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.)
Hackett on Track to Roll Again with Distance Ace Among Those Leading Charge
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
March 12, 2024
KALAMAZOO — After breaking one track record as a freshman, Marek Butkiewicz already has his eyes on two more.
Not bad for a runner who did not even plan to run track during his years at Hackett Catholic Prep, a surprise to co-coach Shelly Germinder.
“I had heard plenty about him from some of the ultras (marathons) and different other races he had done,” Germinder said. "His commitment to the sport came through before we ever laid eyes on who he was. We knew he was going to be an asset to us.”
The current sophomore was not so sure.
“At the end of cross country (freshman year), I didn’t even think I wanted to do track,” Butkiewicz said. “Then I did it and it was ‘This is kind of fun.’
“I was good at it. I honestly didn’t have any desire going into (track season), and then I ran a couple fast times and I thought, ‘I can actually do this.’”
Butkiewicz said his freshman cross country season in 2022 was the first time he really took running seriously, and his interest was boosted when he ran a 17:31 at the Kalamazoo Christian Invitational.
“I was super happy to get the freshman record there,” he said.
This past season, Butkiewicz shattered Hackett’s sophomore cross country record, running a personal best 16:12.2 at the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 4 Final, demolishing the record set by Bryan Martin (16:56) in 2000.
That record also has special meaning to Germinder. Martin is her brother.
The Irish finished in third place at the Final last fall, one point behind Holland Calvary Christian.
With the start of the spring sports season this week, the Hackett boys are hoping to make it three Finals track & field titles in a row and five over six years.
Last year’s boys team made it a sweep, winning the Southwestern Athletic Conference, Regionals, MHSAA Finals and Michigan Interscholastic Track Coaches Association (MITCA) Team State Finals.
The boys and girls teams also earned MITCA Division 4 academic awards, the girls with a cumulative 3.986 GPA and the boys with a 3.909 GPA.
This year’s team has grown from a combined 54 athletes last year to 64 with 38 boys and 26 girls.
“I think the students as a whole are seeing the successes of the team, but I also think it’s some of the flexibility we have in our sport,” Germinder said. “We know there are kids who want a dual sport and want to be involved in other things, and we want that for them, too.
“In a small school, we can’t be successful if we don’t have kids involved in multiple sports because there just aren’t enough bodies.”
Co-coach Charissa Dean said this year’s boys team will have a different look.
“We lost Liam (Mann), who was a really strong sprinter, and he left some big shoes to fill,” she said. “We have a nice nest egg of freshmen and sophomores.
“We had a junior (Gabe Oeurn) last year who is coming into his own, if you look at his track record from freshman to sophomore to junior. Last year, we had Sam Finley who was a freshman, and a sophomore (Jude Coffman) who was first time out.”
Lofty goals
Butkiewicz’s goal is to break his own school 3,200-meter record plus the 1,600-meter record, currently held by Jose Garza (4:27.4 set in 1976).
He’s pursuing a 9.25 in the 3,200 and 4.20 in the 1,600, while his long-term goal is breaking four minutes, hopefully running at a Division I university.
“His dedication, his commitment,” Germinder said. “You can’t teach that. That’s something he does on his own that comes from within. Snow, rain, whatever it is, he’s out there running, no matter what.”
The sophomore said he had no clue about records when he was a freshman, but after turning in a 10:37 in his first 3,200, then 10:05 followed by a 10 flat, he realized a record was in reach.
Butkiewicz credits his dedication for his success.
“I put in hundreds of miles a month, thousands a year, just into grinding and working toward goals,” he said. “I’ll shoot for 40-45 (miles) in-season. Offseason, when I’m building my aerobic base, I want 50 and upwards.”
As a freshman, he found a running buddy in then-junior Gavin Sehy.
“He was the fastest for the past two years and I was a little ahead of him, so we just stuck with each other and trained together,” Butkiewicz said. “Over the winter we started doing a couple miles together.”
Sehy, who is headed to Southwestern Michigan College in the fall, is shooting to break the school’s 800 record plus the 3,200 running with Nick Doerr, Alex Dumont and Butkiewicz.
