Sinke Family Has Bear Lake Primed to Compete for Championships Now, In Future
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
October 25, 2024
One Sinke is nearing the end of a high school running career seeking to qualify for a fourth-straight MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 4 Cross Country Final.
A few other Sinkes are right in the middle of possible team and individual title opportunities.
Mason Sinke, who broke the Bear Lake cross country race record earlier this season, is about to finish his stellar career on 5K courses. He still has the spring track season ahead, and then he’s moving on to run for Hope College. Saturday, he hopes — or rather expects — to qualify for his fourth Final while vying for the individual Regional title at Benzie Central.
His team will not qualify for the Final due to an insufficient number of healthy runners. But the Bear Lake girls team – led by freshman Callie Sinke – has its eyes on qualifying for the Final and can’t help but think a state championship is obtainable in the near future.
A future boys title also isn’t out of the question as the Lakers have a strong middle school program as well. The middle school’s current number one runner is Johnny Sinke.
And all the Lakers cross country teams are coached by Tony Shrum and Kim Sinke. Shrum has headed up the cross country program, which co-ops with Onekama, since 2012. Kim Sinke, a former college distance runner, joined the staff this year. She is also the mother of Mason, Callie and Johnny Sinke.
Bear Lake is really hoping to start some strong winning streaks this weekend after long Regional championship streaks were common up until a decade ago. The Lakers are not unfamiliar with Finals appearances, but they’re looking for their first in a decade with the Regional trophy earned.
“For the girls, as long as we’ve got everybody healthy and racing, the goal is to win,” Shrum said of the upcoming Regional. “It would be our seventh girls Regional title in the program’s history, so they would be on a list with a pretty exclusive group.”
Shrum hopes the resting and recovering this week will allow the Lakers to put their best foot forward in the Regional. Bear Lake’s girls, the West Michigan D League champions this year, will be racing against some familiar foes.
There will be disappointment if there aren’t several Lakers listed among the top 10 finishers – and a handful in the top five are pretty much expected.
Callie Sinke, who is fighting through normal running injury challenges, and Addy Zeller are the Lakers’ top two runners and arguably the top two rated runners in the region. But injuries have slowed down the top two Lakers a bit.
“Right now Callie is about 20 seconds ahead of everybody in the field Saturday,” Shrum pointed out. “We have three of the top five girls when healthy in the region, and our fourth girl has top-15 ability and our fifth girl has been coming on.”
And these Lakers are young. Callie Sinke is a freshman and Zeller, hampered lately by a quad injury, is a sophomore. Melodie Hulinek, the number three runner who is coming back from a knee injury, is also a freshman. Natalie Brown, the current fourth runner, is a junior. Two other freshmen, Isabella Card and Peyton Buckner, may run for the fifth scoring spot, along with two other juniors, Lauren Pulido-Huber and Libby Daugherty. The co-op is without a senior on the girls side.
Shrum is excited about the opportunity this year and really the next three. He notes two current middle school runners will likely compete for varsity spots next fall.
“We’ve got a good core of girls coming back for the next four years,” Scrum said.
Zeller and Sinke attend Onekama High School. The rest of the girls team are enrolled with Bear Lake.
Mason Sinke is a senior at Onekama. He too has sat out a few races recently to rest and prepare for his last two career high school meets.
All season, he’s had a special partner and coach, Kaden Forward. The school record Sinke broke this year had belonged to Forward, who finished 13th in last year’s Final. Sinke was a few seconds behind Forward in the Final last year and finished 16th. He’s looking to take one of the top spots – if not first place – this Saturday and go on to a top 10, if not top five, at the Final.
The West Michigan D League features one of the top runners in the state in Alex Tyndall from Mason County Eastern. Tyndall finished 18th in last year’s Final, a few seconds behind Sinke. Tyndall and Eastern will be among many competitors Bear Lake has raced against week after week. A handful of other runners familiar to Mason Sinke will challenge him for a top-five Regional finish.
“Right now Mason would be the number two guy behind Alex coming in,” Shrum acknowledged. “We’ll see if he wants to chase Alex and push him and see if he can take Alex down. but otherwise I think silver at the Regional is a definite possibility for him.”
The Bear Lake boys team has no chance of qualifying for the Finals as two of its five team members are out with injuries. But Shrum holds strong hopes senior Greyson Hoeflinger will also qualify for the Finals as an individual.
Over the 35 years of the co-op’s existence, Bear Lake’s boys teams have won 23 Regional titles and the girls have won six.
“Between Mason and Kaden, they have really changed the mindset of our program,” Shrum said. “Callie is leading the girls on the same path.”
Bear Lake is looking forward to an influx of talented young runners on the boys side too.
“Our next set of boys teams could be banner raising, winning teams of the state final,” Shrum predicted. “We’re on the comeback collectively as a program.”
The future is bright, but the current boys and girls teams members should get the credit for getting Bear Lake back to its winning ways.
“To me it is exciting to get back on that level and compete for state titles and Regional championships in the next five, six years,” Shrum noted. “A lot of it really has to do with the current group of kids that we have and their dedication, their discipline, their excitement and enthusiasm for the sport.”
Tom Spencer is a longtime MHSAA-registered basketball and soccer official, and former softball and baseball official, and he also has coached in the northern Lower Peninsula area. He previously has written for the Saginaw News, Bay County Sports Page and Midland Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Mason Sinke runs to his school record-setting 5K time Sept. 7 at the Bear Country Invitational. (2) The Bear Lake girls team take a trophy photo after clinching the West Michigan D League title. (3) Mason Sinke, middle, takes a photo with Bear Lake head coach Tony Shrum and assistant and mother Kim Sinke. (4) Callie Sinke runs a race this fall. (Photos courtesy of the Sinke family.)
