Finals Aspirations Drive Experienced Laker Cross Country Teams as 2025 Chase Begins
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
August 21, 2025
When Aubrey Zarnke started running cross country nine years ago in the Elkton Pigeon Bay Port Laker elementary program, she wasn’t thinking about being part of a varsity turnaround.
In fact, it wasn’t something she thought was possible until the end of her sophomore season, two years ago.
“It was a lot different (when I started), the team was a lot smaller, but I just kind of joined and I stayed with it,” Zarnke said. “It kept growing and got so much more fun. I would say when our boys varsity team won the league championship (in 2023), that was a really big thing. Then it kept getting bigger, and records kept getting broken.”
Now a senior, Zarnke is part of a cross country renaissance at Laker, with both boys and girls teams coming off Big Thumb Conference titles and having their eyes on a trip to the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 3 Finals on Nov. 1 at Michigan International Speedway. The boys advanced as a team a year ago for the first time since 1994, while the girls are looking for their first trip.
“I feel like it’s a lot better than if only one was doing it,” Zarnke said. “It’s almost like we’re lighting a fire in each other and pushing even more to be better.”
Mike Klosowski, a 1999 Laker graduate and former runner at the school, took over the program in 2009. At that point, he said, getting enough kids to score as a team was hard.
He got to work building elementary and middle school programs, and it’s paying dividends – not only in quality, but quantity.
Now, the boys are carrying nine runners, and the girls have 11.
“This has been a lot of fun,” Klosowski said. “I’ve taken some of the stuff I did and that my coaches taught me when I was in cross country, and now we’re doing that same thing in the same locations, same spots. That’s kind of fun.”
As this current group was coming up through his program, Klosowski could see the potential.
“When a lot of this core group was in middle school, they had some great success, so I thought they could be very good if they could stay together and keep working hard,” Klosowski said. “A lot of it is their offseason willingness to put time in and work. But also the fact they’re just a real tight group. They get along real well, work well together, push each other and keep each other on track. They’re like a big family, and it’s great to see that.”
This year’s Laker teams look a lot like last year’s teams, as both bring back the majority of their runners.
For the boys, six of the seven runners who competed at the MHSAA Finals are returning, including junior Evan Olson, who holds the school record at 16 minutes, 16.2 seconds. Olson finished two places from earning all-state a year ago.
Sophomore Kale Miklovic, juniors Henry Haag and Noah Mantey, and seniors Achilles Jackson and Jeffrey Ignash also return from the Finals-qualifying team.
Miklovic and Olson both won their first race of the year, as the Lakers ran at the Hemlock Huskie Classic, which runs a freshmen/sophomore race and a junior/senior race.
Two other freshmen – Walter Haag and Jonah Mantey – also placed among the top seven, adding more strength to an already established team.
Also in that boat is junior Noah Young, who had not run since middle school.
On the girls size, Zarnke is one of two runners who qualified for the Finals last year as an individual, as she was joined in Brooklyn by junior Pyper Braun.
The Lakers were two points away from tying for third place in last year’s Regional, and all six runners who competed that day have returned, also including sophomores Lydia Popp and Julia Shupe, junior Olivia Hooper and senior Payton Scott.
Hooper is also a returning Finals qualifier, having raced at MIS as a freshman. She’s healthy now after being slowed by injuries a year ago.
That core, plus the motivation of getting so close a year ago, has the Laker girls fired up to make that first run to the Finals.
“It would be crazy,” Zarnke said. “We’ve already got so much support from the community just with us growing. But that would be amazing. I don’t even know how to describe it.”
Laker was scheduled to run today at the Birch Run Early Invitational, a meet that features some of the top schools in the state in all divisions.
Among them are teams Laker would be competing with at the Regional this year, like Ithaca and St. Louis.
“We had a good talk on Monday, reflecting back on the (Hemlock) meet on Friday and how it was our first meet,” Klosowski said. “This week at Birch Run, there are a lot of schools we’ll see at Regionals, and we talked about how we want to set the tone early, and put our mark and our stamp on things. Show everyone that we’re the real deal.”
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) Elkton-Pigeon-Bay Port Laker’s Aubrey Zarnke (2027) races toward the finish during last season’s MHSAA Finals at MIS. (Middle) Evan Olson (840) works to outpace a pair of runners during the closing stretch of his Finals race. (Photos by RunMichigan.com.)
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Field Hockey Debut, Tennis Finals Change Among Most Notable as Fall Practices Set to Begin
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
August 8, 2025
The addition of girls field hockey as a sponsored postseason championship sport and a revised schedule for Lower Peninsula Boys Tennis Finals are the most significant changes to fall sports as practices are set to begin Monday, Aug. 11, for an anticipated 100,000 high school athletes at Michigan High School Athletic Association member schools.
The fall season includes the most played sports for both boys and girls; 36,210 football players and 19,679 girls volleyball players competed during the Fall 2024 season. Teams in those sports will be joined by competitors in girls and boys cross country, field hockey, Lower Peninsula girls golf, boys soccer, Lower Peninsula girls swimming & diving, Upper Peninsula girls tennis and Lower Peninsula boys tennis in beginning practice next week. Competition begins Aug. 15 for cross country, field hockey, golf, soccer and tennis, Aug. 20 for swimming & diving and volleyball, and Aug. 28 for varsity football.
