Gall Makes Most of Last Finals Run
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
June 1, 2019
JENISON – Shepherd senior Amber Gall withstood the elements and pressure to end her tremendous career the way she hoped it would.
Gall won the 800-meter run and the 1,600 on Saturday, and began the day helping her team to a first-place finish in the 3,200 relay (9:33.89) at the MHSAA Division 3 Track & Field Finals at Jenison High School.
Three weather delays – one that delayed the start of the finals until 3 p.m.; the second, a 30-minutes delay, halfway through the meet; and the last one just before the start of the final event (1,600 relay) that pushed the conclusion deeper into the night – caused athletes and officials to pack and unpack throughout much of the day.
The rain, wind and hail didn’t seem to bother Gall, who will attend University of Michigan in the fall on a track scholarship. She won the 800 run as a sophomore and also ran on the winning 3,200 relay that season. Gall finished second in the 800 last season, one hundredth of a second behind Judy Rector of Hanover-Horton, and she and her teammates also placed sixth in the 3,200 relay in 2018.
“I’m excited,” Gall said after crossing the finish line in the 800 with a time of 2:12.72. Lauren Freeland of Kent City was second with a time of 2:13.97. “Last year I lost by .01 to one of my best friends.
“Mentally, it takes a toll. Last year I had a good year, not my best. I couldn’t be happier with the way this year has gone. The 800 is probably the toughest to run. It’s the gutsiest. You have to find another gear. For me, my blood pressure drops really fast so I have to do a lot of prerace work.”
As far as strategy, Gall said it all depends on how the race is run. She trailed Freeland at the halfway point before making her move.
Gall spent two minutes immediately following the race talking and consoling her teammate, Amelia Gouin, a sophomore, who finished ninth in the 800.
“I told her she has some big races ahead of her,” Gall said.
Pirates capture title
Pewamo-Westphalia won its first team title since 2015 and fourth overall as it finished with 45 points. Last season’s co-champion, St. Charles, was second with 37.5 points and Shepherd took third with 35. Scottville Mason County Central was fourth with 31, and Quincy placed fifth with 30.
Kent City won the meet’s final event, taking the 1,600 relay with a time of 4:04.15. Mason County Central, with a time of 4:04.55, placed second, and those eight points moved it past Quincy for fourth place in the team competition.
No Pewamo-Westphalia athlete placed first, but two of its relays, in the 800 and 3,200, placed second. The top individual finisher for the Pirates was Sophie Thelen. She placed third in the 100 dash and took fourth in the 200.
Inspired
Motivation comes in many forms. For Elizabeth Gramza, a senior from Perry, it came from a fellow track athlete on the boys team at Perry.
Gramza did not place in any event last season but took first in the 100-meter hurdles on this afternoon.
She finished second in the Regional and was seeded ninth entering the finals. Seeded No. 1 was Brittany Bowman of Kingsley.
“I was perfectly getting over the hurdles,” Gramza said. “I was going against the top seed in the prelims and I beat her (with a time of 15.90. Bowman ran a 15.91). I felt really comfortable in the prelims. That gave me confidence.”
Gramza’s best finish last season was ninth in the 300 hurdles. Not only did she not score a point in 2018, but Perry as a team did not score.
“We came in to compete,” Gramza said. “I’m not sure what the difference was this year. I was with a very good hurdler (on the boys team) and he’s short. He said he works hard in practice day after day without getting much results. He said he watched me come out (last season) and saw that I just started running well. That flipped my switch. I started working a lot harder, every day in practice.”
Bowman did place second in the 100 hurdles with a time of 16.04.
Gramza was also scheduled to compete in the pole vault, 300 hurdles and 400 relay. She did well in the pole vault finishing third with a vault of 10 feet, 3 inches. Jael Wood of Scottville Mason County Central took first in that event at 11 feet, 6 inches.
Youth is served
It’s not supposed to be this easy, particularly when one considers Lexus Bargesser of Grass Lake is a freshman.
