Laker girls take sixth, boys seventh at Benzie

BENZONIA — Tyler Groenwald was the first Bear Lake boy to cross the finish line on Saturday as he set the pace for the Lakers in the Eldon Moss Invitational on Saturday at Benzie Central.

That senior leadership is going to be hard to find for co-op Lakers, who are relying heavily on youth.

Ten of Bear Lake’s 13 varsity runners Saturday are underclassmen, including six freshmen.

“We’re just a really young team this year,” Groenwald said. “We’re just slowly working into it, getting up to speed and we’ll and go from there.”

For a youthful bunch, the Lakers did well in their second race of the season as the girls took sixth and the boys seventh in the small-school division. Three of the six teams that finished ahead of the boys and one squad that beat the girls are Division 3. Bear Lake is Division 4.

The Bear Lake girls finished with 165 points while North Muskegon won (28), Grand Traverse Academy was second (62) and Traverse City St. Francis third (99).

“I thought all the girls ran good times today,” said Bear Lake coach Eric Ross. “They all improved dramatically.”

Freshman Keena Gilbert led the way with a 15th-place finish in 21:20, while freshman McKaya Groenwald (20th, 21:53) and sophomore Kelly Babcock (28th, 22:42) also medaled. Freshman Meredith Hengy (54th, 24:05), freshman Alyson Fink (89th, 26:10) and junior Taylor Anderson (101st, 26:54) rounded out the team.

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“Keena Gilbert stepped up today, there’s no question,” Ross said. “Kelly Babcock cut three minutes off her last race, Meredith cut a minute, Keena cut a minute, plus McKaya cut 40 seconds. If they do that every meet, they’ll be pretty good by the end of the year. I have no complaints whatsoever in the way they ran.”

Senior Jaylee Brown is nursing a back injury and ran in the JV race as a low-pressure tune up.

“I’m definitely not rushing her back into action,” Ross said. “We’re going to take our time.”

The Bear Lake boys tallied 154 points in their seventh-place finish while Evart won (55), Kingsley was second (90) and North Muskegon third (102).

Tyler Groenwald finished 19th in 18:16 and John Girven took 24th in 18:29 as both won medals.

“John Girven and I tried to go out in 6-minutes miles but the first mile was a 5:30, so that kind of went down the drain,” Groenwald said with a laugh. “Our plain was to run 6-minute miles to get 18-flat, but we’ll get that later in the year.

“I was proud of the way I ran,” he added. “Our whole team did really well.”

Also for Bear Lake, Shane Peterson took 34th in 19:11, followed by Taylor Makowski (46th, 19:32), John Schoedel (47th, 19:32), Alex Ringel (48th, 19:33) and Jared Blair (49th, 19:33).

“I thought they did really well,” Ross said. “I don’t ever complain about these kids because I know what they go through. I was extremely pleased with the way they ran.”

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