FILER TOWNSHIP — The
handcrafted wooden trophies awarded at
the Manistee National Invitational have
an old image of a Bear Lake runner
carved into them.
And as hosts of the
annual race, the current Lakers made
their mark by sweeping the top spots in
the small-school division on Saturday.
“It’s something
you’ve got to kind of do, win those
(races) close to home,” said Bear Lake
senior John Girven.
The Division 4 No.
6 Laker boys tallied 29 points to easily
top the nine-team small-school division
as Kingsley was second (72) and Grand
Traverse Academy third (96) in the race
on Manistee National’s Cutters’ Ridge.
The top 25 individuals medaled and Bear
Lake placed all eight boys in that
group.
“The times weren’t
there, but what are you going to do on a
soggy course?” Girven said. “I think
everyone was pretty satisfied.”
Girven was second
in 17:20 while Jordan Anderson (third,
17:55), John Schoedel (sixth, 18:00),
Shane Peterson (eighth, 18:20) and Jared
Bair (10th, 18:36) rounded out the team
score and Cole Verrett (13th, 18:43),
Michael Belinsky (18th, 19:14) and Alex
Barto (22nd, 19:20) also ran.
“We’re at the
point in the season where times are
important,” said Bear Lake coach Tony
Shrum, “but on a day like today with the
course being wet and spongy, times
weren’t going to be that great, so it’s
more about how did you run in comparison
to your competition.”
Although the meet
was scored according to school size,
there was just one race for the varsity
boys and another for the girls. So the
Lakers were pushed by bigger schools
like Benzie Central just a week before
the regional meet.
“It’s more about
the race itself and how you do against
your competition and I thought today we
competed really well against a lot of
bigger schools,” Shrum said. “Obviously
in our race we won, but (against the
bigger schools) I thought they did
really, really well.”