Bargesser won the sprint double, the 100 and 200 dashes, with times of 12.56 and 25.43, respectively. The time in the 100 is a personal best. She won the 200 by more than half a second.
“That’s my favorite race,” she said of the 200. “I love the energy. You feel yourself, on the run, having all that energy. It’s one of those races, a long sprint that I love. The energy of this meet made me better. I was hoping (to win both). Anything can happen. I was thinking this morning, I can win this.”
Jayden Humphrey of Manchester placed second in both (12.82 in the 100, 26.04 in the 200).
Sprint relays go to reigning co-champ
St. Charles won both the 400 and 800 relays last season on its way to the school’s first Finals team title, which it shared with Hart. On Saturday, St. Charles won both again – and there were some familiar faces leading the charges.
Celine Whiren, a junior, ran on both relay teams each of the last two years, and this time she ran anchor on the 800.
“Pewamo-Westphalia was winning when I got the baton,” she said. “Oh, it must have been four or five strides and I just ran my normal race.”
St. Charles won the 400 relay with a time of 49.95 seconds and the 800 with a time of 1:46.05.
Well worth the wait
Mikayla Williams of St. Charles competed in three field events and in the last one, the long jump, she recorded a personal best of 17 feet, 2 inches to place first. Last year she placed second in the long jump.
“It actually came on my first jump of the (event),” she said. “I jump three events (high jump, pole vault and long jump), and lately I’ve been babying my (left) knee. I jump off my left knee, and today it felt great.”
Williams will attend Wayne State next season and expects to compete in the triple jump and the long jump.
She also played volleyball in the fall. So why risk injuring your knee playing two sports?
“I jump off two knees in volleyball,” she said.
Makes sense.
Repeat champion
Renae Kutcha of Jackson Lumen Christi said she felt the pressure of winning the 400 dash as a freshman last season. To offset this she decided to work harder, a regiment that included running the 800, to improve her leg strength. It worked.
Kutcha’s time of 57.81 in the 400 on Saturday was good enough to get her past Josee Behling of Boyne City, who placed second in 58.04.
“Doing the (800) helped me,” Kutcha said. “I wasn’t running well early in the season, and then I remembered that this was my event. So I got my legs stronger, and my times started to go down.”
Winners all
Byron sophomore thrower Sarah Marvin won both the shot put and discus Saturday, ahead of Caro's runner-up Sheridan Dinsmore in both events. Marvin had taken third in both as a freshman.
Muskegon Western Michigan Christian freshman Abby Vanderkooi won the 3,200 in 10:36.17, clearing the field by more than 21 seconds.
Onsted junior McKenna Russell repeated as champion in the 300 hurdles. Hillsdale junior Bailey Morgret won a close competition in the high jump.
PHOTOS: (Top) Shepherd's 3,200 relay, including Amber Gall (second from left), celebrate a win Saturday at Jenison. (Middle) Pewamo-Westphalia breaks past the finish line for more points on the way to winning the team title. (Photos by Annette Tipton. Click to see more from RunMichigan.com.)
Generations of Dedication, Pride Fuel Milford's 34-Year Regional Hosting Run
By
Steve Vedder
Special for MHSAA.com
May 22, 2026
It may seem a bit of a stretch on the surface, but it makes perfect sense to Brian Salyers.
How can planning a wedding feature work much along the same lines as a school hosting an MHSAA Lower Peninsula Regional track meet for 34 straight seasons?
Easy, contends Salyers. Both take an immeasurable amount of planning.
"I have a couple friends who planned a wedding," said Salyers, Milford's girls track coach. "I told them I'd hosted a track meet, and they're so much alike. There are so many things you entrust other people with. There is so much work to be done, you're hoping things go smoothly."
Like a wedding, Salyers said Milford takes great pride in the event's final outcome. The meet's philosophy includes more than being a stepping stone of funneling deserving athletes along to the MHSAA Finals. At Milford, Salyers said organizers have worked diligently for more than three decades to ensure the participants not only leave with lifelong memories, but also that the meet brings together an entire community.
