One week after suffering a tough defeat at the NEMC league finals meet, the Standish-Sterling girls cross country team was celebrating a trip to the state finals as a team after taking the runner-up spot at Saturday's Division 3 regionals.
The NEMC was well-represented with state finals qualifiers out of Saturday's Division 3 race. Running to next week's championship race at the MIS are (l-r) Pinconning's Emily Podgorniak, SSC's Karina Pierce, Ryan Pickvet and Ashley Pickvet, and Tawas Area's Chelsea Smith and Emily Short.
The Panthers' Clarence Johnson finished ahead of Hemlock's fifth finisher to force a tie for the region's fifth spot, which SSC sixth runner Aaron Colamarino broke with his finish in front of his Hemlock counterpart.
Brent Baker
Pinny's Emily Podgorniak (second from right) and Ashley Pickvet try to race past a pair of Freeland runners as the two claimed state finals spots on Saturday.

DELTA COLLEGE - Oct. 25, 2008 - If Standish-Sterling's cross country season was something of a roller coaster ride, the Panthers are ending their campaign on a high.

A week after finishing as the runner up to Ogemaw Heights at the NEMC finals, the Panther girls highlighted a very strong day for league schools by qualifying for the state finals as a team by virtue of their second-place finish in Saturday's Division 3 regional race at Delta College.

The top three teams and top 15 individual finishers each move on to compete at the Nov. 1 finals meet at Brooklyn's Michigan International Speedway.

The NEMC schools boasted five of the top 15 automatic state qualifiers in the girls race: the Panthers' Karina Pierce (5th, 21:00.9) and Ashley Pickvet (10th, 21:25.2); Tawas Area's Emily Short (4th, 20:46.9) and Chelsea Smith (6th, 21:15.9); and Pinconning's Emily Podgorniak (9th, 21:24.7).

Standish-Sterling's Ryan Pickvet (6th, 17:22.4) was the only area boy to qualify for state out of the Division 3 race.

The Panther girls, who harbored hopes of taking the third spot as a team and earning the right for all of their top seven runners to compete at the state finals, did themselves one better, surprising Bullock Creek to take second. Freeland easily won the team scoring with 48 points with four of the top 14 finishers, with the Panthers (83) following and Bullock Creek (87), led by regional champ Corey Bowen (19:54.5) right behind.

Tawas took sixth (146 points), Pinny took eighth (211) and Oscoda had several runners compete though the Owls didn't have the minimum five needed to get scored as a team.

Standish-Sterling coach Dennis Pruder said he had a good feeling what to expect out of Pierce and Pickvet heading into the race, but that the difference in making it to the state finals came from his less-heralded runners.

"At a meet like this, people always look at the top runners," he said. "We really love Karina, but we needed to get a lot of points out of our other runners."

Sara Stanley (18th, 22:21.3), Ashley White (26th, 22:39.1) and Alyssa Pruder (27th, 22:42.8) rounded out the SSC scorers, while Alicia Trombley (46th, 24:13.0) and Leah LaLonde (56th, 25:20.7) finished in good position to provide tiebreak points had the Panthers needed them.

"They ran extremely well," Pruder said. "There was a ton of pressure on them and they were just beautiful."

It was also a much sweeter feeling for Pierce, who was 10 meters away from winning the NEMC race a week ago before collapsing just short of the finish line and settling for the runner-up spot.

"My legs still feel a little weak," she said. "I just wanted to stay with the lead pack.

"Coach said we had a good shot at making state. I knew if we all did good we'd have a chance. I'm just so excited."

"It was tough after last week," Pruder said. "But Ogemaw (which competes in Division 2 at the regional level) is an outstanding program. I give all the girls credit. The team was firing each other up and putting last week's meet behind them even before we left that day. They focused on today, and they've been that way all year."

Pierce and the Braves' Short both ran at the state finals as freshmen last year. Tawas's Smith and Pinny's Podgorniak each had breakthrough races to make their first appearances at the finals.

"When I look at the conference, it's very balanced," Pruder said. "There's some outstanding athletes, and it makes everyone better. To get this many girls from Standish, Tawas and Pinny is huge for the conference."

Also competing for Tawas were Haylee Hutchison (38th, 23:21.2), Katie McKenzie (54th, 25:07.7), Erica Jackson (60th, 25:27.4) and Carly Meshew (70th, 27:14.5).

Running for Pinconning were Shannon McDougall (35th, 23:06), Chelsey Szyperski (41st, 23:33), Katie Hoffman (72nd, 27:27), Alyssa Schlink (74th, 27:32) and Joan Idzior (80th, 29:58).

Oscoda was represented by Mary Wood (52nd, 24:43), Jessica Reinhard (58th, 25:25) and Nicole Jackson (75th, 27:58).

On the boys side of things, Ryan Pickvet's run to his second state finals was the cornerstone of SSC's fifth-place finish, which is the best a Panther boys team has finished in years.

Pickvet survived a near face-plant at the starting gun.

"I was real nervous right before the race," he said. "But I felt pretty confident, especially after (surviving) the takeoff.

"I felt like the team was all pretty ready. Qwinn, Frank and Cole and everyone ran hard and we had some good PR's."

Pickvet, whose sister Ashley will be running in her first finals, was as excited for the girls' success as for his own.

"A lot of talk helped us get through what happened last week," he said. "We knew we had a chance (for the girls) to make it to state. I'm very proud of them. I think I wanted it for them as bad as they did."

"Ryan's done what he has for the past two years," Pruder said. "He's always been an outstanding runner but he really turned into an incredible leader for both the men and women. He fired up the whole team.

"And for the boys to finish fifth here, and almost all with PR's, I couldn't ask for more."

Pickvet was followed by Qwinn Shorkey (29th, 18:48.5), Frank Michalke (43rd, 20:00.3), Cole Manning (48th, 20:12.6), Clarence Johnson (52nd, 20:18.3) and Aaron Colamarino (72nd, 22:15.3). Johnson and Colamarino, in fact, were both finisher for the Panthers as they finished ahead of Hemlock's fifth and sixth finisher to break a team scoring tie between the two.

Freeland dominated the field with 35 points, with the Panthers (166) edging Hemlock (166) on the tiebreaker and finishing just ahead of Valley Lutheran (168). Tawas Area (258) was 11th, Oscoda (354) took 13th and Pinconning didn't field a full team.

The Braves were led by Guy Cotter's 19th place finish (18:11). He was followed by Matt Hughes (57th, 20:40), Tim Glasgow (59th, 20:46), Anthony Kushner (61st, 20:51), Matthew Horn (80th, 23:32) and Brandon McMahon (87th, 25:50.)

Travis Taylor (64th, 21:06) led Oscoda's young team, which had no seniors and just one junior. Also finishing were Buddy Jackson (68th, 21:32), Brian Perkins (81st, 23:52), Anthony Stanley (82nd, 23:59), Casey Copus (86th, 24:36) and Michael Perkins (90th, 27:17).

Derrek Lucynski (30th, 18:51) led Pinconning. The Spartans also had David Bellville (75h, 22:39), Trever McAlpine (78th, 23:05) and Jon Bodrie (84th, 24:04).