Charlevoix runs "normal" day to pull off second straight state title
· Yahoo Sports
BROOKLYN — The Charlevoix boys cross country team knew the predictions.
Even as a defending state champion in Division 3, the odds from a well-known Michigan running website weren’t great.
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“They gave us a 2% chance to win it all,” Charlevoix coach Doug Drenth said. “Some of the guys knew it going in, we didn’t talk about it, but they saw it.”
Charlevoix’s group might have known about it entering Saturday’s Division 3 state championship race at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, but paid no mind to it.
They always believed, 2% or not, and that belief was all that mattered for that largest collection of runners in attendance that could already call themselves state champions.
Now, they can change that to two-time Division 3 state champs.
“I’d say it was a surprise, but the guys believed they could do it,” Drenth said. “I’m grateful for this group of guys. Like last year, we always believed. A lot of people doubted us. A lot of people thought, throughout the year, thought we were outside the top teams. I don’t think we ever thought that. That was a key. The guys believed the whole year.”
Like that prediction, Drenth, along with coaches Matt Peterson and Emily Edwards, never talked about meeting expectations or living up to last year. There was no talk of repeating.
The stress was always on being normal. Because, when you’re as good as Charlevoix’s group is normally, great things happen.
“We don’t stress peaking,” Drenth said. “We want them to be who they are and normal at big events. The more normal you can be, the better you’re going to perform. I think that they know that too.”
The senior-heavy Rayders earned 123 points to Hart’s 141, while Hanover-Horton was third with 161 and Jonesville fourth with 172.
Glen Lake also earned a seventh place finish with 261 and Benzie Central placed eighth with 316, making it three northern Michigan programs inside the top 10.
The Rayders twice saw Glen Lake this year and finished behind the Lakers in both races, along wit the likes of Hart and Hanover-Horton.
Charlevoix’s Hunter Eaton, the defending individual champion in Division 3, ran a fifth place time of 15 minutes, 35.1 seconds.
Ryder Hopkins capped his career with a 22nd place finish and a season-best time of 16:08.1, junior Aurie Selph ran 16:25.3, good for 39th and a new personal-best, then junior Jacob Muladore placed 49th in 16:30.2.
Maxwell Drenth also put together a season-best time of 16:30.2, placing 63rd overall. Quinn Cassada was then 161st in 17:47.3 and Connor Browe, only a freshman, placed 223rd in 18:41.4.
Both Eaton and Hopkins earned all-state for their finishes, while Selph and Muladore came close. The key once again, was a season-best performance out of Maxwell Drenth, who returned to his normal self by the finals.
A talented golfer in the spring, Maxwell doesn’t get the same kind of track time as others and the build is harder to predict, clearly.
“If you look at his trajectory, he just gets better and better as the season goes,” Drenth said on Maxwell. “I think that confidence and knowing our fifth guy was going to come along, that was a strong belief. For everyone to be better at regionals and then states, that’s a tribute to their work and to their belief. It was a great day for them.”
As a tough team to predict because of that, Drenth and the rest of the group might have had a good laugh at the predictions by Michigan XC Speed Ratings, but spoke highly of what it does to promote the sport.
“He’s really good and brings attention to the sport and compares courses and comes up with an algorithm that predicts everything,” Drenth said. “We got a picture with him afterwards.”
It took over 30 years for the Rayders to return to the podium as a team a year ago, but there they were again Saturday.
For Drenth, it’s actually a third state championship of the past two years, with two in cross country and another with the boys golf team and Maxwell. It all comes only around 19 months after a devastating accident with the boys golf team.
There are times for Drenth, who is still in recovery from the accident, where it all doesn’t feel real.
“It’s amazing,” he said. “At times you have to pinch yourself because you can’t believe it’s real. I’ve told Emily and Matt, I think we’re spoiled. For us to do it at the highest level we can compete at in the state, it’s a tribute to them. I’m just grateful to get to experience this.”
While it’s clearly hard to count the Rayders out of a three-peat, Drenth and Charlevoix will have to say goodbye to a senior group that includes both Eaton and Hopkins, two of the best ever in a Rayder uniform. The senior group also includes Maxwell and Cassada, along with Addy Weirs on the girls side.
“The excellence and the kind of young adults they are is just a blessing in my life,” Drenth said. “I’m grateful for them and I look forward to watching what they do in life. They’re just amazing, cool kids that are a joy to be around.”
They’re also a group as a whole that’s not afraid of the moment. The big stage of a state finals cross country course, when all the pressure is on to repeat. They’re not afraid to show how much it means afterward, either, with tears of joy running down their faces.
“To watch their faces as they realized they won and see that emotion, it rarely happens to any of us in life,” Drenth added. “The ultimate tears of joy when they realized what they had done. It’s unbelievable.”
Like overcoming a 2% chance to win a second straight state title kind of unbelievable.
Reach Sports Editor Drew Kochanny at [email protected] and follow him on X @DrewKochanny and Instagram @drewkochanny
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Charlevoix runs "normal" day to pull off second straight state title