Sehy was also a running buddy in cross country, finishing second on the team at 16:21.
“(Sehy) always had the potential, but it wasn’t until Marek came along that he started doing that training in the summer,” Dean said. “It has made a massive difference.”
Sehy and Butkiewicz competed in two ultramarathons (more than 26.2 miles) over the summer.
“I had never ran a marathon before, but somehow Marek convinced me to run 38 miles at Kettle Moraine State Forest (Wisconsin),” Sehy said. “And I did. Later in the summer, I ran 50 in Holly, Michigan.”
In the Wisconsin ultra, Butkiewicz was trying to finish the 100-mile run with Sehy pacing him for about 40 miles.
“I ended dropping at mile 75 because of some hip issues but he kept going and finished it,” Butkiewicz said. “The second one in Holly, I was doing 100 miles and he was doing 50, so we pretty much ran together for the first 50.”
Sehy said the two share the same mentality, which makes it easy to have a training buddy.
“We both really want it so bad, and we’re not afraid to do crazy things to get it,” he said. “Last year, during track, we needed to get some more miles in but just ran out of time during the week, so Sunday night we were out running 18 miles until after the sun went down out in the forest.”
Germinder said Sehy has noted he needs to have another runner to really push him.
“That’s one of the really beautiful things about the relationship they have,” she said. “It’s a healthy competition between them, but they want what’s best for each other, too.”
Butkiewicz lives near a land preserve where the two do much of their training, no matter what the weather, and they make it fun, jumping icy puddles and eating berries along the way.
“The coldest day of the year we ran with no shirts just because we could,” Sehy laughed.
When Sehy isn’t available to train, “I’ve been training a lot with Sean Siems; he’s a sophomore, a huge rising talent,” Butkiewicz said.
New year, new leaders
This year’s team will have a different look.
“We lost Liam and Bryce Brown and Nathan Buchmann (discus and only individual Finals champ),” Sehy said. “It’s tough to lose your best guys, but I think we have so much depth on this team, I think we’ll be all right.”
Just two weeks into the young season, Hackett will be on spring break, so many of the athletes pushed the coaches to schedule a meet before then.
They found one in the Onsted Early Bird Meet on March 20.
“They want to see where they are going into spring break to know, is there extra work we need to do during spring break,” Germinder said. “Having a competition will tell them where they’re at.
“If you do nothing (over spring break), then you’re starting all over again. I think a lot of our athletes recognize that and know they have to work a little more.”
Besides Butkiewicz and Sehy, leaders on the team include pole vaulters/sprinters Jack Prom and Lauren Wild.
“Keegan Gallagher is our biggest cheerleader and keeps the team in good spirits,” Germinder added. “He brings something that isn’t just on the track.”
With such large numbers, “If they’re not competing, we like to take them with us on the bus anyway,” Dean said. “They can help support their teammates, they can run a stopwatch, they can take video of the relay handoffs so we can go back and look at it later.”
In spite of the success on the track or in the field, Germinder said she is most proud of the athletes as people.
“With that leadership comes responsibility of good sportsmanship, how they’re interacting with other teams on the line,” she said. “I love watching our boys praying together with other teams before they’re getting ready to run. Or shaking hands before or after, especially sprinting events. It says a lot about who we are.”
Pam Shebest served as a sportswriter at the Kalamazoo Gazette from 1985-2009 after 11 years part-time with the Gazette while teaching French and English at White Pigeon High School. She can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Calhoun, Kalamazoo and Van Buren counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Kalamazoo Hackett Catholic Prep’s Marek Butkiewicz rounds a curve during a race last season. (2) Butkiewicz shows the school record board, including his 3,200 entry earned last season. (3) Hackett track coaches Charissa Dean, left, and Shelly Germinder hold up last season’s MHSAA Finals championship trophy. (4) The Hackett 3,200 relay, from left: Gavin Sehy, Alex Dumont, Nick Doerr and Butkiewicz. (Action, coaches and relay photos courtesy of the Kalamazoo Hackett Catholic Prep boys track & field program; record board photo by Pam Shebest.)