Beal City takes home Highland crown
Once October arrives Beal City starts to shine.
Aftermonths of sweating and spitting and putting in mile after brutal mile the Beal City cross country programtakes on a different look once the leaves begin to fall.
It’s been this way for nearly two decades too. But that’s how the training and methodology work out Beal City-way in that the Aggies put in the hard work in the early season before tapering back once it starts to get cold.
The genius behind the plan and program is Dave King, a coach who’s coached the Aggies to numerous state championships over the years and a coach who has earned his own due via numerous ‘Coach of the Year’ honors from the state of Michigan.
On Tuesday afternoon in front of the home faithful King and his Aggies were at it again as they hosted the final Highland Conference jamboree of the regular season. In the end the Ladyaggies put on a great show as five of the eight girls ran season PRS, led by sophomore Kaylee Locke who was second overall withabeal City home courserecord time of 19:38.8.
Locke broke Emily Steffke’s previous standard of 19:49.8 set on Oct. 15, 2013.
“It’s been awhile,” said King, who led the Aggies to a 17thplace finish in the finals last year. “There were three years (2016-17-18) where we struggled to even field a (scoring) teambecausewe had lownumbers. This year we’ve got eight girls and they’re running well right now.”
Beal City had all five of its scoring runners finish in the top- eight as via the solid showingwonthemeet with 25 points, besting runner-up Roscommon by 25 points. More importantly though, the Lady Aggies also won the Highland Conference title for the first time since 2015.
For theday eight of the 11 Beal City boys also ran season PRS. So what gives?
“They complain sometimes because we work really hard early in the season,” said King, whose 2013Ladyaggies stunned the state when they came out of nowhere to win the D4 state title. “We’re running workouts on the days after meets and running good mileage on the days going into meets. But when we get into Phase 4, what I call this part of the season, we start di
aling it down to get them rested for the final part of the season.”
On paper Roscommon should have beaten Beal City Tuesday as it had better overall times.
Yet. the fact is. Roscommon has only run on faster courses while Beal City has slogged through some rough terrain.
Now that roughterrain is starting to pay off big time.
“We’ve worked harder through the season and up to this point to try and peak the kids at the right time, but we also haven’t run on any fast courses this year,” said King.
“Our course is about as fast as it gets and it’s not a
PR course.
“When we get to Shepherd (for regionals) next week, that’s a PR course.”
Tailor Onstott (20:44.9) was fourth for the Aggies while Rachal Weber (20:59.1) was fifth, Hadyn Armstrong (22:06.4) sixth and Genevieve Lasater (22:21.6) eighth.
Roscommon’s Allison Chmiclewski won the race in 18:11.2.
On the boys side there wasn’t a conference title to be had as the Aggies finished secondwith 47 points. Roscommon was first with 27.
Matthew Kolb (18:29.7) led the Aggies in fourth.
Roscommon’s Xander Civinskas was first in 17:57.2.
The Aggies host preregionals on Saturday at noon.