Northview star wins in spite of wrong turn

Northview star wins in spite of wrong turn

Sunday, September 15, 2002

By Steve Ungrey
The Grand Rapids Press
All's well that ends well, as far as Derek Scott is concerned.

The Northview senior was ahead of the pack at the end of Saturday's Sparta cross country invitational when the Northview standout beat a field loaded with talented runners.

Scott wasn't as confident midway through the race, when an ill-timed wrong turn almost cost him a championship. Scott took a wrong turn along with Mona Shores's Ryan McCarl during a part of the course that went through the woods.

Despite having to turn around when he realized the mistake, Scott still charged back through the pack and finished in first place in the Blue Division boys race. His time of 16 minutes, 32.3 seconds was 1.5 seconds ahead of Mona Shores's Tim Kaijala.

"I've never led before here," Scott said. "I don't know what happened. We went into the woods and the next thing I knew we had to turn around. I was in fifth place at the time and I was like, 'What's going on?' ''

Scott recovered and took his second individual championship of the season. His first victory came at the season-opening Pioneer Classic on Aug. 22.

"Despite what happened, we still felt really good about how things turned out," Northview coach Jim Haveman said.

The wrong turn incident was about the only thing that went off course during a picture-perfect day at Sparta High School. Rockford brought its "B" team to compete in the Blue boys race, but its B team still outclassed the A teams that came to compete. The Rams scored 46 points, finishing 36 points ahead of Mona Shores.

"We were pleased, our B team did very well," Rockford coach Mark Nessner said. "We have a lot of depth, so we're trying to save a lot of our runners for future races like conference and regionals." Rockford's A runners were on their regular practice schedule Saturday, in preparation for a meet Friday at Michigan State University.

In the Gold Division race, it was a thrilling finish for East Grand Rapids, as the Pioneers scored 82 points and nipped Grand Rapids Christian by three points for the title.

"I thought Christian might have gotten us, we were behind going into the last mile," EGR coach Doug Morse said. "We were looking toward the finish and fearful that they might have gotten us, but the nice thing is every runner thought about catching the one in front of him and that's what helped us out."

Wyoming Park senior Mark VanderMeer, one of the top runners in Division 2 heading into the season, cruised to victory in 16:08.3, the fastest time of the day in any of the eight high school races.

"From what I hear there's really no clear-cut favorite in Division 2," VanderMeer said. "That's why I'm trying to take advantage of things early by running well. We've really got a nice team this year too, so I don't have to worry so much about running individually."

In the White Division race, West Catholic scored 54 points to take the championship, finishing ahead of South Haven (86). Steve Harpold (16:56.4) finished first overall for West Catholic, but the rest of the team almost wasn't as lucky.

"I was very worried about South Haven coming in," West Catholic coach Denny Scully said. "My pack started to move up eventually, my third through sixth runners tightened up the pack. At one point South Haven had five runners ahead of my third guy, so I guess in the end I'm not happy with how things turned out."

In the Silver Division race, Morley-Stanwood scored 75 points to finish ahead of Kent City (82) and Saranac (83). Saranac's Lance Jones took the individual championship in 16:57.9.