Holland Pushes Championship Streak to 2
November 17, 2012
By Jon Malavolti
Special to Second Half
ROCHESTER – After wading through three straight runner-up finishes before claiming its first MHSAA title last fall, Holland High won its second straight Lower Peninsula Division 2 girls swimming and diving championship Saturday at Oakland University.
“The girls did a great job,” Dutch coach Don Kimble said. “We had some kids that really swam really well. It’s tough to replace a team like we did last year. We had a great senior class last year, tough shoes to fill. They stepped up. There was a lot of pressure was on them.”
Holland won all three relays and finished first in four individual races, eventually ending up with 311.5 points.
Sophomore Taylor Garcia led the way, winning the 100-yard butterfly and 100 backstroke, as well as competing on the first-place 200 medley and 400 freestyle relays. She was named the Swimmer of the Year by the Michigan Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association.
Garcia said winning the award was “very humbling.”
“I’m glad I had my team here to help me accomplish it,” she said.
Garcia added that it was a great experience for her team to defend its title.
“Especially after last year, it was just an incredible year, and I think to come back and prove that we still have a lot of talent in our program, I think it says a lot about how far we’ve come,” she said.
The addition of new squads, along with some annual powerhouses, made the meet a competitive one.
“This is a faster meet this year than it was last year,” Grosse Pointe South coach Eric Gunderson said. “The cuts were faster to get in, the top 16, and top 8 times across the board were faster.”
Rochester Adams coach Tim Hickey called the meet “insanely fast.”
“We had a few new teams in our division, which really made things a lot faster this year.”
One of the new additions to Division 2 was this year’s second-place finisher – Ann Arbor Skyline. The Eagles ended up with 255.5 points.
“We’re so proud,” Skyline junior Shannon Cowley said. “We have so many awesome people. I could not be happier.”
Skyline coach Maureen Isaac said her team, which swam at the Division 1 Final last year, performed well in preliminaries and was glad to see it carry over into the finals.
“Yesterday we did what we wanted to do, they were perfect Friday swims, and we also knew we hadn’t scored one point,” Isaac said. “So we had to come back and do it today, and the preparation really fell into place for us.”
Senior Ashleigh Shanley paced the Eagles, winning the 200 individual medley and 100 breaststroke titles, while also swimming on the second-place 400 relay and third-place 200 medley relay.
Isaac said that the team knew it had a “huge opportunity” to do well this year – which was just the program’s fifth of existence.
“It’s just been an unbelievable experience,” she said of the Eagles’ growth. “You don’t have any baggage, every rule is your own, every expectation for the kids. It is an exceptional situation, and I know part of it is because we got to start from scratch and really build it how we wanted to. And they have completely bought into it.”
Kimble had high praise for Holland’s next closest finisher, impressed by how far they’ve come.
“The addition of Skyline was great,” he said. “That speaks to those kids and the parents and the coaches; everybody’s put in time. That’s a unique situation where they’ve grown, it’s tough to start on the ground floor like that. But very good job.”
The day’s lone record-breaking performance came in the diving competition, as Walled Lake Western senior Allie Murphy finished first with 442.80 points – just enough to edge the old record of 441.80 set by Holland’s Paige Kortman in 2009.
“I’ve been working hard all season to get state champion,” Murphy said. “The record is a bonus.”
Murphy said she was looking up the record recently and figured she was capable of doing it, and was excited to accomplish it. Yet things didn’t start out in record-breaking fashion, as she struck the board on one of her early attempts during the finals.
“I got really nervous,” Murphy said.
But she bounced back quickly.
“I had to focus on the next dive,” she said. “Had to brush it off, had to realize I was still in the game.”
The MHSAA title is Murphy’s second Division 2 diving championship. She also won in 2010, but finished second in last fall.
Murphy’s diving coach at Western, Casey Guntzviller, said her concentration and focus was “really impressive” at the finals.
“Something as simple as hitting the board can set you off, but instead she garnered her focus and strength and really finished strong,” he said.
PHOTO: Swimmers take off during a race at the Lower Peninsula Division 2 Final on Saturday at Oakland University. (Click to see more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
This Time, Skyline Ends Close Race in 1st
November 21, 2015
By Butch Harmon
Second Half editor
HOLLAND – After coming in a close second at last year’s Lower Peninsula Division 2 girls swimming and diving championships at the Holland Aquatic Center, the Ann Arbor Skyline girls returned to the same pool this year and came away with some different results.
Moving back into Division 1, Skyline won the first-place trophy as it held off Saline in a tight battle that was close throughout.