Volunteers from the school work alongside Milford natives not connected in any way to a track program in a multitude of roles from timing races to rototilling and raking long jump pits, selling dogs and T-shirts and taking tickets. Alumni from up to 45 years ago faithfully return to the school to pitch in whenever needed while also taking a moment to rehash old memories with former track teammates.
Put it all together, Salyers said, and the meet is special.
"It's a melting pot," Salyers said of the mostly unpaid volunteers who work the meet. "It's like, who can come and do it this year? It's not always a fluid list because we pull from such a large group."
The large group has been banding together since 1993. Started by former Mavericks track and cross country coach Gene Balawajder, the school hosted its first Regional in 1988. After moving to a nearby site for a couple years, the Regional landed back at Milford for keeps 34 years ago. Whether it was those first Regionals in the late 1980s or the three and a half decades since, Salyers said the school and community's philosophy hasn't wavered: Take care of the athletes foremost, but also bring the community together to ensure that care happens by organization, identifying issues and swiftly taking action to solve problems.
Milford athletic director James Marszalek said the school handily recruits about 30 people for various positions, only a "handful," he said, who are paid. He said the key to ensuring a smooth meet begins with the volunteers and longtime meet organizer Chris Ceresa, a former athletic director and current assistant coach.
"The No. 1 thing is making sure we have competent people in the right positions and that we make sure it's a day the kids will remember," he said. "But it definitely takes an army."
Ceresa said much of the meet's success comes down to planning and the unselfishness of alumni. For instance, at this year's meet there were five alumni working the long jump, four on the throwing events and two on both the high jump and pole vault as well as many involved as timers.
Ceresa begins recruiting for the following year's Regional at the current event. There he seeks commitments from officials and event workers 12 months in advance.
"We take it very personally; the staff is very committed to the meet," he said. "If you talked to our colleagues at other schools, I think they would tell you they love to come here. It's quite a spectacle, a matter of pride."
The meet even features an unofficial system of where and how volunteers are used. Meet newcomers typically start out in smaller roles, eventually working themselves into the meet's most prestigious position: being an official timer for races. Unfortunately, when the meet became the last Regional in the state to go to electric timing more than a dozen years ago, there was no need for about 20 volunteers who worked as hand timers at the finish line.
Milford boys track coach Eric Hincka ran in the meet as a junior and senior before graduating in 1998. He said while some Regionals typically run more smoothly than others, because of the hours upon hours of organization and the quality of the volunteers, the Milford event annually draws praise from visiting coaches and participants. And that's no accident, he said.
"Every year you hear horror stories of meets which have problems," he said. "We try our best to see that everything is done right so we don't run into problems. We want to honor the kids – it's our philosophy and we take pride in it.
"At Milford, it's multi-generational. Gene as the founder set the standard, and we're just trying to follow in his footsteps."
The athletes notice, Milford senior distance runner Kyle O'Rourke said. Headed to run at Michigan State next season, O'Rourke's pedigree in the meet is three-generational. His grandfather has clerked and also made T-shirts for volunteers while O'Rourke has had an older brother and sister run at the Regional. His mother also ran in the meet.
"It's touching for me to see all the old alumni to come back and work; a highlight of the season," said O'Rourke, a six-time all-stater in track and cross country. "They treasured their time here, and now many of them are part of a community that unites to make this meet run well.
"Yeah, it comes in handy (competitive-wise) that this meet is home for us. But there is also a certain pride in us hosting it. I think we all take pride in how we conduct ourselves at the Regional."
PHOTOS (Top) A relay runner sets up in a starting block during the Lower Peninsula Division 1 Regional hosted by Milford on May 15. (Middle) Runners move toward the starting line before their relay. (Below) Milford’s Kyle O’Rourke rounds a curve during a relay. (Photos courtesy of the Milford athletic department.)