Pieces Adding Up for Addison Title Run
May 11, 2018
By Doug Donnelly
Special for Second Half
ADDISON – Aaron Wesche didn’t waste any time in setting some goals for the Addison boys track & field team.
“I told them at signups that we were going to compete for the Regional title, and our goal was to compete for the top three at the state meet,” Wesche said. “I wanted to put that out there.”
If the last few weeks of the track season end up anything like the first few, the Panthers are right on target. Wesche began building this year’s team in the middle of last season, preparing for what he and his assistants figured was going to be a strong year. Addison is ranked on top of the recent Michigan Interscholastic Track Coaches Association Division 4 team power rankings with individuals up and down the rankings list.
“We’re set up pretty good for MITCA,” he said. “I’m blessed to have a great group of juniors and seniors. We’ve turned into a well-rounded team.”
Addison scored 13 points at the 2017 MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 4 championship meet, good for 26th place. This year’s team is eyeing a big jump from that spot.
“We’ve looked at the Regional and, with some luck, we could possibly see ourselves scoring points in every event,” Wesche said. “Now, things would have to go our way, but it’s possible.”
Addison has talent throughout its lineup.
The 400 and 800-meter relay teams of Josh Brown, Dakota Knieper, Caleb Gramm and Dominic Young are steady and fast. Noah Hermansen has emerged in the 110 hurdles, and Gavin McAndrews has been a pleasant surprise in the pole vault.
Freshman Marquis Bills has been a big addition to the lineup in the high jump, where he competes with teammate Matt Sylvester. Brown and Knieper are joined in the 1,600 lineup by Jesse Mullin and Zac Steiner. Zach Morse is a strong distance runner. Knieper was all-state last year in the 400, and Young ranks among the top 10 in the division in the 100, according to the MITCA rankings.
In the field events, standout athlete Donovan Underwood is expected to push for a high finish in both the shot put and discus.
Underwood is trying to earn all-state notice in his third sport in this, his senior campaign. He was honorable mention again in football after compiling 91 tackles and 16 for loss as the Panthers tied for the Cascades Conference championship and made the playoffs. In wrestling he finished in the top eight in his weight class, and now he has a shot to improve on last year’s fourth-place showing at the MHSAA Finals in the shot put.
“Our goals are pretty high,” he said. “We can achieve them if we just stay focused on what is ahead of us.”
Underwood is one of four seniors on the 29-member track team, up six from last year’s 23 athletes. He said the group of seniors have been playing sports together since a young age and has always felt by the time they became seniors, the Panthers would be putting out some good sports teams. They haven’t disappointed.
“Ever since we were young, we played football together and have always wanted to make everything we do, including track, as fun as we can,” Underwood said.
In track, he credits Wesche with teaching him the right technique for the throws. Wesche was a throws coach at Siena Heights University in Adrian from 2008-2012.
“Coach Wesche is an amazing coach,” Underwood said. “He helps us a lot.”
Wesche is in his 18th year teaching at Addison and has coached track for a good chunk of those, other than his years at Siena Heights.
“In high school, I did track, but I wasn’t a star or anything,” he said. “I was more of a technique guy. I worked at having the best technique and how to refine that technique.”
At Addison, he’s also been a master at getting kids out for track and putting them in the right spots in the lineup. He introduces freshmen at Addison to track while they are in his classroom and displays some trophies and other track memorabilia in his room to help get the buzz going about the sport.
“The team we have this year, we started to put in place last year,” he said. “We started moving kids around then, finding hurdlers and working on the relays. Some of it was kind of luck. Things have worked out pretty well.”
At one point, he lined up the entire team to find someone to run the hurdles. Hermansen emerged and is now a threat to score points at the Finals.
“This is the most complete team we’ve ever had,” he said.
The Panthers are scheduled to compete at the Hillsdale Invitational this weekend and have an important Cascades Conference dual meet with Hanover- Horton on Tuesday.
“They have won the last several conference championships,” Wesche said. “As coaches, we still have to sit down and figure out where we are going to score points against them. That’s going to be a dog fight.”
After that, Addison has the Regional and the Cascades Conference championship meet and, hopefully for Panthers fans, the MITCA and MHSAA meets left to go.
“The most important four weeks are coming up right now,” he said. We’ve got to start shining. I want us to be known as a blue-collar team. We aren’t a team with a superstar. We come to work every single day and grind it out.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Addison thrower Donovan Underwood unloads a discus toss during a meet this season. (Middle) Dakota Knieper charges down the straightaway during one of his races. (Photos courtesy of the Addison boys track & field program.)
Belleville Boys Follow Davis-Price's Direction to Historic Championship
By
Steve Vedder
Special for MHSAA.com
May 31, 2025
KENTWOOD – Three years ago the Belleville athletic department asked Candice Davis-Price whether she was interested in taking a shot at making boys high school track & field history.
It took little time for her to buy into the notion – and then three springs to see it happen.
