McNeill Regaining Finals Form, Aiming to Best Last Season's Close Seconds
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
May 21, 2026
The number 0.01 might be as miniscule as there is in sports, but it certainly was way more gigantic for Novi High School track sprinter Chance McNeill at last year’s Lower Peninsula Division 1 Finals.
First, McNeill nearly won the 100-meter dash but finished 0.01 -- one hundredth of a second -- back of Detroit Catholic Central’s Samson Gash (10.41).
As hard as it was to shake off, McNeill quickly did so and was right in the thick of the 200-meter dash. Ultimately, he finished second in that race as well to Jeremy Dixon of Kalamazoo Central (21.11), once again by 0.01.
Losing out on one Finals title by such a thin margin is tough enough. But falling short by that time twice in a matter of a couple hours? It probably felt like getting kicked in the gut by someone wearing track shoes with all the spikes on the bottom.
“Definitely the first few months after (the Finals), it was crazy,” McNeill said. “I’ve kind of gotten over it by now. But it’s been my motivation for sure.”
Indeed, McNeill is using that experience as fuel for the remaining days of his senior year and as he prepares to compete once again in those events at next week’s Division 1 Finals at Rockford.
Headed to run track next at Alabama, McNeill is actually just ramping back into peak form this spring.
He has been battling a lower leg injury suffered after running a 6.75 in the 60-meter dash during indoor season, saying he sprinted again about three weeks ago for the first time this outdoor season.
McNeill certainly looked to be getting back into form during a competitive Regional last week hosted by Novi.
He won the 100-meter dash with a time of 10.73 and then claimed the 200 meters in a time 21.84. Yes, he and the Novi coaches know he’ll have to be faster to win at the Finals, but it was a great sign of progress given where he has come from – and there is definitely another gear in him.
“To say that he’s back to form probably wouldn’t be accurate,” Novi boys track & field head coach Danny Taylor said. “What I mean by that is given all the personal training that he’s done, given the way in which he’s worked back, I think he’s poised to do great things at the state meet.”
Taylor said that he didn’t know anything about McNeill and his track prowess until he arrived at the high school for his freshman year but discovered quickly that McNeill was more than just an athlete running track to get in better shape for another sport. McNeill legitimately prioritized track & field.
“It seemed that when Chance came to us, he already had that love and that passion,” Taylor said. “We just wanted to stoke it further.”
McNeill said he initially ran track “for fun” when he started high school but got more serious about it when he got more involved with a local club and started running more meets outside of high school season.
Going into this spring, he said he was actually more intent on running the 400-meter dash, but his injury changed those plans.
“I’ve always wanted to do the 400,” he said. “Now, I just have to forget about that, just try it in college.”
McNeill will head to Rockford next week a year older and stronger, but then again so are other competitors. In particular, Gash, a Michigan State football signee, is also back in both events as he hopes to repeat in the 100 meters and improve on a third-place finish in the 200 from last year.
McNeill and Gash are the only top-five finishers in those races from last year who didn’t graduate.
McNeill hopes that he can be at least 0.01 seconds faster this time and end his high school career on top of the podium.
“I think whatever it takes, I’ve got it in me already,” McNeill said.
Keith Dunlap has served in Detroit-area sports media for more than two decades, including as a sportswriter at the Oakland Press from 2001-16 primarily covering high school sports but also college and professional teams. His bylines also have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Boston Globe. He served as the administrator for the Oakland Activities Association’s website from 2017-2020. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Novi’s Chance McNeill crosses the finish line during last season’s 100-meter championship race at the LPD1 Finals. (Middle) McNeill, second from right, races eventual champion Jeremy Dixon from Kalamazoo Central in last year’s 200, with DCC’s Samson Gash, far left, also among those in the field. (Click for more from RunMichigan.com/Carter Sherline.)
Clare Boys Hang On for 1st title since 2000
June 2, 2018
By Jeff Bleiler
Special for Second Half
COMSTOCK PARK – For the second straight year, the Lower Peninsula Division 3 boys track & field championship came down to the final race at Comstock Park.
Chesaning was the benefactor last season. On Saturday, it was Clare’s time.
The Pioneers finished third in the 1,600-meter relay, and although Berrien Springs won the event to finish with 42 points, Clare came away with the big team trophy with 44 points. Kent City finished third with 32 points.
Clare’s championship was its first in boys track since 2000, and coach Adam Burhans said he had a handle on the standings throughout most of the day.
“We came in expecting to fight a battle all day with Berrien Springs, Caro, Kent City, and that’s pretty much what happened,” he said. “Where one team would falter, one team would pick up points. I told the team that in this type of scoring, if you get in the realm of 40 points, you’ve got a shot.”
