Holland Christian Shows D3 Dominance
March 10, 2018
By Chris Stevens
Special for Second Half
UNIVERSITY CENTER – After finishing second in the state twice during his coaching career, Holland Christian’s Todd Smeenge had the unmistakable look of a champion following Saturday’s Lower Peninsula Division 3 swimming & diving championships at Saginaw Valley State University.
Smeenge’s hair, his shirt and his shorts were all wet. Only championship coaches know that feeling.
Smeenge’s team, led by superb performances from seniors Skylar Cook-Weeks and Ian Miskelley, unseated four-time reigning champion Bloomfield Hills Cranbook Kingswood to capture the title. Holland Christian finished with 326.50 points, easily out-distancing East Grand Rapids which finished second with 240 points. Spring Lake was third with 201 points, while Cranbook was fourth at 197.
“It’s a great feeling,” Smeenge said. “Between Cranbrook and East Rapids, they’re the perennial favorites, so it’s a good feeling (to win the title.)”
It was the first time Holland Christian’s boys had won a Finals swim title since 1989. Smeenge has led the Maroons to a pair of runner-up finishes during his time as coach, in 1990 and 2011.
Cook-Weeks, meanwhile, was at his absolute best en route to winning two individual titles and being part of two first-place relay teams. Cook-Weeks finished his high school career with seven Finals titles.
And Saturday’s team finish topped it all off.
“It feels fantastic,” Cook-Weeks said moments after he and his teammates, along with their head coach, carried out the tradition of jumping into the pool to celebrate. “To go out my senior year by winning a state championship, you can’t ask for anything more than that. It just feels great to be able to do it with these guys. I’m going to miss being with them.”
Cook-Weeks won individual titles in the 200-yard freestyle and the 500 freestyle. His time of 1:37.27 in the 200 free set a new LP Division 3 Finals record. In the 500, he broke his own meet record with a time of 4:25.84.
“His work ethic in the pool is just outstanding,” Smeenge said. “It drives everybody else. That’s the thing that I will think of and remember the most about him.”
Cook-Weeks also was part of the winning 200 and 400 relay teams. His teammates on the 200 team were Miskelley, junior Brad Windemuller and junior Jacob Heeres; and on the 400 team were Heeres, junior Riley VanMeter and senior Luke Mason.
“We wanted to go into the meet by doing the best that we could, and we came out the way we wanted to be,” Cook-Weeks said of the mindset that he and his teammates had entering the meet as the top-ranked team.
The Maroons’ Miskelley also turned in a stellar performance. He won a pair of individual titles, capturing the 200 individual medley in a meet record time of 1:49.58. He also placed first in the 100 backstroke in a meet-record time of 49.05 seconds.
Mason was second in the 200 free and third in the 500.
“We obviously lose some big guns (to graduation) with Skylar, Ian and Luke,” Smeenge said. “But we’ve got a nice group of guys who are returning and who scored points for us. I don’t know if it’s going to be enough to win a state championship again, but we’re going to give it a shot.”
In other events, Christian Bart of East Grand Rapids won the 50 free in 20.31 seconds, breaking his previous meet record in the race. Nolan Briggs of Byron Center captured the 100 butterfly in 49.16 seconds, and Spring Lake’s Cam Peel placed first in the 100 free in a meet-record time of 44.97.
Bart also repeated in the 100 breaststroke in 56.07 seconds, just off his meet record time of 55.82 set last season.
St. Johns’ junior Cayden Petrak won the diving championship with 470.35 points, edging East Grand Rapids sophomore Nick Merritt by a mere 1.5.
PHOTOS: (Top) Holland Christian hoists its LP Division 3 championship trophy Saturday. (Middle) Swimmers launch during the 400 freestyle relay. (Click for more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
Cranbrook Extends Finals Win Streak to 3; Farner, Otsego's Smith Claim Multiple Titles
By
Brad Emons
Special for MHSAA.com
March 15, 2025
YPSILANTI – Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood is no stranger to MHSAA boys swimming & diving championships.
And the Cranes, led by junior standout A.J. Farner, made it three straight Saturday and seven overall scoring a team-high 357 points to reach the podium. They finished ahead of runner-up Holland Christian (282.5) and third-place East Grand Rapids (264) at the Lower Peninsula Division 3 Finals at Eastern Michigan University’s Jones Natatorium.
Farner figured in four firsts to lead the way, winning the 200-yard freestyle (1:40.15) and 100 backstroke (49.54) while also being part of victorious relay teams in the 200 medley (1:33.78) and 400 freestyle (3:07.95).
Senior teammate Joseph Wiater also brought home a first in the 100 breaststroke (56.57).
“I didn’t know what to expect coming in, but because of great coaching things went my way, so no complaints,” Farner said. “I have (had) mononucleosis for the past three months. My coaches have done a really good job kind of limiting me and limiting what I’m doing. I didn’t know what to expect, but the team and the coaches did a really good job preparing me. It went my way and better than I expected.”
Cranbrook coach Paul Ellis said Farner has a special quality that can’t often be duplicated.
“A.J. is an incredibly talented kid,” Ellis said. “The reason he is able to come out and do this is he’s a great example of a kid that puts in all work in the offseason. Yes, he’s got a lot of genetic gifts, but that doesn’t set him up without training his tail off and working his butt off. ... He puts in the work out of season, so when he gets here, he can rely on that training even though he runs into a hiccup like mono. He couldn’t do any more than 3,000 yards the past three months and yet he came out here, relied on his training and was incredibly successful in all his races.”