Skyline totaled 290 team points for the two-day event to win its first girls swimming and diving championship. Saline, last year’s Division 1 champion, placed second with 238 points while Farmington Hills Mercy, winners of two of the previous four LPD1 titles, placed third with 217 points.
“Last year it came down to the last event,” said Skyline coach Maureen Isaac. “We’ve been runner-ups a couple of times, and it’s very frustrating. We were here last year at this pool, and to come back this year and do it here means a lot.”
Skyline’s victory took a total-team effort and was won over the two days of the event. Work that the Eagles did on Friday paid off Saturday, as Skyline set up the scoring opportunities to get the win.
“We moved some kids around on different relay teams Friday,” Isaac said. “We took some chances, and it paid off. We had a great group of girls and they are wonderful as a team. It might sound cheesy, but it’s true; they just feed off each other. ”
It also helped that Skyline had senior Katie Portz to rely on. A senior who has committed to swim collegiately at Texas A&M, Portz was named the swimmer of the meet by the coaches association for her performance. Portz won a pair of individual titles and was also part of two Skyline relay teams that captured championships.
“This is just an incredible feeling,” Portz said. “It feels so good and I’m so happy for all of my teammates. We took it to a new level as a team this year.”
Portz played a big role in helping the team do so. She took first place in the 100-yard freestyle in a new LP Division 1 meet record time of 49.34, breaking her previous record of 50.23 set two years ago.
Portz also captured the 200 freestyle in a time of 1:46.84.
“It felt great winning swimmer of the meet, but the team title means so much more,” Portz said. “Winning the team state is a great feeling. All the hard work that we put into this has paid off.”
Portz’s coach was especially happy that Skyline was able to capture the elusive MHSAA title this season for her standout senior.
“I really wanted us to do this for Katie Portz,” Isaac said. “She has been such an important part of this program both in the pool and out of the pool. It was important for us to do this before her career was done.”
In the 200 freestyle relay, Portz teamed up with sophomore Maddie McAdams, sophomore Emily Lock and senior Kaelan Oldani to take first place in a time of 1:35.67.
Skyline cemented the win as it also captured the final event of the meet, the 400 freestyle relay. Portz anchored the team that included junior Emma Cleason, Lock and sophomore Georgia Mosher that turned in a winning time of 3:24.56.
Skyline also had two other individual champions crowned. Cleason took first place in the 200 individual medley in a time of 2:01.51, while Mosher claimed the 500-yard freestyle in a time of 4:54.65.
Saline junior diver Cam McPherson captured an individual title. She took second place last year and was sixth as a freshman.
“Last year I feel I didn’t focus as much,’ McPherson said. “This year I felt like I had a lot better focus. I thought I had some real good dives. I was also more focused to help my team as we needed all the points we could get.”
Sophomore Katie Minnich led the way for third-place Mercy as she repeated in the 100 backstroke in a time of 54.67.
“Winning it a second time is real special,” Minnich said. “I was confident that I could do it. There was pressure on me to win it again, but I like the pressure. There is always pressure and if there is not any pressure, it’s not worth doing.”
Minnich was also a member of Mercy’s 200 medley relay team that also won. She swam the first leg and was followed by junior Allison Lobbia, junior Alaina Skellett and freshman Annette Dombkowski as they turned in a winning time of 1:44.44.
Grand Blanc junior Emma Curtis was another repeat champion. Curtis repeated in the 50-yard freestyle in a time of 23.07, a new personal record.
“It was a lot more exciting this year,” Curtis said. “I wanted to go 22 (seconds) and I just missed it by a few hundredths of a second. I felt a lot better this year and felt a lot less stress. I want to come back next year and win it as a senior.”
After finishing second at Finals the past three years, Zeeland senior Morgan Bullock broke through to the top step of the victory stand. She won the 100-yard butterfly in 54.42 seconds in front of her hometown fans.
“I’ve been runner-up in everything at state since my freshman year,” said Bullock, who will swim at the University of West Virginia. “This is my senior year and I’ve worked real hard for this. I just wanted to go out and do the best I could. I liked that I had a chance to win it close to home. A lot more of my teammates and friends and family members were able to see me win it.”
Rockford, the fourth-place team, was paced by junior Sydney McDowell, who won the 100-yard breaststroke in a time of 1:03.84.
PHOTOS: (Top) Ann Arbor Skyline’s Emily Lock was among contributors to her team’s MHSAA championship. (Middle) Zeeland’s Morgan Bullock capped her high school career with her first title. (Click for more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)