
Ishpeming senior Kemper Gearhart crossed the finish line first after covering the hilly 3.1-mile course in 17 minutes, 48.2 seconds on the Michigan Tech Ski Trails on a sunny and very warm day in the Copper Country.
“I’ve been working hard for this throughout my high school career,” he said. “I was listening behind me. When I heard people in back of me, I just picked up the pace. My time was about the same as many of the other races. This course was a little more challenging than most.”
Rudyard senior Eli Folkersma was runner-up (18:00.7) and Munising senior Blake Lakosky placed third (18:10.1)
“This wasn’t my best time, but it’s a tough course,” Folkersma said. “My goal was to go out easy. I have a strong finish, but today I was dead tired in the end – although, this is the best place I ever got at the Finals.”
Sophomore Jack Lalone finished eighth, senior Zaine Nichols ninth, senior Oliver Dankert 13th and sophomore Liam Hoolsema 15th for Rudyard. Junior Bryce Mitchell clinched the title with a 19th place as the tie-breaker, as Munising’s sixth runner finished 22nd.
Freshman Evan Kelto finished seventh, with seniors Orin Shalom (11th), Nolan Dolaskie (12th) and sophomore Dylan Krause (14th) also following Lakosky for Munising.
Lakosky was happy with the Mustangs taking second.
“It feels good to be runner-up,” he said. “We knew it was going to be close. I was staying with their number one runner (Folkersma). I fell significantly behind him, then I closed the gap. It was a tough course. I ran my personal-best time (18:01) at Rudyard last weekend. I was going for it, but this was not the course for it.”
Division 3
Nine points separated the top four contenders in Division 3 with Cedarville/DeTour taking its first title as a combined program with 78 points. Cedarville had won Finals in 2003 and 2004.
The Islanders also had the individual champion, senior Ethan Snyder, who retained his title at 16:51.4. Freshman Liam Bohn was third, junior Rush Hinnen 16th, freshman Colin Geyer 27th and sophomore Jayden Kemink 58th.
“This was my last high school race,” Snyder said. “I’m happy with defending my title, but it’s way better winning as a team. We have a lot of good runners on our team.”
St. Ignace and Rapid River scored 86 points each and Rock Mid Peninsula took fourth at 87.
“It was a tight race with St. Ignace and Mid Pen,” Rapid River coach Zach Truitt said. “It really came down to the last tenth of a mile. We had the most finishers in the top 15. We got three on the podium, but we really need four to win it. We’re losing four seniors who will be hard to replace.”
Engadine junior Nate Stielstra was the individual runner-up at 17:58.2 with Islanders freshman Liam Bohn taking third (18:02.4).
“The course was hard,” Stielstra said. “I was running sixth in the second mile. This wasn’t my best time, but everything came together. At 1½ miles I could see a couple kids ahead of me. I couldn’t ask for better.”
Division 1
Marquette, as expected, was crowned champion for the eighth consecutive year with 19 points.
The Sentinels, who grabbed four of the top five individual places, were followed by Sault Ste. Marie with 79 and Houghton at 84.
Marquette senior Lucas Ballard earned his first U.P. title in 16:28.9 followed by classmate Vasu Esplin (17:08.1) and junior teammate William Lindsay (17:23.8) in second and third, respectively. Junior Garrett Crimmins ran fifth and junior Lake Skytta eighth to round out the scoring, and senior Welly Fillmore (13th) and junior Jayden Seekie (14th) also filled out the lineup impressively.
“I felt real good through the whole run,” Ballard said a day after his 18th birthday. “It’s a beautiful day and a great way to end the season. I’m pretty happy with my time. I did a lot of training. It’s great to see my hard work pay off. This is a great birthday present.”
