Fornari, Sacred Heart Join Finals Greats
November 7, 2015
By Bill Khan
Special for Second Half
BROOKLYN — The feeling of elation had yet to replace the feeling a runner gets after laying it all on the line.
Walking away from the finish line, Tessa Fornari of Waterford Our Lady of the Lakes was breathing heavily, even though she finished with plenty of breathing room to win the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 4 individual cross country championship Saturday at Michigan International Speedway.
"I don't think it's really sunk in yet," Fornari said as she continued to walk.
After a couple of heavy breaths and a pause, it had apparently sunk in.
"I'm gonna cry," she said.
Fornari, a senior, led last year's Division 4 Final through the mile, but faded to eighth in a race won by Ava Strenge of Battle Creek St. Philip. This year, Fornari let Strenge lead most of the way before overtaking her to win in 18:14.5. Strenge, a junior, was second in 18:23.5.
"Oh, my gosh," Fornari said. "There's so much time leading up to this one moment. All the pace work, all the pain. Finally, right here, is where it all gets paid back."
It was a wiser and more confident Fornari who stood on the start line for the first of eight races on Saturday at MIS.
She had two MHSAA championships on her resume from last spring, winning the 1,600-meter run in 5:06.39 and coming back to take the 3,200 in 11:33.70 at the LP Division 4 Track and Field Final. Last fall had represented a step backward in cross country for Fornari, who was third in the cross country finals in 2012 and second in 2013. She is a four-time regional champion.
"The 1,600 and 3,200 in track really prepared me for this," Fornari said. "A state title was kind of intimidating to me at first, but then I did it and realized it's really just a title. It's about running the best you can that day. Today I wanted to do the best I could. I know I did my best, because I can't feel my legs or my arms."
Scrapping her front-running tactics from last year, Fornari didn't make her move until shortly after the leaders entered the track. Once Fornari committed to a move, it was decisive.
"I didn't want to pass her at first, because I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep it," said Fornari, the first Our Lady of the Lakes boy or girl to win an MHSAA title in cross country. "I decided I had to do it at some point, so I did it at that turn back there. I just sprinted the last 800 meters, 1,000 meters, because I did not want to lose it. I said, 'I'm here now, I want to stay here,' so I sprinted the whole thing."
In the team race, Mount Pleasant Sacred Heart staked a claim to being the best Division 4 girls team of all-time.
The Irish set an LP Division 4 record with 52 points, breaking the record of 66 set by Harbor Springs in 2009. Sacred Heart also became the first Division 4 girls team to have five runners break the 20-minute mark at MIS.
Ann Arbor Greenhills had four runners break 20 minutes in 2005, but finished third that year because its fifth runner crossed in 23:10.9.
Junior Alexis McConnell was fourth in 18:55.6, sophomore Bailley McConnell was fifth in 19:11.4, freshman Scout Nelson was 10th in 19:19.4, freshman Cammie McConnell was 17th in 19:31.2 and freshman Lauren MacDonald was 26th in 19:59.2.
The Irish could've still won by including No. 6 runner Megan Nowak (36th, 20:26.8) or No. 7 runner Rowan Fitzpatrick (20:45.0), both sophomores. All seven Sacred Heart runners broke 20 minutes in the Regional.
Sacred Heart's only other MHSAA title came in Class D in 1999. The Irish was third last season, the second-best finish in school history.
Harbor Springs was second Saturday with 119 points, while Saugatuck was third with 124. Two-time reigning champion Beal City was fourth with 156 points.
The MHSAA Cross Country Finals are sponsored by the Michigan National Guard.
PHOTOS: (Top) Waterford Our Lady’s Tessa Fornari races down the stretch on the way to the LP Division 4 individual title. (Middle) Mount Pleasant Sacred Heart’s Bailley McConnell, left, works to stay ahead of Concord’s Samantha Saenz. (Click for more from RunMichigan.com.)
DaDamio Follows Sister as Elite Pacesetter
October 10, 2019
By Keith Dunlap
Special for Second Half
While the best part of a cross country or track race is the sprint to the finish line, it was actually having the race be over that excited Audrey DaDamio the most.
Growing up, DaDamio loved watching older sister Rachel, who finished second at the 2014 Lower Peninsula Division 1 Cross Country Final and won the 1,600 meters at the LPD1 Track & Field Finals the following spring. But Audrey enjoyed a postrace ritual with Rachel even more.
Once a race was over, Audrey DaDamio would join her older sister on the track or at the end of the cross country course and do a cool-down run with her, the only time the two could run together at meets since they were six years apart.
“I was such in awe watching her race,” DaDamio said.
Fast forward a few years, and more and more race fans are finding themselves in awe of watching Audrey DaDamio run.
Now a junior in high school and member of Birmingham Seaholm’s cross country team, DaDamio should be on the short list of contenders at this year’s Division 1 meet Nov. 2 at Michigan International Speedway.
DaDamio is off to a terrific start to this season. She won the first Oakland Activities Association Red jamboree in September in a time of 18:02.16. This past Saturday, she was the individual champion at the Oakland County meet held at Kensington Metro Park, besting a competitive field in a time of 18:09.3.
DaDamio also finished fifth in the “elite” race at the prestigious Spartan Invite at Michigan State University and has built on a performance that exceeded her expectations at last year’s LPD1 Final at MIS, where she finished 11th.
“My goal was to be top 20, so coming away 11th, I was really excited about that,” DaDamio said. “It definitely made my goals for this season a lot higher.”
DaDamio said she started running track in fifth grade, mainly because she was inspired by Rachel’s accomplishments.
“My goal was to be how she is,” DaDamio said of Rachel, who went on to run cross country and track at Notre Dame.
Before the MHSAA spring track season in March, DaDamio competed at an indoor national track event in New York, where she finished 15th.
She then finished fifth at the Division 1 Track Finals in the 3,200-meter run and placed seventh in the 1,600-meter run to set the stage for this cross country season.
Seaholm head coach Craig McCardell said a big reason for DaDamio’s success is how well she knows her body and how to train.
“She intuitively knows when she can train hard and when she knows her body needs to recover,” McCardell said. “From this, she has avoided interruption in her training caused by injuries.”
DaDamio didn’t run in the second OAA Red jamboree because of soreness after running in a meet a couple of days prior. Instead, she rested up for her winning performance at the county meet and has her eyes set on the third league Jamboree, the Regional meet, and of course, the Finals.
DaDamio said she has a goal of finishing among the top three in Division 1, and hopes learning some technical aspects of the course the last two years will pay dividends in November.
“Last year was kind of my first taste of being in a lead pack and being with girls who I know are very fast,” she said. “You have to put yourself into a position to be successful. Last year at states, by the two-mile mark, I wanted to be in the chase pack. That’s what I did, and it worked out. Hopefully this year, it will be kind of the same thing. That second mile, it’s going to be really hard. But I just have to stay mentally in the race.”
PHOTO: Birmingham Seaholm’s Audrey DaDamio races to an 11th-place finish during last season’s Lower Peninsula Division 1 Final at Michigan International Speedway. (Photo courtesy of Seaholm cross country.)