Pair Powers Cranbrook Team Title Hopes
November 10, 2020
By Keith Dunlap
Special for Second Half
BLOOMFIELD HILLS – The Oakland County girls swim & dive meet in October perfectly highlighted the luxury Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood enjoys this season.
Depth is always great for any team – but it’s also nice to have two swimmers capable of winning one-third of a meet’s events by themselves.
Cranbrook has that possibility each meet thanks to the presence of seniors Gwen Woodbury and Justine Murdock, who might be the best tandem on any team in the state this year, regardless of school size.
They also are future Big Ten college swimmers, with Woodbury heading to Ohio State and Murdock to Northwestern.
Needless to say, having a duo like that has made it a seamless transition for first-year Cranbrook coach Paul Ellis.
“It’s a great example for the rest of our team on what hard work and dedication to your craft can do,” Ellis said. “They go above and beyond day in and day out. It really sets the tone for our practices. It helps with the culture you want to establish.”
Woodbury is a freestyle whiz who captured the 100-yard (51.29) and 200-yard freestyles (1:37.96) at an Oakland County event that also featured Division 1 power Farmington Hills Mercy and Division 2 power Birmingham Seaholm.
Woodbury, also the reigning Division 3 Finals champion in the 100 freestyle, said she started swimming when she was 4 years old, although it wasn’t exactly love at first sight with the sport.
“I actually hated it,” she said. “I only went because my siblings swam.”
But as she grew older, Woodbury started to enjoy the sport more and discovered she was starting to get good at it.
By the time her freshman year at Cranbrook was over, which concluded with her winning the Finals titles in the 100 freestyle and 200 freestyle and Cranbrook winning the team title in Division 3, she realized swimming was something she wanted to do beyond high school.
“I started to realize that it’s not just the sport of swimming, it’s everything that comes with it and the little things people don’t notice that much that made me fall in love with it so much more,” Woodbury said. “The team camaraderie when we won states my freshman year was a feeling of total happiness knowing that all these people had worked so hard.”
Murdock is different than Woodbury in that she swims the backstroke and individual medley, but the same in that she took up the sport at an early age, and already has numerous county and state championship titles on her resume.
Murdock won the 200 IM (2:08.19) and the 100 backstroke (56.76) at this year’s county meet, the 100 backstroke at the Finals as a sophomore and both the 200 IM and 100 backstroke at last year’s Division 3 championship finale.
“I’ve always been swimming backstroke ever since I was little,” Murdock said. “I loved backstroke, so it was an easy choice for me to continue. In high school, while finding my other strengths through my freshman and sophomore years to see where I was clicking with secondary events, the 200 IM ended up being that event. It gives me time to have good focus throughout the meet lineup.”
Woodbury and Murdock, who are also important members of Cranbrook’s relay teams, have swam together since middle school and have been able to bond through their similar career paths in swimming.
Not only have they been able to push each other during practices and meets, but they’ve had each other as sounding boards on topics such as college visits and their future ambitions.
Both assuredly will follow how the other is doing in college once their high school days are over.
“It will be weird, but the great thing about being in the same conference is that we will be able to compete and be friends at the same time,” Murdock said.
Before worrying about college, there’s some unfinished business to take care of at Cranbrook.
After winning the Division 3 championship their freshman year, Cranbrook has been Finals runner-up to East Grand Rapids each of the past two.
Last year, Cranbrook finished just 11 points behind East Grand Rapids, and Woodbury and Murdock are focused on ending their careers celebrating another team title.
“That 11 points, all you could think about was, ‘What did I do wrong?” Woodbury said. ‘“If only I could have gone a second faster.’ Everyone was thinking that. We don’t want to feel that again.”
PHOTOS: Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood’s Gwen Woodbury launches into one of her races during the 2019 Lower Peninsula Division 3 Finals at Oakland University. (Middle) Teammate Justine Murdock sets the pace on the way to winning the 200 IM at last year’s Finals. (Click to see more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
Sentinels Girls Follow Super Sophomore to 4th-Straight Championship
By
Jason Juno
Special for MHSAA.com
February 15, 2025
MARQUETTE — Olive Krueger is just a sophomore. But she’s the one who leads by example for Marquette’s girls swimming & diving team.