Davis-Price led Belleville to its first Finals championship in this sport in any division, and also became the first female coach to lead a Michigan boys track team to a Lower Peninsula Division 1 Finals title during Saturday's meet at East Kentwood. Belleville finished with 57 points to outdistance runner-up Northville, which finished with 35.
Previously an outstanding multi-sport athlete at Ann Arbor Pioneer, Davis-Price took over the Belleville program three years ago and quickly built a champion by accomplishing everything from collecting superior athletes for the sport to juggling a busy life off the track.
Heading her beliefs is that talent should be pointed toward where it's most likely to succeed.
"I coach athletes and not positions or events," she said. "It's important to identify talent and get guys to believe in whatever they're doing."
But a Finals title? In just three short seasons? Last year the Tigers came within a hair of winning, scoring 38 points to finish behind only Kalamazoo Central (41 points) and Clinton Township Chippewa Valley (39). Davis-Price said that finish both boosted her coaching status with male athletes and proved to them success could be had at the school in boys track – whoever the coach.
"I won't say (success) was expected, but it's become standard," said Davis-Price, a sprinter who won three Finals titles at Ann Arbor Pioneer and also was an outstanding three-year letterwinner in basketball. "Last year was kinda hard to stomach. We learned we had to be able to spread out the points, and we did."
Giving Belleville's chances a huge boost was senior Will (Jaiden) Smith, who turned a good junior season into going out with a bang this year. He won the 110 hurdles (13.35) and 300 hurdles (37.79) and finishing fifth in the 200 dash after a year after finishing fourth in the 110 hurdles, second in the 300 and just missed scoring in the 200. He was seeded first in the 300 and second in the 200 going into this Finals. He was also part of Saturday's winning 1,600 relay (3:15.52).
Smith said the key to making the jump from good to outstanding is not getting caught up in success.
"You can't get used to it because if you get comfortable, you'll fall back," he said. "I know they were going to be tough races, but you've got to push yourself to do better."
Grand Haven was third with 31 points, while Novi and Oak Park both had 28.
Belleville was outstanding in the relays, also winning the 400 (41.85) and 800 (1:26.50).
Among the other winners Saturday was senior Quincy Isaac of Canton, who claimed the long jump (24-11½) for a third-consecutive season. Each championship, Isaac said, featured a different pathway to the medal stand.
"Each year had different expectations, like with the first one I was nervous because I was one of the youngest guys there." he said. "There were still a lot of nerves as a junior and trying to win it twice in a row. This year I knew what I had to do, then I pulled a hamstring at the conference meet and didn't even go to the Regional. I didn't practice, didn't compete and came here with almost nothing."
One performer who did come to the meet with something was East Kentwood junior pole vaulter Reece Emeott. A Finals champ by nine inches last year and the son of Falcons coach Dave Emeott, Reece said there was one major difference between winning the event this year (16-0) as opposed to a year ago.
"This year was more about relief," he said. "We were expected to win, and it happened. Last year there was no pressure, no expectations. I could just jump how I jumped. This year was a huge relief."
The pole vault was particularly rugged this year as five of the top eight vaulters turned in personal bests.
Emeott said he already has designs on next season and a third individual title, but he expects a radically different showing. In the attempt to bolster the Falcons as a whole, he plans on spreading his talent to the long jump, 100-meter dash and maybe even a relay.
"The main goal will be to win a (team) state title," he said. "This is good, but that would be way better."
Samson Gash of Detroit Catholic Central won the 100-meter dash (10.41) after a strong second half to his race.
"I took the lead about halfway through and I like my time for sure," he said. “I knew it would be a fast (event), but there was no worry about times. It is what it is, but it was pretty exciting," he said. "It feels good, but I've got more work to do."
That work, however, may not come in track. He's being recruited by football programs including Illinois, Michigan State, Purdue, West Virginia and Vanderbilt.
"We're talking with the school and family about what we're going to do," he said.
Among other champs were two Walled Lake Central field event performers. Garrod Alexander won the shot (64-1.25), while Giovanni Charles took the high jump (6-8).
Also in field events, Ray Glory Ejoyokah of Birmingham Groves won the discus (179-3).
Other winners were senior Jeremy Dixon of Kalamazoo Central (21.11). A year ago he helped Central to the team championship by winning the 100 and finishing second in the 200 while also assisting on two winning relays.
Rounding out the other Finals champs were Byron Center’s Brady Leyendecker in the 400 (47.96), Wendell Childs of Clarkston in the 800 (1:50.71), Luka Hammond of Grand Haven in the 1,600 (4:09.69) and Beckett Crooks of Ann Arbor Pioneer in the 3,200 (9:00.80).
Northville won the 3,200 relay (7:41.24), and Oak Park the 1,600 (3:15.52).
PHOTOS (Top) Belleville hurdlers Will (Jaiden) Smith, right, and Schmar Gamble approach the finish in the 110 final Saturday. (Middle) Detroit Catholic Central's Samson Gash, right, and Novi's Chance McNeill set the pace in the 100 dash final. (Click for more from Carter Sherline/RunMichigan.com.)