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.)
Marquette Boys Extend Title Streak as Close Finishes Add to Memorable Run
By
Jason Juno
Special for MHSAA.com
February 15, 2025
MARQUETTE — There isn’t much suspense when it comes to the team titles these days at the Upper Peninsula Swimming & Diving Finals.
Host Marquette’s depth sets it apart year after year – but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any drama.
Kingsford’s Joey Lundholm didn’t think he’d win the 100-yard freestyle, but he did.
Marquette’s Isaiah Youngren rallied for two wins, an individual victory in the 100 breaststroke – which he thought he’d lost – and a team win in an exciting 200 freestyle relay.
The Sentinels came away with the team title Saturday, beating out runner-up Houghton 338-246. It was the sixth straight championship for Marquette and fifth consecutive second-place finish for the Gremlins. In all, Marquette has won 32 U.P. meets.
“We were down one of our top swimmers and had to change some things around,” Marquette coach Nathan McFarren said. “But, you know what, the whole team really rose to the occasion, knew what we had to do. Really proud of them.”
Youngren helped bring excitement to Marquette’s day.
The Sentinels were a half-second behind when he entered the pool in the 200 freestyle relay. It wasn’t unexpected. Their second leg, Chase Thomsen, had just competed in a grueling 500-yard race — ”He was cooked going into it, so I just knew I had to step up and get ready for that,” Youngren said. And they knew it would be close ahead of time, “but we didn’t think it was going to be that close,” he noted.
“That close” being 16 hundredths of a second faster than runner-up Houghton with a winning time of 1:36.09.
Shortly after joining the relay team on the podium, Youngren went to race in the 100 breaststroke, where he once again found himself playing catch up. The margin was even less there, six hundredths of a second, and he didn’t know he’d won until he looked at the scoreboard.
“I had no idea if I had won — I thought I had lost until I looked at the board and I was like, ‘What!?’” Youngren said. “I knew at the first 50 I was behind and I had to kick it into gear in the last 50. He had a really good third turn, so he got ahead there.
“As I was closing in the last 15 yards, I thought, ‘This is my final race as a senior, I got to leave it all out there.’ So I really kicked into that fifth gear and enjoyed it.”
It was his second straight win in the event at U.P. Finals, but last year’s margin of victory was measured in full seconds. Youngren had lost to Kingsford’s Thomas Gibbons earlier this year and even knew that he needed to finish in 1:06 to win this rematch. His final time: 1:06.20.
McFarren wasn’t surprised he came through.
“Isaiah is a very powerful person,” McFarren said. “If you got to see him today, you can tell he’s got a lot of the extra you need to be a top swimmer. He’s got the strokes, he’s got the technique, but he’s also got that adrenaline-rushing body that can’t help him but go fast in the big meet.
“I knew having him anchor — I didn’t know it was going to be that close in the 200 freestyle relay, but that was the guy we needed there.”
Marquette’s Trevor Crandell, a senior like Youngren, won the 50 freestyle (22.46), finishing just off the school record, and the Sentinels’ Wyatt Ansell was the diving champion (177.30 final score).
“Just all the seniors, what they’ve brought to this team, the camaraderie, the togetherness, one of my favorite teams,” McFarren said.
Lundholm had an exciting day as well. He won the 200 individual medley easily early in the meet in 2:09.74. Then he went to the 100 freestyle not expecting to win by a comfortable margin, or at all.
“It was one of the first events for a long time I didn’t know I was going to win, I didn’t really expect to win,” he said.
The senior won a lot of events this year by 10 seconds. In his last meet, he wanted to go out with a close, competitive race.
“I wanted something to get fear in your chest that you might not win it,” he said. “That’s why I went in the 100 free today.”
He sure got it.
Lundholm beat Marquette’s Crandell by less than a second for an exhilarating win with a time of 49.68 seconds.
“Incredible race,” he said. “It was the best of my life. I guarantee you I wouldn’t have gotten that time if Trevor wasn’t there and he didn’t push me. He’s a good guy.”
After missing U.P. Finals as a freshman because of sickness, Lundholm ended his career with six U.P. titles.
“I was a little sad, but I made up for it,” Lundholm said. “I haven’t lost an individual (race) yet in the U.P. Finals.”
Other individual winners were Houghton’s Collin Raasio in the 200 freestyle (1:58.28), Kingsford’s Bryce Johnson in the 100 butterfly (1:03.50), Rudyard’s Keith McDowell in the 500 freestyle (5:26.01), and Houghton’s Beau Haataja in the 100 backstroke (1:00.62)
Houghton won the 400 freestyle relay (3:34.43), and Kingsford took first in the 200 medley relay (1:48.85).
PHOTOS (Top) Marquette's Trevor Crandell celebrates his win in the 50-yard freestyle Saturday. (Middle) Marquette’s Wyatt Ansell begins one of his dives during Friday’s competition. (Below) Kingsford's Joey Lundholm swims the winning 200 individual medley. (Photos by Daryl T. Jarvinen. Click for more.)