Field hockey is one of two sports set to make its debut with MHSAA sponsorship during the 2025-26 school year; boys volleyball will play its first season with MHSAA sponsorship in the spring.
There are 37 varsity teams expected to play during the inaugural field hockey season. There will be one playoff division, with the first MHSAA Regionals in this sport beginning Oct. 8 and the first championship awarded Oct. 25.
To conclude their season, Lower Peninsula boys tennis teams will begin a pilot program showcasing Finals for all four divisions at the same location – Midland Tennis Center – over a two-week period. Division 4 will begin play with its two-day event Oct. 15-16, followed by Division 1 on Oct. 17-18, Division 2 on Oct. 22-23 and Division 3 played Oct. 24-25.
Also in Lower Peninsula boys tennis, and girls in the spring, a Finals qualification change will allow for teams that finish third at their Regionals to advance to the season-ending tournament as well, but only in postseason divisions where there are six Regionals – which will be all four boys divisions this fall.
The 11-Player Football Finals at Ford Field will be played this fall over a three-day period, with Division 8, 4, 6 and 2 games on Friday, Nov. 28, and Division 7, 3, 5 and 1 games played Sunday, Nov. 30, to accommodate Michigan State’s game against Maryland on Nov. 29 at Ford Field.
Two more changes affecting football playoffs will be noticeable this fall. For the first time, 8-Player Semifinals will be played at neutral sites; previously the team with the highest playoff-point average continued to host during that round. Also, teams that forfeit games will no longer receive playoff-point average strength-of-schedule bonus points from those opponents to which they forfeited.
A pair of changes in boys soccer this fall will address sportsmanship. The first allows game officials to take action against a team’s head coach in addition to any cautions or ejections issues to players and personnel in that team’s bench area – making the head coach more accountable for behavior on the sideline. The second change allows for only the team captain to speak with an official during the breaks between periods (halftime and during overtime), unless another coach, player, etc., is summoned by the official – with the penalty a yellow card to the offending individual.
A few more game-action rules changes will be quickly noticeable to participants and spectators.
- In volleyball, multiple contacts by one player attempting to play the ball will now be allowed on second contact if the next contact is by a teammate on the same side of the net.
- In swimming & diving, backstroke ledges will be permitted in pools that maintain a 6-foot water depth. If used in competition, identical ledges must be provided by the host team for all lanes, although individual swimmers are not required to use them.
- Also in swimming & diving – during relay exchanges – second, third and fourth swimmers must have one foot stationary at the front edge of the deck. The remainder of their bodies may be in motion prior to the finish of the incoming swimmer.
- In football, when a forward fumble goes out of bounds, the ball will now be spotted where the fumble occurred instead of where the ball crossed the sideline.
The 2025 Fall campaign culminates with postseason tournaments beginning with the Upper Peninsula Girls Tennis Finals during the week of Sept. 29 and wrapping up with the 11-Player Football Finals on Nov. 28 and 30. Here is a complete list of fall tournament dates:
Cross Country
U.P. Finals – Oct. 18
L.P. Regionals – Oct. 24 or 25
L.P. Finals – Nov. 1
Field Hockey
Regionals – Oct. 8-21
Semifinals – Oct. 22 or 23
Final – Oct. 25
11-Player Football
Selection Sunday – Oct. 26
District Semifinals – Oct. 31 or Nov. 1
District Finals – Nov. 7 or 8
Regional Finals – Nov. 14 or 15
Semifinals – Nov. 22
Finals – Nov. 28 and 30
8-Player Football
Selection Sunday – Oct. 26
Regional Semifinals – Oct. 31 or Nov. 1
Regional Finals – Nov. 7 or 8
Semifinals – Nov. 15
Finals – Nov. 22
L.P. Girls Golf
Regionals – Oct. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, or 11
Finals – Oct. 17-18
Boys Soccer
Districts – Oct. 8-18
Regionals – Oct. 21-25
Semifinals – Oct. 29
Finals – Nov. 1
L.P. Girls Swimming & Diving
Diving Regionals – Nov. 13
Swimming/Diving Finals – Nov. 21-22
Tennis
U.P. Girls Finals – Oct. 1, 2, 3, or 4
L.P. Boys Regionals – Oct. 8, 9, 10, or 11
L.P. Boys Finals – Oct. 15-16 (Division 4), Oct. 17-18 (Division 1), Oct 22-23 (Division 2), and Oct. 24-25 (Division 3)
Girls Volleyball
Districts – Nov. 3-8
Regionals – Nov. 11 & 13
Quarterfinals – Nov. 18
Semifinals – Nov. 20-21
Finals – Nov. 22
The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by more than 1,500 public and private senior high schools and junior high/middle schools which exists to develop common rules for athletic eligibility and competition. No government funds or tax dollars support the MHSAA, which was the first such association nationally to not accept membership dues or tournament entry fees from schools. Member schools which enforce these rules are permitted to participate in MHSAA tournaments, which attract more than 1.4 million spectators each year.