By Wendi Reardon Price
Staff Writer
wprice@mihomepaper.com
INDEPENDENCE TWP. — The Clarkston Boys Cross Country team checked their third goal of the season off their list as they won for the MHSAA Division 1 Regional 8 Meet at Clintonwood Park last Friday.
“First goal, county meet; second goal, league; third goal win regional this year because last year we lost the regional to Troy,” said Larry Adams, head coach for the boys team. “We didn’t want that to happen again.”
Clarkston finished in first place with 61 points. Lake Orion finished in second place with 75 points; and Oxford, third, 81 points, both qualifying for the state meet.
“Lake Orion ran really well,” said Adams. “They have come a long way. They had some couple kids up front step up, have great races and they put together in very nice race to end up finishing second. It was good for them and good for our league because Oxford was third so the OAA Red had all three teams qualify.”
He shared the Wolves did a nice job.

“We were much more consistent than we have been with our top five guys running well,” Adams said. “Even six and seven – was it the perfect race, no – but we definitely got to a point where we’ve had back-to-back races where they’ve been pretty consistent. So, that is nice going into this week because it’s just something that we work on is trying to have a race plan that helps us to be in the fight to be as far up as we can be. And they’ve been there. A lot of them were there last year at the state meet so they know what it’s like so that’s good. I am looking forward to the experience we have.”
Senior Cayden DeGrendel led the pack, finishing in fifth place in the time of 15:45.10.
“Caden was solid again,” said Adams. “He had a nice race plan where he just kept moving up, kept moving up and finished strong.”
The top five also included senior Jaxson Nowik in seventh place in the time of 15:55.10; junior David Dubeck, 14th, 16:01.30; junior Ryan Barnes, 15th, 16:01.70; and freshman Cooper McNaughton.
“David and Jaxson, those are two guys who came back and raced well back to back weeks so that was good,” said Adams. “Cooper, I think he had a 10-second PR so he did a real nice job on Friday. He works at it. For a freshman, he’s tough. My top five, I got two seniors, two juniors and a freshman right now. We have a good strong guys behind our top seven like I’m taking two people with me to the state meet as alternates and right now, I don’t know who my top seven are because one of them was sick on Friday and couldn’t run so I put an alternate in and he ran great. It’s a good problem to have.”
The girls cross country team qualified to go to the state meet with a third place finish with 115 points. Rochester finished in first place with 36 points and Rochester Adams, second, 67.

Sophomore Avery DeGrendel led the pack with a ninth place finish in the time of 18:54; sophomore Kendal Russette, 18th, 19:37.50; freshman Amelia Garvin, 24th, 20:14.40; junior Sydney Fischer, 29th, 20:29.40; freshman Audrey Hoang, 35th, 20:40.70; freshman Kenzie Kramer, 39th, 20:47.30; and junior Kylie Golub, 49th, 21:09.30.
The Clarkston teams head to the MHSAA Division 1 Cross Country State Finals this Saturday at the Michigan International Speedway.
“Hopefully we have a good week of training, and we get ready for it,” said Adams. “Then, we have good performances this weekend and see how far up we can get towards the top.”
He added the team wants to finish in the top five.
“We have been ranked as high as fourth, we’re a strong team that way,” Adams said. “They for sure want to be in top five. We will worry about ourselves and see if we can run to a top five performance, then let whatever else happens, happen. We can’t control other teams so let’s worry about what we’re doing – that’s been kind of our model the whole week and then we will go from there.”
The boys race at 2:10 p.m., girls run at 3:30 p.m. The awards presentation is at 4:15 p.m.

  Clarkston Athletics, cross country