By John Raffel
Beal City and state championships continue to go together.
The Aggies have been state champion contenders in football, basketball, volleyball, and other sports.
Cross country now has a unique part of the Aggies’ title success.
In the first race of the day at Michigan International Speedway on Nov. 1, the Beal City boys’ team won its first ever state title. Later in the morning, the Aggies girls won their second straight.
The boys won a very tight race over Saugatuck 105-109. Nick Pung and Ethan Schafer were all-state runners. In the team standings, Pung was third in 16:19.3 and Schafer sixth in 16:33.9. David Reihl was 25th in 17:28.9, James Kolb 32nd in 17:37.3, and Brendan Carrick 39th in 17:44.9.
It marked Beal City’s first boys’ cross country crown. “We were definitely hoping for it and trying our best,” Pung said of his team’s preseason hopes for state contention. “They got the results up pretty quickly, but they were unofficial. They told us we had won. We were really excited.
“We’re a very sports-oriented school. Cross country is now starting to get some recognition.”
Schafer couldn’t have agreed more. “There’s just so much support from the community [for the sports program], it’s amazing,” Schafer said.
“We came in knowing we’d have to run as best as we possibly could,” he said. “We went to bed 9 p.m. last night, just trying to prepare. We came and said ‘let’s win.’ This was only the third time we made it to state. We wanted to win conference, regional, and state. That was our goal the entire year. We were so happy to get it.”
The third race of the day was Division 4 girls, with the Aggies clinching the repeat championship with 94 points, compared to 108 for Hackett Catholic Central and 130 for Sacred Heart Academy.
The Steffke sisters came through in fine fashion, with Emily, a senior, taking fourth in 19:15, Hannah a junior, taking fifth in 19:26.0 and Madeline, a freshman, taking 29th in 20:40.6. Hayley Meyer was 19th in 20:17.6 and Ariel Salter 37th in 20:55.4.
“It’s so crazy,” Emily smiled. “We knew we had such a hard field coming up against us this year. People weren’t necessarily expecting it from us. We had a lot of injuries that we had to battle throughout the season. We didn’t win regionals again. We didn’t win some of the big invitationals. Being able to come here and do it at state, that’s what’s important.
“The biggest thing is that we did it with our boys’ team. That’s incredible. When we found out the boys won, we were so excited. They’re like our brothers. We’re like one team. We’re totally inseparable.”
Having two of her sisters on the title team “is crazy,” Emily added. “We really wanted to repeat this year.”