MHSAA Track State Meet Qualifiers - M Commits

Submitted by WolvinLA2 on

The MHSAA State T&F Meet is June 4th and there are a handful of M commits participating.  As a former track guy, I thought some might be interested. 

Ben Braden is seeded 12th in D1 in Discus as a junior. 

The D1 100m has a few names of interest:

Kishon Wilcher, son of Cass Tech head coach and somewhat of an M recruit is seeded 3rd, behind two kids from Grand Rapids. 

Delonte Hollowell is seeded 7th with a seed time of 10.7 and Justice Hayes is seeded 10th at 10.8.  This is especially interesting to me since people have raved about Hayes' speed, and listed Hollowell's speed as a weakness, yet it looks like their speed is at worst comparable.  They'll run against each other in a couple weeks, it will be interesting to see who comes out on top.

Terry Richardson is seeded 15th in the 200m with a time of 22.30.  He's the 4th highest seeded junior. 

I haven't found any other guys of interest (I expected to find Raymon Taylor and Thomas Rawls) but I'm still digging a bit so I'll keep you posted.  Zettel is seeded 2nd in D2 for both shot and disc.

WolvinLA2

May 23rd, 2011 at 8:41 PM ^

I also just found out that Dennis Norfleet, who is also being touted as speedy, was in Hollowell's heat for the 100m at regionals, and Delonte beat him by .32 seconds - a significant margin in the 100.  Norfleet did not qualify for the state meet.

jmblue

May 23rd, 2011 at 10:15 PM ^

But being able to run in a straight line when well-rested, in shorts and a tank top, is quite different from wearing pads and a helmet and cutting in different directions when you're already fatigued.   I would say that the 100 can potentially be a negative indicator (if a guy's speed is noticeably poor) but it's not guaranteed to be a positive one.  There are a lot of guys that are fast but just don't have the hip flexibility to cut well.  I think the shuttle run is more useful.

WolvinLA2

May 23rd, 2011 at 10:24 PM ^

I don't necessarily disagree with you, if his 100m time is all we knew about Delonte.  But we've been told he has good instincts, fluid hips and a very good vertical, but it was reported that his speed was an area of improvement.  Since we know that he many of the other good cornerback traits, seeing that he also has very good straight line speed is certainly a bonus.

DISCLAIMER - this post was not intended to be a "Look Delonte Hollowell ran the 100m good so he must do cornerback good too" post.  It was meant to show that we have a few future Wolverine who are good at running fast (a major part of football) including a guy who was downgraded by some because of speed concerns.

WolvinLA2

May 23rd, 2011 at 10:45 PM ^

I'm sure that's true to some extent, but so what?  Delonte weighs more than 150 right now I'm sure, and I don't know any 200lb recruits we have coming in who can run a 100m without pads as fast as Delonte Hollowell.  Your point would be more applicable if we had a 200lb recruit running step for step with him, but it doesn't look like we do.

Magnus

May 23rd, 2011 at 11:14 PM ^

Yes, my point is that while Delonte Hollowell might run a 10.7 without pads, he might be slowed down a half-second with pads on.

Meanwhile, Justice Hayes (who isn't 200 lbs., I know) might run a 10.8 now but only be slowed down .2 of a second.

Obviously, those are just random guesses, but it's something to keep in mind when looking at track speed vs. football speed.

WolvinLA2

May 24th, 2011 at 10:43 AM ^

I didn't realize you were referring to Hayes.  But according to Scout (the page I'm on), there is an 18 pound difference between Hollowell and Hayes (164 and 182, respectively).  I don't think that amount of weight is enough to make a difference, especially since Hayes' RB pads will weigh slightly more than Hollowell's tiny CB pads.  At best, the difference here is negligible.

Magnus

May 24th, 2011 at 11:02 AM ^

I'm just using those two as an example.  The main point is that smaller players would likely be affected more by their equipment.  Common sense would suggest that a tiny cornerback is going to be slowed down by his 15 pounds of equipment than a 300 pound lineman wearing 18 pounds of equipment.

