Thursday, October 16, 2008
By Jeff Chaney
The Grand Rapids Press
CEDAR SPRINGS -- Tony Schafer likes his new rivals, even though he really enjoyed running in the City League.
The West Catholic senior and his Falcons teammates were winners in their new conference, the O-K Blue, on Wednesday at the postseason meet at Cedar Springs High School.
Led by Schafer, who won the boys race in a time of 16 minutes, the Falcons won with a score of 50 points, seven better than Cedar Springs.
That finish and a perfect regular season gave the Falcons the overall league title, their third in a row.
Sparta earned the outright girls title by winning Wednesday's meet with 43 points, 10 better than runner-up West Catholic and 25 points better than third place Forest Hills Northern.
The Spartans were second behind Forest Hills Northern after the regular season duals, but jumped the Huskies with the postseason tournament results.
"It was a good year for the team," Schafer said. "It was slippery out there on some turns, but I felt good. I was pretty happy with how I ran."
Following Schafer were teammates Zeke Timmer, who was fifth with a time of 16:55, Steve Sterkenburg (10th, 17:15), Kevin Royce (16th, 17:27) and Austin Jacobson (21st, 17:39).
"We went into this worried that Cedar Springs was hitting its stride," West Catholic boys coach Denny Scully said. "We didn't feel we had this wrapped up, but the guys ran well."
The Sparta girls were led by Katelyn Cnossen, who placed second with a time of 19:41. She was followed by teammates Allison Scheidel (4th, 20:00), Andrea Kober (8th, 20:24), Bayley Ravell (10th, 20:28) and Claire Gill (19th, 21:39).
"It couldn't have worked out better for us," Sparta girls coach Adam Pfeffer said. "We did our job, and fortunately for us, West Catholic beat Forest Hills Northern and that made us the outright champions.
"The kids were really excited. They ran really well, this is a scrappy group."
West Catholic's Olivia Sydow won the girls race in 19:21.
"I love the rain," Sydow said. "It was really nice out there, not too difficult of a course. It was fast, and I was happy with how I ran."