BROOKLYN — While winning the past two seasons’ Catholic League cross-country championship races by a full minute has been nice for Samantha Schroeder, there’s nothing that gets her adrenaline going like having to chase down someone in front of her.
Although that hasn’t happened very often, that was how she won the MHSAA Division 3 individual cross-country championship Nov. 1 at Michigan International Speedway.
“It was really exciting,” she said, moments after crossing the finish line. “I like having competition. It pushes me to do things I never thought I could do. I don’t think I would be able to get that much of a kick if I was by myself.”
With her surge at the end of the 5-kilometer race, Schroeder became the first female runner from Jackson Lumen Christi to win an individual state title — which is somewhat hard to believe, considering that the Titans have won the team championship a state-best 10 times.
Schroeder entered the day having run the third-best time this season among girls in Division 3, with her regional meet-winning time of 18:14.4. However, that was still well behind Hailey Creisher of Leslie, who posted a 17:51.9 at the Greater Lansing championships.
“I raced her once at the Jackson Invitational; that was the only time I raced against her,” Schroeder said. “She finished in front of me, I don’t know by how much, but it was a good amount (32 seconds). I learned she goes out in the beginning really fast and then goes back into an even pace.”
Still, Schroeder said she envisioned herself being able to win the state finals.
“At the beginning, before the gun went off, I visualized her being a good amount in front of me, but being able to catch her,” Schroeder said.
When the runners made the turn at the two-mile mark, not only did Creisher hold the lead, but Schroeder was in fourth place, 9.2 seconds behind.
Coming down the final stretch in front of the grandstand, Schroeder dug deep.
“I had a lot of anxiety, so I was just using all of the adrenaline to push me through,” she said. “I had no clue if I was going to catch her or not because she was still a good distance in front, but my confidence was pretty good.
“I just started closing the gap and I caught her,” she said. “There’s not much thinking — I just kicked it into gear.”
Schroeder passed Creisher at the three-mile mark, and kept sprinting for the final tenth of a mile, ultimately winning by 4.2 seconds in 18:07.0. It was her fastest time of the year, and within one second of her all-time best.
With Schroeder's first-place finish, the Titans were able to place fourth among the field of 28 schools. Teammate Macy Fazekas finished 27th (19:22.5) to qualify for an all-state honor among the top 30.
The Titan boys’ team placed third in their race with 143 points, only 12 behind team champion Charlevoix. Senior Gibson Shore (11th, 15:59.2) was Lumen Christi’s top finisher. Rocky Bolton (16:28) and Soren Crosthwaite (16:32) also finished among the top 50.
SMCC sophomore makes the jump
Schroeder’s big finish wasn’t the only highlight for Catholic runners hailing from southeast Michigan.
Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central sophomore Christian Craanen nearly equaled Schroeder’s feat before ultimately crossing the finish line in third place. He recorded a personal-best 15:35.8, just five seconds behind winner Hunter Eaton of Charlevoix.
“I had a plan and executed it,” Craanen said. “I just couldn’t catch up at the end, but I’m still happy with what I did.”
Craanen has been all-state in both years of his career, finishing a respectable 14th (15:56.0) as the top freshman in 2024’s race.
“(I ran) a lot more mileage in the summer; way more than last year. My legs felt way better this year, and I just had a better feel for the race,” he said. “I was just not wanting to be one (place) off, like 31st.”
As the race progressed, it appeared that Craanen didn’t have much to worry about.
“I started in front and just kind of sat behind them,” he said. “(Eaton) built a gap on me, and I just couldn’t make it up, but I was up there until about the 2½ mile mark. I stayed up with them pretty good.”
Since Craanen is a three-sport athlete, along with wrestling and track, he doesn’t have a traditional off-season like other runners.
“I was doing 45 miles a week,” he said. “(In wrestling season) I try to run as much as I can, but most of the time I’m too tired from wrestling and I just can’t get it in. It shows you how much work you have to put in to get where you want to be.”
Craanen first joined cross-country simply because his older brother, Nate, was an active distance runner. But Christian said it has come to be his favorite sport.
