Sunday, September 16, 2001

By Steve Ungrey
The Grand Rapids Press

Even during a cross country meet, the Sparta boys and girls wanted to make sure they showed their patriotism.

The words "Make No Mistake, We Will Prevail" combined with an American flag, were on white shirts were worn by members of Sparta's cross country teams, who won their own 47-team Spartan Invitational on Saturday.

Sparta's girls team scored 64 points to take the Gold Division girls championship, easily outscoring Fruitport (92). Sparta's boys had a tougher road, tying East Grand Rapids with 87 points; the Spartans won on a sixth-man tiebreaker.

Both Sparta teams are among the favorites to win O-K Gold Conference titles, so Saturday's performance was welcome indeed.

"Our depth has really worked out for us this year," Sparta boys co-coach John Thomas said. "We've been running well all year, the kids want to win this badly. We're getting good performances from our sixth and seventh runners and our eighth-best runner won the JV race today."

Although Caledonia's Tim Ross easily outdistanced the Gold boys field (15 minutes, 15.8 seconds), Sparta placed A.J. McConnell (16:40.7) and Joe Skripka (16:46.6) in the top five. McConnell and Skripka were a respective fourth and fifth. The Pioneers placed Matt Casillas in the top five, as Casillas was third (16:36.6).

"We're familiar with losing out on a tiebreaker," EGR boys coach Doug Morse said. "The same thing happened to us last year. But this is still the best boys team we've had in 31 years, bar none. We haven't won anything yet but things are going very well."

Kelly Carter was the top Sparta female finisher, taking third (20:24.4), while Caledonia's Tricia Miedema won the individual title (19:41.6).

Sparta girls coach Adam Pfeffer was especially happy with the performance of Caitlin Hoseth, who has battled sore knees all year. Hoseth was 14th today in the Gold girls race (21:11.1).

"We've been really fortunate this year to have some good performances," Pfeffer said. "Caitlin ran well after getting back at it today, and everything was great, the weather, the running conditions were good."

In the Blue Division races, consisting of bigger Class A and B schools, Union's boys continued their dominant performance this season, scoring 40 points for the championship. Lowell's girls also won with 53 points, fighting off hard challenges from Grandville and Forest Hills Northern.

"Our guys always run well here, and this is a good win for us because this year we're looking for bigger things," Union coach Dan Droski said. "We're gunning for a regional championship. The guys are hungry, all running well. We've got three already under 16:40 and that will sweep a lot of races in this area."

Lowell coach Clay VanderWarf was happy to take his second title of the season, a few weeks after capturing the season-opening Pioneer Classic on Aug. 30.

"Today put smiles on a lot of girls' faces," VanderWarf said. "We had a lot of races this week (six total), so to be this strong at the end of a week is really encouraging. We were really impressed with the performances from teams today."

In the White Division, Central Montcalm stole the show in the girls race, cruising past West Catholic for the title. The Falcons wouldn't be denied in the boys race, however, as West Catholic scored 61 points to finish ahead of second-place Kelloggsville.

On the heels of its win Monday at the Middleville Invitational, West Catholic coach Denny Scully is thrilled with his team's effort.

"We went into Middleville with info on half the teams, but here I didn't even know who we were running against until we got to the course," Scully said. "We just figured Kelloggsville but then Coopersville started running fast so I was telling the runners pass Coopersville quickly."

Kent City flexed its muscles in the Silver Division, taking both boys and girls championships.

The Eagle boys scored 67 points to clip Hesperia by two, while Kent City's girls had an easier time with Morley Stanwood.

"We've been working really hard these last couple of weeks, just trying to do our best to compete with other teams," Kent City coach Jill Evers said.