Berrien Springs likely found the outcome mildly shocking as Clare was nowhere in the top four with just three events left. The standings at the point did not account for the points that hadn’t been tallied in the discus, where Clare’s Noah Nivison won with a throw of 156 feet, 7 inches, and teammate Zac Stickler placed sixth. Stickler was also third in the shot put, which were 16 big points in the grand scheme.
But Burhans really has senior Xavier Martin to thank. Martin anchored two of Clare’s three all-state relays – and was the third leg of the other – and finished second in the 200 in 22.54 to Kent City’s Giovanni Weeks (22.36).
Clare was second in the 800 relay in 1:29.64 with junior Jake Hawley, sophomore Colt Smedley and Brenden Sersaw joining Martin; third in the 400 relay in 43.91 with the same group except Sersaw anchored ahead of Martin; and third in the all-important 1,600 relay with Sersaw, Smedley, senior Justin Tickle and Martin in the lineup.
Martin said the team watched Berrien Springs put up a 3:23.42 time in the heat before the Pioneers’ preliminary and knew it had a tough battle.
“It was a lot of pressure,” he said. “We watched them run and were like, ‘Oh my God, that’s a really good time.’”
Needing a finish no worse than fourth to claim the Finals championship, the Pioneers responded in the last boys event of the day.
“It’s a situation kids dream of, to make a last-second shot to win, but it’s not what a coach dreams of,” Burhans said, chuckling.
Elsewhere, Jackson Blanchard had some big shoes to fill at Houghton Lake in terms of the hurdle events. He’s wearing them quite well.
Blanchard, a senior, successfully repeated with championships in the 110 and 300 hurdles, claiming the 110 title in a meet record 14.23 seconds. That eclipsed the time of 14.3 set by Derrick Cook of Muskegon Oakridge in 2003.
Blanchard won the 300 hurdles in 37.79 seconds, beating his nearest opponent (Kalob Bellows of Lake City) by nearly two seconds.
But perhaps more satisfying to Blanchard was that he took down the school records set by his father and hurdling mentor, Thomas Blanchard.
“It is amazing (to win the state titles again),” Blanchard said. “I’m getting chills just thinking about it. Getting the 110 record was really cool, too; an amazing feeling. It’s a shocked, proud feeling. (After I won last year), I told my dad it was my goal to get first again, and that’s what I did.”
The younger Blanchard, who took up the hurdles even semi-seriously only as a sophomore, beat his father’s school record in the 300 that season. He topped the 110 several times this season, punctuated by Saturday’s time. Blanchard’s main focus was golf during the spring sports season, so he rarely practiced for track. As a sophomore, he competed in only the minimum number of meets he needed to qualify for Regionals.
“Imagine what I could do if I practiced,” said Blanchard, who next heads to Central Michigan University to run the 110 and 400 hurdles for the Chippewas.
In the field events, Jacob Ager of Boyne City sat seventh going into the final round of the shot put. On his last attempt, he launched a bomb 59 feet, 11 inches to comfortably win the championship. Jack Boyle of Roscommon was second at 58-1½.
The finish surprised even Ager.
“My first three or four attempts were not that good, but then my coach told me to explode back and focus on the snap at the end, and that’s what I did,” said Ager, whose best put of the day before the winner was 56-1. “It’s a good feeling (to win). I was looking at the rankings and thinking about it. It’s kind of surreal.”
Ager, who also finished 10th in the discus, is heading to Northern Michigan in the fall and will play football.
In the pole vault, Manton senior Zach Flint won after being the only athlete to clear 13 feet, 6 inches. Flint, who entered the meet with a vault of 13-0, failed in his quest to conquer 14 feet but already had first place in his pocket.
“It feels good to finally get a medal at states,” said the senior, who was 14th in Division 4 last season. “I knew I was better than that.”
Flint, who cleared 14-3 on Monday in winning the Cadillac News meet, will vault for Aquinas College in the fall.
Saugatuck junior Corey Gorgas was a double winner on the day, claiming the 1,600 in 4:15.74 and later adding the 3,200 in 9:17.32.
Caro won the 3,200 relay in 8:05.71 with juniors Yami Albrecht, Caleb Cotton, Bryden Miller and Aaron Hulburt.
Junior Caleb Schuette of Grandville Calvin Christian won the 100 in 11.10 seconds, and Hart senior Logan Wells won the 400 in 48.89 seconds. Leslie senior Devin Gibbs won the 800 in 1:55.88.
Sam Spaulding, a junior at Berrien Springs, won the high jump with a 6-7, and Quincy senior Bryce Ruhl won the long jump with a 21-¾.
VIDEO: Blanchard Doubles in D3 Hurdles
PHOTOS: (Top) Clare scored big in relays on the way to its first Finals title since 2000. (Middle) Houghton Lake's Jackson Blanchard pulls away from the field during one of his hurdles victories Saturday. (Photos by Annette Tipton. Click for more from RunMichigan.com.)