Together Since Middle School, Gobles' Record-Setting 4 Building On Historic Run
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
September 24, 2025
GOBLES — When coach Marc Kline first met Libby Smith, he thought the sixth grader did not have much potential as a runner.
Was he wrong.
Over the next few years, Kline noticed “there was a seriousness about her from seventh, eighth and beyond. You could just see even then, she’s going to be good, and she is good.”
“Good” is an understatement.
Last year as a sophomore, Smith finished third at the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 4 Cross Country Final. Her time of 18:26.4 helped lead Gobles to a sixth-place finish, the Tigers’ best in school history.
Since then, she has been chipping away, trying to get below the 18-minute mark.
She is getting closer, recording a personal record 18:07.0 to win Saturday’s Pewamo-Westphalia Invitational. Smith has now won six of the team’s last eight meets and finished second in the other two.
“I like the running part and the training,” said Smith, who lifts weights five days a week and runs on her own after school practices.
On those solo runs, “My mom (Casey) follows me on an electric scooter,” she said. “My dad (Mitchell) does, too. They take turns riding with me, and I like that.”
In practice, Smith trains with three buddies, and the four have been running friends since middle school.
“We’re the only ones in our grades who run, so we are like a tight little group of runners since sixth grade,” Smith said.
Her “little group” also consists of senior Madison Cooley and juniors Lauren Shaffer and Ava DeYoung.
“All four of them are our top four in Gobles history,” Kline said. “They all set the school record in (girls) cross. That’s like the perfect storm from my perspective. That’s amazing.”
Every time Smith runs another personal best, she breaks her own school record. Currently, Shaffer is second-best at 19:33.4, also a personal record recorded Saturday. DeYoung (19:48.2) is third in the record book and Cooley (20:33.7) fourth.
All four runners passed the former top mark of 20:41.5 set by Cheyenne Allyn-White in 2014.
“We all started so young, and that really helped and we all improved together,” DeYoung said. “When one person improved, you wanted to stick with them, you wanted to just keep pushing. We all worked together, and we all improved together.”
Sophomores Addison Tomsic and Alyssa Sparks plus freshman Taylor Cooley round out the team.
The only senior, Madison Cooley is also team captain.
“It definitely makes a lot more responsibility,” she said. “I had to make shirts for the team, have to make sure they’re doing all the warmups and cool downs.
“Sometimes I have to keep myself in check and be positive all the time. Sometimes it’s pretty hard.”
Facing her last season on the team, Cooley said it’s important to stay in the moment.
“You have to cherish the moments,” she said. “Our captain last year (Zoie Wood) was a senior and was on my team since eighth grade.”
Kline said Cooley has been fun to watch in the leadership role this season.
“Her leadership skills have improved so much,” he said. “She’s very critical to the team.
“She’s planning to run track (in college). It’s really amazing to watch a sprinter take on a 5k role.”
While Smith led the team to the Finals last fall, Shaffer, who finished 33rd (20:45.5), was second on the team.
The junior started running at a very early age when her dad, Eric Shaffer, coached cross country at Gobles.
“I used to come to the practices after school,” she said. “I followed them around and have been running since then.
“A lot (of success) is being consistent, (training) over the winter and summer so you’re always running.”
Kline said Shaffer is gritty and shy.
“She loves her family a ton,” he said. “I can see a special relationship between her and her dad, which is really fun to see. She has a lot of talent as well.”
DeYoung, who started running in middle school, said the fab four instantly clicked.
“It was really fun and I just stuck with it,” she said. “We have such a unique bond together. We do easy runs together when we can just talk about our day.
“There are other times when it’s a good pace and (Smith) goes off ahead. It’s so fun to see her do so good. It makes us all so proud of her. I would say it inspires us to do better because we all want to strive to be more like what she’s doing.”
DeYoung suffered four stress fractures of the tibia as a freshman and is still working her way back to peak form.
“I had a lot of support from my teammates,” she said. “Even when I was struggling and having hard times, they were always there for me.
“I really enjoy running and enjoy running with my teammates, and I wanted to get better. Even with the setbacks, I was working and striving to get better all the time.”
Kline said DeYoung is one of the hardest workers on the team.
“Her integrity level is so high,” he said. “I appreciate her. (Because of the injuries), she’s not been able to hit where she was early and is coming around really well this year.”
All four also run track during the spring, and while both sports involve running, Kline said track and cross country are like night and day.
“Cross country, everyone’s focused on one event, training, goals,” the coach said. “It’s all unified, and there’s a great sense of family that can develop from that team.
“In track, there’s 17 different events, people get so scattered. It’s really difficult in one sense to get that team feel in track, so that’s a big difference.”
Looking at this cross country season, “I am so excited about the opportunity we have this year,” Kline said. “Their buy-in, their interest and their love for each other.”
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) Gobles runners including Madison Cooley, front left, and Libby Smith warm up at the Portage Early Bird Invitational this season. (2) Gobles girls cross country coach Marc Kline. (3) Smith and Cooley are joined by, from far left, Ava DeYoung and Lauren Shaffer. (4) Smith runs at Portage. (Portage photos by Miles Postema. Coach and group photos by Pam Shebest.)