So it's not out of the realm of possibility for Hollowell to have great track speed but slow down noticeably once the pads are on.

Michigan248

May 23rd, 2011 at 11:24 PM ^

What are you talking about? Jamal Charles,Chris Johnson, Jacoby Ford,Desmond Howard before Bo made him quit,James Jett,Tiki and Ronde Barber, ,andre johnson and  and aasantana moss and the list goes on and on.

 

EDIT: Im not saying that track stars = success because track speed and game speed are two different things but for the players that can put them together have had alot of success.

 

bnagy05

May 23rd, 2011 at 8:48 PM ^

Zettel committed to Penn State. So I mean, good luck to the kid but I don't really care what he's doing anymore. Sorry if that sounds dickish

goblueritzy92

May 23rd, 2011 at 8:55 PM ^

Speed in the 100 is more dependent on exceptional acceleration than on just flat out top speed. It could be that Justice would beat Delonte in a 200 and a 400.

Mr Mackey

May 23rd, 2011 at 9:10 PM ^

But for a CB especially, don't we primarily care about acceleration, not flat out top speed? The field is only 100 yards long.. So most of his runs are going to be bursts of acceleration, which would show in a 100 over a 200 or 400.

Obviously, a 40 would be even better, and that's why they're used as the primary speed indicators for football. IMO, this meet won't really show us too much of who will be fast on the field and who won't be.

Bodogblog

May 23rd, 2011 at 9:51 PM ^

1) fast, but several guys on your team were a little faster (and so ran the 100/200)
<br>2) blessed (cursed) with decent lung capacity, allowing you to be good at the event when coach asked you to try it
<br>3) too competitive to quit
<br>4) not smart enough to break your legs by jumping out of the second floor of an apartment building where my friend lived and i wouldn't do too much damage besides the broken legs because it wasn't That high. I mean you

justingoblue

May 24th, 2011 at 1:06 AM ^

The 400 is the worst possible distance, but I'm coming at this from a long distance runner's perspective. I never had to actually run it outside of ladders and repeats in practice, but I would probably have hired someone to kill me if my coach thought I was good at it and asked me to run it "on the reg".

Wolverine in 312

May 23rd, 2011 at 8:56 PM ^

Put too much stock in region to region discrepancies for our recruits. Regionals are hand timed and have a history of being wildly inaccurate (see: traverse city regional for the past five years). The only question I have is why Terry Richardson would be running the 200 instead of the 100. I wouldn't think, with his size, that he would have an advantage running the longer distance. Makes me think he has some strong legs, which is nice.

JeffB

May 23rd, 2011 at 9:17 PM ^

Are the meets still separated by class (it's been 15 years since I lives in MI, but I seem to remember that Class A, B, and C-D all had their own meets). If so, are the rankings listed for each athlete for their schools class?

Clayzer

May 23rd, 2011 at 9:55 PM ^

Instead of by class, they're by division. So they take every MHSAA school who will have track as a varsity support, then divide that number into 4 even groups based on enrollment. The rankings are listed by the division their school is in

mhayes09

May 23rd, 2011 at 9:57 PM ^

Not sure why you would use traverse city. They have had 1 of the last 3 regionals in div 1. That one was done with automatic timing, not hand time.

Wolverman

May 23rd, 2011 at 11:16 PM ^

 there is a difference between football speed and track speed, Everytime i see folks talking about track meets it always makes me think of Jerry Rice who everyone considered slow , always faced a double team and yet was always open.

 The thing thats most amazing about Denard is not his top speed but his acceleration. When he decides to run he's 5-10 yard up field before people can turn their head.

 

Gards

May 24th, 2011 at 8:10 AM ^

As a former D2 college sprinter and DB...there is something to say about having track speed.  It doesn't always transfer on the field, but speed is speed.  100m or 40 yards I don't think you will find much of a difference.  A kid that runs in the 10 second range with FAT timing will have a decent 40 time.  Besides, unless you are in the 10.5 range or lower with FAT timing NOT hand timing...you are a 400m runner anyways.

It is nice to have some recruits that qualified for the meet.  Best of luck to all of them!