Team looks to grow, excel this season and in the future, coach Ford says

By Jim Newell

Review Editor

The Lake Orion High School men’s cross country team is a young team, but Coach Stan Ford sees promise in his runners’ development this year, and for the future of the squad.

“This is a fun group, because they are young. And the kids came up (to varsity) with that kind of enthusiasm. So, my ninth and tenth graders are gung-ho,” Ford said. “It’s been a very exciting year for me to coach. Some people may think that after 38 years that that’s waning, but so much of coaching is about the personality of the group of kids you have. So, this has been fun.”

Lake Orion hosted the men’s cross country OAA Jamboree II on Sept. 24 at Lake Orion High School, with the Dragons running against teams from Rochester Adams, Oxford, Birmingham Seaholm, Clarkston and Troy high schools.

The 5,000-meter race through the fields and hills around the high school presented a challenging course for the runners.

Lake Orion finished with 48 points, second to meet champs Rochester Adams, which finished with 32 points. Clarkston was third with 72 points, Oxford fourth with 80 points, Troy fifth with 138 points and Birmingham Seaholm with 155 points.

Individually, Lake Orion’s Andrew Nolan won the meet, finishing with a time of 16:10.2 minutes, more than 30 seconds ahead of his closest competition. Nolan, Lake Orion’s only senior this year, set a new course record with his finish time.

“He’s fun to watch. As much as I’m looking forward to the end of the cross country season with him, I’m also looking forward to track and watching him continue to develop in that area,” Ford said.

One of the more telling aspects of the race was that the Dragons had six runners place in the top 20, and four more finish in the top 31.

Sophomore Jacob Gleason finished in 9th place (17:37.9); sophomore Hong Bing Tang was 10th (17:38.6); sophomore Clayton Kuiper finished 13th (17:52.5); sophomore Adam Hafeli was 15th (17:54.5); and freshman Luke Peardon finished in 18th place (17:59.5).

Freshman Horacio Lopez finished 23rd (18:19.2); sophomore Will Houvener finished 24th (18:02.6); and junior Nicholas Laurent rounded out the Dragons’ scoring, finishing in 30th place with a time of 18:19.2. Sophomore Andrew Jacques finished in 31st place, just two-tenths of a second behind Laurent.

As a team, the Dragons placed second out of 13 teams at the Linden Invitational on Sept. 21. Nolan won the race, and Tang (11th), Jacques (15th), Peardon (24th), Kuiper (25th), Laurent (26th) and Hafeli (27th) all finishing in the top 30.

Going forward, Ford said he will try to keep Nolan – who has been all-state the last two years – on a training path to continue at the state level.

“He’s going to do well in all the meets coming up. I have to make sure that he’s getting what he needs to make sure he’s performing at the level that he’s at,” Ford said.

Despite this being Nolan’s last season on the team, the younger runners are a group with tremendous promise.

“We want to do things today that will get them ready for the end of the season, and do things this year that will get them ready their sophomore, junior and senior years. That could, potentially, be a very dangerous team in the years ahead. Is there another Andrew Nolan in that group? It’s too early to tell, but they’re going to be very good,” Ford said.

Ford added that Gleason, Kuiper and Tang have run consistently well for the Dragons, and Lopez keeps making strides throughout the season.

“Working on the team concept of the other guys, they’re a pack of young guys and if they are going to be good in the future it’s because there’s a bunch of them and they’re going to score very low. At the JV meet, the JV kids scored 1-2-3-4-5, a perfect score. That’s the flavor of this team in the future,” Ford said.

There are 65 total runners for the Dragons, with the top 10 competing at the varsity level in the regular season meets. In the post season, depending on the meet, the varsity will run 7-8 runners, Ford said.

As the team heads toward the post season, Ford hopes to see how the younger runners perform in the larger meets.

“I’m really interested in the county meet to see how this young group stacks up because that’s really competitive and there’s so much depth throughout the county,” Ford said. “The regional, we’ve really been focusing on that. It would be a tremendous experience for these young guys to qualify for the state meet as a team.”

The team competes at the Oakland County meet at Kensington Metro Park at 9 a.m. Saturday, then heads to the Oxford Invite at 4 p.m. Oct. 11 at Oxford Hills Golf Club.

The Michigan High School Athletic Association Regional meet is Oct. 26 in Algonac. The MHSAA state meet is Nov. 2 at MIS.