Lakers continue D League dominance

Posted Sept. 21, 2011 by Matt Wenzel,
Manistee News Advocate

BEAR LAKE — Over his four years running cross country for Bear Lake, Tyler Groenwald doesn’t recall ever losing a West Michigan D League jamboree.

“I don’t want to imagine losing one either,” the senior said with a laugh.

Once again, that wasn’t a problem for the Lakers who swept Wednesday’s league jamboree on their home course.

“Just kind of the training schedule we’ve been on, the last race we had was a tempo race so they hadn’t really raced, raced. We’ve been really focusing on our training,” said Bear Lake coach Eric Ross. “Today, they showed up and said, ‘what are we doing?’ I said, ‘you’re racing today.’ And they raced. They did a good job today.”

The Bear Lake girls took the top three spots and finished with 17 points while Mason County Eastern was second (55) and Pentwater, which had just one runner, took third.

Senior Jaylee Brown led the Lakers by taking first place in 21:13, representing a bit of a breakthrough for the All-State runner who has battled numerous injuries and spent six weeks in a back brace over the summer.

“That’s the best I’ve felt since freshman year, with all my injuries and stuff,” she said. Brown has been easing back into running and Wednesday represented her first win of the season.

“I was excited about that,” she said.

So was her coach.

“I basically told Jaylee today, ‘it’s your first race, you’re going to race today,’” he said. “I had been holding her back all year and she felt great. That’s a huge thing for her and a huge thing for the girls team to have that confidence back.”