Shrine Runners Cap off Historic Season

l's boys and girls cross country teams excelled all season with one of their best performances in recent school history.

It was a very successful year for the Knights and head coach Wright Wilson. With appearances in the state finals this season, Wilson and his Shrine runners built upon a long-standing cross country tradition of excellence that for years was led by Shrine Hall of Fame coach and long-time athletic director Lou Miramonti.

"It has been a very hectic but successful season for us and I have barely had time to breathe," Wilson wrote in an email. "It has been a very rewarding year and the kids worked really hard."

Shrine finished 14th in the 27-school standings as part of the Division 4 boys race at the state finals at MIS. Matt Sutton led the Knights by taking 48th overall (17:37). Ben Kendell followed in 59th, with C.J. Dagher (79th), Matt Acre (81st), Evan Yee (89th), Robert Joseph (133rd) and Scott Proschek (156th) also competing for Shrine.

North Muskegon won the boys' team title with 89 points.

The Shrine girls' team finished even better – seventh in the state with 249 points. With that finish the Knights were the only team to finish in the top 10 in Division 4 in Oakland County.

Emily Guirey was 16th in 19:38.3 to earn all-state honors. Anna Goike (37th), Morgan Button (64th), Grace Nagle (129th), Clare Romano (143rd), Lexi Cavanaugh (149th) and Matti Baltrusaitis (173rd) also competed for the Knights.

Hesperia finished as the team champion on the girls side with 107 points.

"This is the girls third year in a row to be in the top 10 and the boys finishing 14^th was our best finish since 1982," Wilson explained. "We have 15 boys and 17 girls on our teams. That's the best turnout we've ever had for this sport at Shrine. We've only got 276 kids in the whole school so that's one out of every nine kids is a distance runner. That's pretty impressive."

Competing in dual meets, jamborees and Invitationals the boys' team put together a 27-1 record, with its only loss to Royal Oak High. The girls were 23-6 on the year.

In cross-country competition, each team of seven runners works to get the highest finish over the 3.1-mile course. Higher finishers get lower scores like golf and only the top five finishers are counted in each race for a total team score. Wilson gave the senior class credit for putting up such impressive numbers for each team.

"We had 12 seniors (total for both squads) and had some great leadership out of them," he explained. "(Emily) Guirey was an All-Stater for us and finished 16^th overall at the state meet with a 19.38 (minutes and seconds) and that was her fastest race and the fastest we've seen in at least 10 years for us."

Earlier in the fall, Shrine dominated the C-D competition at the Catholic League finals in Shelby Township in late October, sweeping titles for both the boys and girls teams. The Knights won by a whopping 33 points over second-place Allen Park Cabrini on the boys' side, and nine points ahead of second-place Cabrini among the girls' teams.

It marked the first time in recent years that Shrine won the title for both of its teams, Wilson said.

At the Catholic League finals, Guirey beat out Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard's Andrea Bodary by a second, finishing at 20:35 in the girls' competition. Goike was fourth in with a time of 20:55 and Button was sixth. Romano also finished in the top 10. It was a great way for Shrine seniors to go out on top after finishing second to Gabriel Richard the previous three years, Wilson said.

The Knights' also placed five runners among the top nine finishers on the boys' side. Kendell, a freshman, placed second with a time of 18:05, closely followed by Dagher, Nagle and Sutton, who finished third, fourth and fifth and within seconds of each other. Arce was just five seconds back of Sutton, placing ninth.

Evan Eyee  finished 12^th at the regional meet and was All Catholic in his junior year. Robert Joseph was a four-year performer who was in the top seven all throughout his career. And Nagle was an All Catholic performer this past year. Even with so many senior losses to the team, the stellar reputation seems to pull in top performers each year.

"The program is really selling itself," he says. "It sounds like a lot of work running all those miles – and it is. But we keep it fun for the kids. Everyone bonds really well. It doesn't matter if you're the slowest, the oldest, the newest – you're all doing the same thing so everyone can relate."