“Distance running is more mentally draining, and wrestling’s more physically draining, but cross-country is my favorite, because of the people I have on the team with me,” he said.
Running is a game-changer for Shrine’s Cerone
It took some time for Royal Oak Shrine’s Abenezer Cerone to catch the running bug. He didn’t start his distance career in grade school, as two of his older brothers had done, but he eventually came around.
"My freshman year I also played soccer, and once I decided to take running seriously, that allowed me to take a big jump and to focus on training,” he said. “I was only training two or three times a week my freshman year because we had soccer games. I also didn’t know too much about running and that you had to run consistently.”
Cerone did run at the state finals four times in his career, but once he made the commitment, things changed in a big way.
“My freshman year I was kind of middle-of-the-pack — I was pretty surprised that I made it (to state),” he said. “My sophomore year, I was contending to win a regional. My junior year I did win the regional as well as my senior year, this year.”
Cerone placed 56th during that ninth-grade state meet, in 17:27, but those days are behind him. Since then, he’s had three consecutive finishes in the top three, including this year, when he ran 15:47.3 — a time that would have been fast enough to win in his sophomore season.
“Everyone’s going there to run a fast time or to win. Knowing that you’re going to go out fast and prepare yourself for that really helps. I think that was a big shock for me my sophomore year. I tried to stay with the top pack but I wasn’t ready for how fast they were going.”
Cerone had his sights set on winning this year’s race, but was pretty accepting that the field also included defending champion Marek Butkiewicz of Kalamazoo Hackett Catholic Central, who had set the Division 4 all-time record of 15:09 last season.
Butkiewicz successfully defended his title (15:27.0), followed by Harbor Beach’s Brody Karg (15:37.6) and Cerone (15:47.7). The three have since become good friends and spent extra time in the finish chute together after the race. The other two runners had also followed a career trajectories similar to Cerone’s.
“My brother (Jonah, an all-state runner in 2021) ran and he tried to tell me about state,” he said, “but it’s one thing to get told something and another thing to actually experience it.”
With Cerone’s leadership, Shrine’s boys finished in fifth place with 205 points. Shrine’s girls team was 17th with 419 points, and got an all-state performance from sophomore Ella Lamb, who was 18th (19:54.6).
Four-peat is sweet for SMCC’s LaFountain
To most elite runners, earning all-state is usually a foregone conclusion. But St. Mary Catholic Central’s Bella LaFountain, a three-time honoree who has been on the cusp of the top 30, devised a strategy to make sure she wouldn’t fall out in her senior year.
“I just wanted to get with a good, fast-moving pack and then establish a good position that I could maintain,” she said. “Right after I hit the second mile, I realized I had to start making moves. I knew I was closer to 30th, so I started passing people and picked off other people to get a good position and make sure I got it.”
LaFountain finished 26th in 19:20.8, accomplishing the rare feat of earning all-state in each of her four seasons.
With each passing year, LaFountain said, she took more of an analytical approach to her races.
“Just this season I started practicing a race plan to help me through each race mentally,” she said. “In the beginning I wasn’t really using one, but at regionals I used it and I got second, and I did it at (the Huron League) championships; it helped me and I got first. Just having that plan helped a lot throughout.”
Despite the high-profile atmosphere of the state finals, LaFountain said she didn’t switch up her game plan too much.
“I just knew at the start line that I needed to get out extra-fast so I didn’t get too boxed in, but that was really it,” she said. “I did feel a bit of extra pressure on myself because I really did want a medal. I knew when I came in the track I really had to start going so I made it. I really wanted to get the fourth year.”
LaFountain is also making future plans — she has committed to continuing her racing career at Wayne State University.
Other all-state performers from Catholic League runners included Chesterfield Austin Catholic sophomore Cassidy Bowers (19th in Division 4, 19:56.5), Riverview Gabriel Richard junior Jacob Ferdubinski (21st in Division 4, 16:43.3) and Macomb Lutheran North junior Joshua Macri (19th in Division 2, 15:53.7).