In his final hurrah as a prep swimmer, Wiater earned his first individual Finals title.
“It was exciting. I swam with so much pride,” Wiater said. “It was just a great time. I’m officially done with swimming. I’m not going anywhere to (swim) college or anything, so I’m super excited that I pulled it off.
“First, I was telling myself, ‘This is it. It’s my last race ever.’ We are competing with Holland Christian for first place and we needed the first. I told myself, ‘I just got to get this. This is my last four lengths, and I’m done the rest of my life.’”
Coming out of Friday’s prelims, Cranbrook boasted a total of 20 individual qualifiers – the most of any school – heading into consolation and finals heats.
Cranbrook’s second-seeded 200 medley relay got the team off to a roaring start by winning going away as freestyle anchor leg Calvin Meeker brought it home in 1:33.78, teaming up with Farner, Wiater and Ethan Xu for a repeat championship in the event.
Another of the meet’s individual stars was Otsego junior Liam Smith, who repeated as champion in the 200 individual medley (1:49.07) and 100 butterfly (48.68). His performance in the 200 IM was an All-American automatic time, while his butterfly clocking earned All-America consideration.
“Obviously last year was exciting, this year was exciting, the state meet is always exciting,” Smith said. “You always want to perform your best. I didn’t go my best time, but you can’t complain about winning. I’m good with that.”
Smith, who brought the team’s wooden hammer to the victory podium after winning the 100 butterfly, boasts five individual Finals titles for his career, including three straight in the butterfly.
“Anyone who gets on the podium gets the hammer,” Smith said. “I was a little disappointed in my times, but you can’t do your best every time. I can be happy about winning. It never gets old. It’s awesome.”
In one of the most competitive races of the day, junior Jack Higgins of Detroit Country Day clocked a first-place time of 21.01 in the 50 freestyle to hold off Holland Christian’s Basil Ledesma and Adrian’s Kade Opsal, who tied for second with identical times of 21.26.
Higgins was runner-up a year ago in 20.79 to Grand Rapids Christian senior Ben Sytsma, who went 19.98. Last school year the 6-foot-5, 220-pound Higgins also played football, but decided to concentrate solely on swimming for 2024-25.
“This year was more open for me,” said Higgins, who does plan to play golf this spring for the Yellowjackets. “I’ve been thinking about winning ever since then. I just feel really good to do it. I’ll really reflect on everything after the meet is over, but I just feel really good right now.”
Higgins was also the top seed in the 100 freestyle and became the meet’s second double individual winner with a first-place clocking of 45.95 to better his 46.17 prelim time from Friday.
Meanwhile, Plainwell junior Sam Harper was seeded second in the 500 freestyle but overcame Flint Powers Catholic senior Liam Seifert, the top seed, and touched the wall first in 4:34.62, almost five seconds ahead of the runner-up.
Harper was fourth a year ago in 4:39.90, while Seifert was third in 4:38.03. The two have had a spirited and friendly rivalry.
“Me and Seifert go back-and-forth, race-to-race, it has been for a while now,” Harper said. “He’s a good guy, but it’s all good to take this one home. The prelims I was going strong and steady, just making sure I had enough gas in the tank the next day.”
Grand Rapids Christian took a highly-competitive 200 freestyle relay race as seniors Tyler Stinton and Evan Nelson along with juniors Sawyer O’Grady and Emmett Vance posted a time of 1:27.26 to hold off runner-up Spring Lake (1:28.10), Cranbrook (1:28.14), East Grand Rapids (1:28.16) and Hamilton (1:28.62).
In the 1-meter diving, Holland Christian senior Parker Schut held off a strong challenge from Rowen Bishop of East Grand Rapids to earn his first Finals title.
Schut, a year-round diver, finished sixth last year, fifth as a sophomore and ninth as a freshman. He tallied 511.95 points, while Bishop, who posted the best Regional dive score in D3 with a 524.65, wound up with 471.05 on Saturday.
“Wow, I’m very, very excited right now,” said Schut, who plans to continue his diving career at Davenport University where he’ll study business. “Dreamed about it last night, dreamed about it the day before. I’m so excited. I don’t know what else to say. It was my second-to-last dive, my 205, a back 2½ tuck, and it was just perfect top, good kick-out, good entry and I think that’s what finished it off.”
Cranbrook-Kingswood added an exclamation point in the meet’s final event, winning the 400 freestyle relay ahead of Holland Christian (3:08.74) with Sean Lu, Ryan Van Dyke, Xu and Farner comprising the victorious quartet.
“We’ve got great coaches in Paul Ellis, Greg Palmer, Marissa Blumenthal and John Hovy – great leadership,” Farner said. “We’ve had a really great group of seniors the past three or four years on the team. Great guys leading the group. They’ve done a really good job of rallying the team together, making great ideas and goals for our team.”
Meanwhile, Ellis had nothing but praise for his team.
“They are a group that really cares about each other and to me a group of kids – they want to be special, they will do anything asked of them no matter how hard or grueling practices are,” he said. “They always step up. They rally behind each other and they do all the little things – they show up, they show on time, they’re prepared and they bust their butt. And to me, having a group of kids that are coachable, that are willing to work hard, sets the tone for success season-in and season-out.”
PHOTOS (Top) Cranbrook’s Joseph Wiater swims to the championship in the 100 breaststroke during Saturday’s LPD3 Finals at Eastern Michigan University. (Middle) Otsego’s Liam Smith swims to the title in the 200 IM. (Below) Plainwell’s Sam Harper pushes through on the way to the win in the 500 freestyle. (Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)