Rockford’s track team took second among six teams last week in the OK Red Conference meet. Rockford had 84. East Kentwood was first with 282. Nate Woznick was first in the 400 meters in 51.24 seconds.
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Rockford’s track team took second among six teams last week in the OK Red Conference meet. Rockford had 84. East Kentwood was first with 282. Nate Woznick was first in the 400 meters in 51.24 seconds.
Bay City John Glenn’s girls track and field team scored 31 points to tie for fourth in the Bay County championships last week. Lindsey Kreifeldt won the 800 meters in 2:30.30.
Essexville Garber scored 71 points to take third in the girls track and field Bay County Championships last week. Elizabeth Lehman won the long jump in 16-2 ¼. Kendra Zaucha was first in the high jump (5-0). The 1,600 relay was first in 4:27. Julia Jeczmionka won the 1,600 meters in 5:31.79 and the 3,200 meters in 12:12.84. Alexis Elliott won the 400 meters in 1:02.23.
Bay City Central scored 86 points to take second in the Bay County Championships last week. Leah Humes won the 100 meters in 14.01 and the 200 meters in 28.08. Sharnae Browder won the 100 meter hurdles (1708). The 400 and 800 meter relay team also won.
Bay City Western posted 133 points to win the girls track and field Bay County Championships last week. Breanna Branek won the 300 hurdles in 53.05. The 3,200-meter rely team won in 10:20.06. Stephanie Pajot won the discus (104-8). Lexxie Mapes won the pole vault (8-0).
Bay City John Glenn posted 59 points to take fourth among five teams on Friday in the recent Bay County Championships. Connor Spence was second in the pole vault (11-0). Jacob Trogan was second in the high jump (5-8). Grant Rivet was second in the 3,200 meters in 10:59.47.
Bay City Central had 63 points to finish third in the Bay County Championships recently at John Glenn. Andre Houston was first in the 100 meters (11.87). Also first were the 400 and 800 relay teams.
Essexville-Garber finished second with 103 points in the Bay County Championships recently, which featured five teams. Blake Oakes won the 200 meters (23.95) and 400 meters (52.52). Ben Yagiela prevailed in the 800 meters (2;00.80) and 1,600 meters (4:39.39). Jacob Stone won the 3,200 meters (10:53.93). The 1,600 relay (3:30.29) and 3,200-meter relay (8:36.13) teams also took first. Ale Neering was first in the discus at 127-3.
Bay City Western’s boy track and field team won the recent Bay County Championships with 106 points against four other opponents. Cole Rechstener was first in the 300-meter hurdles (44.32), Kane Wendling first in the shot put (50-6) and long jump (20-5 ¼) and Alex Neering first in the discus (127-3) and high jump (5-10)
When Swan Valley softball head coach Tom Kennelly was recently asked to put reaching his 1000th career win in perspective, it took him aback.
“I’ve been at this quite awhile,” he said. “35 years… I’ve had some awfully good girls that have played for me from the beginning. A lot of the girls, I’ve coached their mothers. They like softball, and they keep playing for me, so I’m pretty fortunate.”
After playing for fast-pitch teams in his early 20s, Kennellly became the second head coach of the Viking softball program in 1980, taking over for Mike Hanley. Since that time, it’s been success after success, even winning the class B state championship in 1986.
“We’ve been to state semifinals and finals eight times, but we’ve only won it once,” Kennelly said. “Plus, one of my best teams I ever had never made it to the state finals… We were 42-0 and lost 1-0 in districts. Another year we lost to Freeland 2-1 in districts by giving up two runs in the seventh, and they went on to win it all. A lot of times it takes a little luck to get down there and win it.”
The Vikings have been rolling in recent years, having been state runners up each of the last two campaigns and making it to the semifinals three years ago.
This year’s squad is off to a 20-7-1 start, but Kennelly knows as well as anyone that another trip to state is far from certain.
“Maybe we can, but it’s a really tough district,” he said. “We play Mt. Pleasant in the pre-district, and if we win, we meet Bullock Creek in the first game of the district, and they beat us twice this year; they’ll probably win our conference this year. Four of the last five years someone from our district has ended up in the final four.”
He may have been at it for more than 30 years, but Kennelly finds it hard to think about stepping away from coaching any time soon. With the talent-laden teams he fields year after year, it’s hard to blame him.
“There’s quite a few good kids coming up in eighth and ninth grade,” he said. “There’s good fourth and fifth graders, too. I don’t know if I will stay around that long, but it seems like there’s kids that like softball [in every grade]. We work on pitching quite a bit, we have second and third graders that come in and pitch twice a week. In fast-pitch, the name of the game is pitching.”
Pitching may be the name of the game, but a good support group doesn’t hurt either.
“I’ve had good kids and really good assistant coaches,” Kennelly said. “You don’t have a great class every year, but you have enough of them to remain competitive… I’ve had 10 pitchers go on to pitch in college… The combination of those things I think has given me pretty good players with pretty good coaches, so I’ve been pretty fortunate in that regard.”
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