Rochester's Cook, Dakota's Harberts Finding Fastest Strides at Championship Time
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
October 27, 2022
Peaking right before the biggest events is obviously something every athlete wants to do. But executing such a desire is way easier said than done.
Fortunately for cross country runners Jayden Harberts and Lucy Cook – top-10 finishers at last season’s Lower Peninsula Division 1 Final – that hasn’t been an issue.
With Regional meets this weekend and this season’s Finals at Michigan International Speedway the Saturday after that, Harberts and Cook reaching their top form right now might be bad news for other runners around the state.
Harberts, a junior at Macomb Dakota, earlier this month won her third consecutive Macomb County championship in a time of 18:25 at Stony Creek Metropark.
But Dakota coach Tom Zarzycki said that’s not all she’s done.
“She’s run three of her four fastest times within the last month,” Zarzycki said. “She’s definitely on the upswing.”
The same can be said for Cook, a sophomore at Rochester.
Cook won her second-straight Oakland County championship at Kensington Metropark in a time of 18:45.5.
Despite being slowed by an illness earlier in the year, Cook appears to be at full strength at the right time.
“She’s got a tremendous amount of passion and she is 110 percent into everything she is doing,” said Rochester coach Amy Oppat. “She’s easy to coach from that aspect. She’s hard on herself because she cares.”
For Harberts, she hopes to better her seventh-place Finals finish from last year.
She ran a personal record of 17:31 on Oct. 22 at the Macomb Area Conference championships, and she credits enhanced mental strength for her performances this fall.
“For me this year, it’s been a lot of mental growth,” Harberts said. “Last year, I didn’t (personal record) in cross country, so I’ve been waiting a while. I think physically I’ve gotten a lot stronger too. But it’s a lot of mental strength for me.”
Cook, who finished sixth at the LPD1 Final in 2021, followed up her Oakland County title by winning the OAA White championship Oct. 20 in a time of 18:34.1.
The comfort and confidence she gained doing so well at the Final last year has obviously showed this fall, and Oppat said Cook is ahead of where she was at this time last season.
“It was my first big meet,” Cook said of running at MIS in 2021. “I was just going to see how it went and try my best. It was a pretty big personal record.”
Both Harberts and Cook also shined during track season this past spring.
At the LPD1 Track & Field Finals on June 4, Harberts placed third in 3,200 meter run with a time of 10:26.16 and 11th in 1,600 meter run in a time of 4:57.87, while Cook was second in the 3,200 run in a time of 10:23.24.
Cook said distance running is “better for me than sprinting,” while Harberts echoed that sentiment that distance races have long been a better fit for her.
“I like to build my race up,” Harberts said. “It’s not like a sprint where I have to be fast the whole time. It’s more strategic.”
Harberts and Dakota will run Saturday in a Regional at Goodells Park in Wales Township, while Cook and Rochester will run at Hess-Hathaway Park in Waterford.
Given what each has achieved lately, it’s a good bet they’ll still be peaking after the weekend, with all eyes then toward the Finals race.
“I just have to remember to keep running my own race,” Harberts said. “Hopefully I can continue to do that again this year.”
Keith Dunlap has served in Detroit-area sports media for more than two decades, including as a sportswriter at the Oakland Press from 2001-16 primarily covering high school sports but also college and professional teams. His bylines also have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Boston Globe. He served as the administrator for the Oakland Activities Association’s website from 2017-2020. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS Rochester’s Lucy Cook, left, and Macomb Dakota’s Jayden Harberts finished sixth and seventh, respectively, at last season’s LPD1 Final at Michigan International Speedway. (Click for more from RunMichigan.com.)
Forsyth Closes Career as Legendary, Romeo Caps Memorable 1st Title Run
November 4, 2023
BROOKLYN — Dathan Ritzenhein’s time of 14:10.4 at the 2000 MHSAA Cross Country Finals has become the stuff of legend.
During the 23 years that have followed, no other runners has come remotely close to breaking the record set by the three-time Olympian from Rockford.
Years from now, perhaps Rachel Forsyth’s performance Saturday at Michigan International Speedway will be just as revered.
She not only set the girls course record, she obliterated it.
Running solo from the gun, Forsyth ran a scorching 16:28.5 to shatter the course mark of Lansing Catholic’s Olivia Theis in the 2017 Division 2 race.
It’s worth noting that some of the greatest high school cross country runners in the country have graced MIS since the MHSAA moved its Finals there in 1996.
Megan Goethals of Rochester (2009) and Zofia Dudek of Ann Arbor Pioneer (2019) won Foot Locker national championships. Others have gone on to become college All-Americans.
It wasn’t even Forsyth’s fastest time this season. She ran 16:07.5 to win her Regional meet. Forsyth was more fixated on beating that time than taking down the course record.
“I just handled it like a normal race,” Forsyth said. “Me and my friends goofed off. We got ready as we normally did. No one put too much pressure on it.”
It was the second MHSAA championship for Forsyth, the other coming two years ago when she ran 17:09.32.
After that, she began to struggle with an eating disorder which put her life in jeopardy. She was hospitalized at the University of Michigan’s Mott Children’s Hospital and was then admitted to the Eating Recovery Center in Illinois.
She was finally healthy enough to rejoin her team on the race course in late September last year, but had lost much of her spectacular fitness. She finished 62nd in last year’s state meet.
“It’s very surreal, because I missed so much,” Forsyth said. “So, to be able to be at my best …”
At this point, Forsyth began choking up before she finished the sentence … “is very special.”
Forsyth said the process of making healthy decisions is still difficult, “but the benefits of doing what I have to pays off 100 percent.”
Forsyth reached the finish line before anyone else hit the three-mile mark in the 3.1-mile race. Finishing a distant second was Grand Rapids Ottawa Hills senior Selma Anderson, whose time of 17:13.6 would have ranked 11th in MIS history coming into a record-setting day across the board.
“It was pretty cool to watch, but I know I couldn’t run with her,” Anderson said. “So, I was just going to focus on my race.”
Forsyth hoped to cap her record-breaking day with a team championship celebration, but Romeo had something to say about that, putting up a winning total of 65 points to claim its first Finals championship and after finishing runner-up a year ago. Pioneer was second this time with 126 points.
Freshman Annie Hrabovsky of Romeo established herself as a future championship contender, placing fourth in 17:28.7. Sophomore Natalia Guaresimo was seventh, sophomore Emmerson Clor 13th, junior Lillian Deskins 22nd and junior Olivia Purdy 41st for Romeo.
The Bulldogs had four runners cross before Pioneer had two.
PHOTOS (Top) Ann Arbor Pioneer's Rachel Forsyth takes the final paces of her record-setting run Saturday at MIS. (Middle) Midland Dow's Victoria Garces (200) and Romeo's Annie Hrabovsky run side-by-side down the closing stretch. (Photos by Dave McCauley/RunMichigan.com.)