Record-Setter Dzurka Dreaming Big, but First Focused on Goal #1: Stay Healthy
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
April 22, 2026
When it comes to end of season goals, Midland Dow senior Zach Dzurka is keeping it simple: Get there.
To an outsider, that aspiration might seem overly simple for a runner who has the state’s fastest 300-meter hurdles time and is ranked fourth in the 110 hurdles this spring, regardless of division. But after the opportunity to compete at the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 1 Finals was taken away from him a year ago, Dzurka is taking nothing for granted.
“Just try to keep on PRing (setting personal records) and hope to not get injured,” Dzurka said. “I’ve always been super injury-prone for some reason. But the goal is to keep myself healthy until states.”
Dzurka set a pair of Dow records on April 17 at the Graves/Swayze Relay Meet in Midland, running the 300 hurdles in 37.82 and 110s in 14.47. His 300-hurdle time is the fastest in the state so far this year, and just 0.03 seconds off last year’s Division 1 Finals championship time, run by Will Smith of Belleville, who has since graduated.
“I wouldn’t say surprising is the right word; this is totally expected for him,” Dow coach Jenna Oskvarek said. “He’s been working his butt off to make sure he can reach his goals. It was kind of only a matter of time, we knew (times this fast were) going to happen, we just didn’t know when. We couldn’t be happier.”
Dzurka, who also holds the school indoor record for the 60-meter hurdles (8.33), had already claimed the 300 hurdles record a year ago and was unbeaten in both outdoor hurdles events throughout the 2025 season.
But a persistent hamstring injury ended his season early.
“It wasn’t anything so extensive that it was season-ending, but we didn’t want to push it and injure him more long-term,” Oskvarek said. “It was more of a conversation with Zach about, ‘This is why we’re making the decision we are, so what do we need to do to support you to get you back to where you want to be?’ As much as we wanted the team to have success and wanted him to run, it’s not about us. He was completely understanding. There was disappointment, of course, but he knew why we made the decision we made and was totally on board. He could see the long-term reasons.”
Dzurka said the injury was never fully diagnosed, but it also wouldn’t go away.
“One practice I was hurdling and I felt like a mild sharp pain, and it would not stop,” he said. “It hurt each time I would hurdle. I thought it was going to get worse if I kept going. I was doing all the hamstring exercises, but it wouldn’t stop. It was really weird, because it finally stopped, literally the day after (the Finals). That was annoying.”
Dzurka said he has been battling smaller injuries since his sophomore year, when he suffered a bulging disc in his back during a soccer game. In that moment, his feet got crossed up after making a pass, and when he fell to the ground took all the impact on his knees, which triggered the back issue, as well as arthritis.
He believes a lot of the soft-tissue injuries he’s dealt with stem from that back injury, which he’s mostly managed, but does still continue to work through.
“I would look up online how to fix back pain or how to fix bulging discs,” he said. “Then I would just brute-force the exercises until the pain went away. I was a pretty good coach for myself.”
Dzurka gives a lot of credit to Oskvarek and the Dow coaching staff for helping him get healthy – and keep him that way.
“We’re staying hopeful and staying careful as we do with all our athletes, so we can maximize his success and make sure not to run him into the ground,” Oskvarek said.
When healthy, Dzurka continues to thrive on the track in events he wasn’t introduced to until he was a freshman. He recently signed to run at Saginaw Valley State, where Oskvarek believes the resources and training available will allow Dzurka to take another leap forward.
“We always talk about how, especially at Dow, we’ve had such luck with such amazing athletes over the years, but we tell them that if you’re having this much success in high school, once you get to college, it’s just another ceiling to be broken,” Oskvarek said. “We prepare them to know that you’re having so much success here, imagine what you can do in college.”
Dzurka said the 400 hurdles will likely be his specialty moving forward, as he’s already seeing he’s more built for longer races.
“Before the season I said I was going to go sub-14 in the 110s, and that’s something to shoot for,” he said. “But I have super long legs that take a long time to get going, so I don’t know about that. But before the season I was joking with my buddies that I was going to go sub-37 in the 300 hurdles, and that’s actually possible.”
Sub-37 seconds would put him in rare company, as just four Michigan runners have ever done it. And, if he accomplishes his first goal of getting to the Finals in good health, could very likely put him at the top of the podium.
“It really would mean a lot because of how much I know I’ve put into the sport,” Dzurka said. “Even at indoor states, I came in third place this year, and at indoor states last year, I had my first-ever false start. So, getting to redeem myself would be great.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Midland Dow’s Zach Dzurka, with baton, takes off to start a relay race. (Middle) Dzurka, middle, leads a hurdles race during an indoor meet at Saginaw Valley State. (Photos courtesy of the Midland Dow athletic department.)
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.)