West Ottawa's Olson Aims to Add XC Title to Growing List of Achievements
By
Dean Holzwarth
Special for MHSAA.com
August 24, 2022
HOLLAND – Arianna Olson won her first individual state title when she outran the field in the 3,200 meters at last spring’s Lower Peninsula Division 1 Track & Field Finals.
Less than three months later, the West Ottawa senior standout is gearing up to accomplish the same feat on the cross country trails.
“That was my first state title in running, but it was something I wasn’t completely sure of because there’s a lot of good girls in the state,” Olson said. “Since I started running, the 3,200 is more of my event, and things went really well for that.”
Olson has blossomed into one of the most talented distance runners in the state and garnered three top-10 finishes in three years at the Finals.
She finished runner-up as a freshman and eighth as a sophomore, and was among the favorites again last year on the way to placing third at the LPD1 Final at Michigan International Speedway.
She was unbeaten during the regular season, setting a new personal record (16:45), and she also won a Regional championship.
“I think last year at state I was prioritizing more of the postseason, and my big goal was to qualify for nationals, so that was a few weeks after,” Olson said. “That was the priority in training, and I tapered before state, but it wasn’t the best training the week before. I knew I had more chances after the state meet.”
Olson’s performance, coupled with freshman Helen Sach’s fifth-place effort, helped West Ottawa finish as Division 1 runner-up behind Ann Arbor Pioneer.
“Third is still excellent, but the goal was to win an individual title and a team title and we came up short on both sides,” Panthers cross country coach Kyle Barnes said. “There were a combination of things that went into that, but she hasn’t won a cross country title so that is certainly on her radar. Michigan has a lot of good runners, so she is going to have her hands full to do that this year.”
A month after last fall’s Finals, Olson set out to prove herself at the national level, and did just that in San Diego. Olson competed in the Eastbay Nationals, which featured the top 40 distance runners in the country. She placed fourth at a Midwest qualifier in Wisconsin to qualify.
Olson finished 13th in California with a time of 17:43.04 to gain All-American honors.
The following month, Olson was named as the Gatorade Michigan Cross Country Player of the Year.
She was the first West Ottawa athlete to earn the prestigious honor, which also recognizes academic achievement and exemplary character off the field.
“That was cool because it doesn’t only take into account athletics, but also the academics and service side of it,” said Olson, who carried a 4.0 GPA.
“I was really happy about that because it wasn’t just about athletics, it was recognizing the whole part of being a student-athlete.”
In June, Olson took part in another national event. She traveled to Seattle to compete in the Brooks PR Invitational and placed seventh in the 3,000 run.
“It was another good opportunity to race at a national-level meet, and I think at both national events it was good to get to know some of the other girls that I’m competing against,” Olson said. “It’s getting harder to find competitive races that have big pack running, and sometimes you have to be creative to find that in the regular season. Nationals is a good opportunity to push myself with the other girls and see what I can do.”
Barnes said Olson has benefited from competing against elite competition.
“All of that is valuable information, and getting those types of experiences and running against that level of competition is invaluable for her,” he said. “We talk about if she banks that information and learns from the positives and negatives, then she will continue to get better.”
Barnes took over the West Ottawa program when Olson was a freshman, and knew her potential after she set several middle school records.
“She works her butt off, and she was one of the first athletes to come through the program when I took over,” he said. “She has helped to build a culture within our program. She does all the right things, and the results speak for themselves.”
While Olson is aspiring to finish up as a champion in November, she’s taking her final season in stride.
“Cross is my favorite over track & field, so it’s about making the most of it with one more year with my team and just pushing really hard,” she said. “This season won’t necessarily be based on my times, but just running the courses to the best of my ability and knowing that at the end I’ve given my full effort.”
Olson, who is undecided on her college choice, will run her first race with her teammates Friday at Grand Rapids South Christian.
Dean Holzwarth has covered primarily high school sports for Grand Rapids-based WOOD-TV for five years after serving at the Grand Rapids Press and MLive for 16 years along with shorter stints at the Ionia Sentinel and WZZM. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Allegan, Kent and Ottawa counties.
PHOTOS (Top) West Ottawa’s Arianna Olson approaches the finish during last season’s LPD1 Final at Michigan International Speedway. (Middle) Olson rounds a corner during another 2021 race. (Top photo by Run Michigan; middle photo by Laura Veldhof Photography.)
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.)