PHOTOS (Top) Brimley's Darren Johnson (134), Munising's Blake Lakosky (177), Ishpeming's Kemper Gearhart (166), and Rudyard's Eli Folkersma (210) lead the start of the Upper Peninsula Division 2 Final held on the campus of Michigan Tech in Houghton. (Middle) Cedarville's Ethan Snyder and Copper Island Academy's Jack Ruonavaara lead the beginning of the Division 3 Final. (Below) Menominee's Bradley Klann (85), Marquette's Lucas Ballard (69), Ishpeming Westwood's Calvin Carlson (41), Calumet's Alex Rodriguez (2) and Sault Ste. Marie's Chase Aldridge (115) set the pace at the start in Division 1. (Photos by Cara Kamps/RunMichigan.com.)
Hackett's Butkiewicz Runs to Record, Hillsdale Academy Runs to Repeat
November 2, 2024
BROOKLYN — After a hard-fought race, juniors Marek Butkiewicz of Kalamazoo Hackett Catholic Prep and Abenezer Cerone of Royal Oak Shrine Catholic parked themselves on the ground at a fence near the finish line, clasped hands and exchanged congratulations with one another.
They looked like two old friends who have known each other forever but, truth is, they’ve met only a few times.
But in the Michigan high school running community, two runners from different parts of the state can form a bond that isn’t common among competitors in other sports.
Butkiewicz said he hasn’t raced against Cerone in cross country this year, but did during track & field season.
“It’s great,” Butkiewicz said after shattering the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 4 Finals record with a time of 15 minutes, 9.7 seconds Saturday at Michigan International Speedway.
“We all love communicating with each other and talking with each other. We’re just a super-close community. Every meet where we’re at and we’re all together, we’re all talking, we’re all having fun. It’s just a blast.”
It’s moments like the one the top two finishers shared while still exhausted after the race that make cross country special for Cerone.
“The running community is like no other,” he said after finishing second in 15:40.6. “I played a lot of sports, and there is no community like this one. We haven’t raced a lot, but for some reason I feel like we’re really good friends or we would be really good friends. That’s what I love about this sport.”
Butkiewicz broke the Division 4 Finals record of 15:22.4 set by Tec Adams of Harbor Springs in 2008.
Although Butkiewicz won by a comfortable margin, he was very much uncomfortable after crossing the line, falling to the ground and needing help to get over to the fence where he would eventually connect with Cerone.
“I was just trying to put everything else I had into that finish, and I did,” Butkiewicz said. “I was on the ground at the end.”
Butkiewicz finished sixth at the Division 4 Cross Country Final last year before winning the 3,200-meter run in 9:25.52 and taking second in the 1,600 in 4:19.38 at the MHSAA Division 4 track meet.
“It means a lot, it really does,” he said. “I’ve worked so, so hard for this all season. Even from the end of track I knew I had a chance, so I wanted to do everything I could in the offseason and in season to get it done.
“It takes so much. It has to be your life. You have to dedicate every ounce of energy you have to doing this. I did that, and I made it possible and I won.”
Hillsdale Academy came into the meet ranked second in Division 4, but repeated as Finals team champion by winning for the third time in four years. The Colts scored 113 points to win by 40 over Holland Calvary.
Junior Grayson Rorick was fourth in 15:57.1 and senior Reece Poole eighth in 16:13.4 to lead Hillsdale Academy. Rorick has been in the lineup for all three of the Colts’ MHSAA championships, finishing as the fifth man as an eighth-grader in 2021.
Rounding out Hillsdale Academy’s scoring were junior James Rahe (37th in 16:55.9), junior Henry Lindley (47th in 17:05.4) and junior Luke Molenkamp (52nd in 17:12.8).
PHOTOS (Top) Kalamazoo Hackett Catholic Prep’s Marek Butkiewicz takes the final strides of his record-setting run Saturday at Michigan International Speedway. (Middle) Hillsdale Academy’s Grayson Rorick (1238) and Dansville’s Theodore Davis sprint for position on the way to the finish line. (Click for more from Dave McCauley/RunMichigan.com.)