At last Saturday’s Division II Regional at South Lyon East High School, Notre Dame’s Track and Field team produced four individual champions and a relay champion, vaulting a total of ten athletes to next week’s Division II State Finals. Along the way, three separate Notre Dame records were broken. Winning regional championships for the Irish in individual events were senior Andrea Pangori in the high jump, sophomore Brendan Fraser in the 3200m run, senior Lauren McGrath in the 800m run, and junior Nathan Mylenek in both the 1600m and 800m runs. Additionally, the girls 4x800m relay team of McGrath, Bolden, sophomore Dana Pangori, and freshman Lauren Neiheisel finished in first to become regional champions. Also qualifying for the State Finals with a second place finish was the boys 4x800m relay team consisting of junior Aidan Schurig, senior Joshua Fullerton, senior Ryan Obear, and Mylenek, and the girls 4x400m team, once again, consisting of McGrath, Bolden, Dana Pangori, and Andrea Pangori. Three NDP school records were also broken on the day. The previously mentioned girls and boys 4x800m relay teams each set new school marks. The girls team finished in 9:51.31, erasing the prior record set in 2009, and the boys’ time of 8:05.83 beats the prior standard from 2010. The third record fell in the last event of the meet when the boys 4x400m team made up of senior Jermaine Johnson, junior Luke Mullis, Schurig, and Mylenek broke the prior record set last year with a time of 3:31.16. Other outstanding performances were delivered by Bolden (2nd, 400m), Andrea Pangori (5th, 200m), Neiheisel (4th, 800m), Mullis (5th, 400m), Johnson (6th, 400m), freshman Maddie Scherle (4th, long jump), junior Matthew Durkin (4th, high jump) and senior Eric Leduc (5th, shot put and discus). In the team standings, the boys finished fourth and the girls were fifth. The MHSAA Division II State Finals are scheduled for Saturday, May 30th at Zeeland East High School.
Photo courtesy of MiPrepZone.com (May 21, 2015)