Be in the pool on time. Finish the set. Do the little things to be a winning team.
It translates into success for her and her team. Marquette won its fourth-straight Upper Peninsula Finals championship Saturday, and Krueger was a part of four U.P. titles – two individually and two relays – to make it six for her young career.
Krueger finished first in a sprint race, the 100-yard freestyle (57.42), and the grueling 500 freestyle (5:40.30). She was also a part of the 200 medley relay that edged Kingsford by 15 hundredths of a second for the win in 1:59.32 and the 200 freestyle relay (1:46.51) that won more comfortably.
“Olive is a year-round swimmer, but she also never skips a set,” Marquette coach Nathan McFarren said. “She’s at practice — she wants more, give me more. The thing that’s special about Olive, too, is the fact she can win a 100 freestyle and a 500 freestyle not long after that. Just tough.
“But also a gentler approach. You know what, I’m going to get in the water and I want you guys to do the same thing. … That’s the one thing that we’ve always had in a leader with Olive as a sophomore, which is a huge thing.”
Krueger said she actually doesn’t really like the sprints, but she was happy how that race turned out as she finished ahead of Kingsford’s Sierra Scott for the win.
“I had really good competition – the girl next to me, she’s really fast, that was nice,” Krueger said.
The medley relay was a hard-fought victory for Marquette.
“We weren’t sure what it was going to look like against Kingsford because those Kingsford girls are very competitive and they brought their A game today,” McFarren said.
Marquette won the team championship, its 29th overall, with 347 points, well ahead of runner-up Kingsford with 252. Houghton was third and Gladstone fourth.
This was the smallest girls, and boys, teams that McFarren has had during his uber-successful tenure at Marquette that now includes a combined total of 19 Finals championships. The Sentinels actually weren’t able to slot swimmers in all the spots they could have in the girls meet. But they were able to win anyway with their still superior depth.
“To have three individuals in each event really gives us a leg up on the rest of the competition,” he said.
They had first-place power Saturday, too, in addition to Krueger’s successes. Nathan’s daughter Logan McFarren won the 200 freestyle (2:13.57), and Sophie Hausmann took first in diving (221.80 final score). Both were also part of the winning 200 freestyle relay team with McFarren also a member of the 200 medley team that finished first.
Coach McFarren was also a proud dad.
“That 200 was a great performance,” he said, pointing out Logan had only recently come out of concussion protocol. “To retrain, get back up and then bring her back down was a little bit of a battle.”
It certainly wasn’t easy.
“Especially in the 100 back because of the concussion, it took a lot in the mind. I feel like it was very hard to go back into it and I hadn’t (swam) it since I had gotten the concussion,” said Logan McFarren, who took second in that race. “It turned out well. I dropped a lot of time.”
The junior was seeded first in the 200 free. She was still nervous going into it, but she was able to get the victory.
“It was nerve-wracking because the girl next to me was only a few seconds behind me,” McFarren said. “It was a good win. I was happy to start my first two races off with a win.”
Gladstone junior Irene Neumeier had a big day as well, finishing first in the 100 butterfly (1:02.78) and 100 backstroke (1:05.96).
“The 100 fly was pretty good,” she said. “I was pretty nervous because I was ranked third, and I also have a sinus infection. So I was a little nervous for that, but I knew after the first 50, I would be able to push through.”
Scott won a race of her own, the 200 IM (2:29.64). Kingsford’s Ella McLean finished fastest in the 100 backstroke (1:13.66). Their freshman teammate, Allison Deuter, took first in the 50 freestyle (25.43) despite being seeded second.
“I was just trying to go fast, and get No. 1 as a freshman. It’s great,” she said. “I was expecting to win, and I’m glad I did. It feels awesome knowing I still have three more years of this.”
Scott and Deuter were also members of Kingsford’s winning 400 freestyle relay (4:01.43).
PHOTOS (Top) Marquette's Olive Krueger swims to a victory in the 100-yard freestyle Saturday. (Middle) Finalists including Marquette's Logan McFerren launch into the backstroke. (Below) Marquette's Sophie Hausmann begins a dive during Friday's competition. (Photos by Daryl T. Jarvinen. Click for more.)