“Surprise, Surprise, Surprise” — Gomer Pyle on “The Andy Griffith Show” and “Gomer Pyle USMC.”
It’s only been a little more than a week into the fall sports season, and already three astonishing things have occurred, most notably from Martin.
Submitted for your approval, three developments that I didn’t see coming, and I remain reeling from being blind-sided:
- Martin has put together its very first varsity cross-country team and is very competitive.
- Martin, a virtual doormat on the gridiron not so long ago, opened the season with a 50-0 victory.
- Wayland’s girls’ cross-country started the season winning two invitationals, just like last year, but this time the Lady Wildcats are really looking like a contender, despite running in the toughest cross conference in the state.
Imagine my surprise earlier this month when ace rookie reporter Austin Marsman told me the Clippers were going to run cross. Imagine my surprise a week later when I learned Martin was among the teams competing in the Wayland and Kelloggsville Rocket invitational meets. Imagine my surprise when coach John Visser’s boys’ group turned in more than respectable performances.
Led by upperclassmen Brysan Young and Seth Hentschel, they finished fourth among seven teams at the Kelloggsville meet.
Imagine my surprise late Friday night when I saw the 50-0 score of Martin’s football opener, with the Clippers getting the 50. It was five years ago that Martin too often was on the other side of the score and suffering from a 56-game losing streak.
And who is this sophomore quarterback, Travis Thorne, whom I’ve never heard of before this morning, who passed for 224 yards and four touchdowns?
For that matter, who is this head varsity coach, Mike McGuire? Though his last name is actually quite common in Martin, I had no idea he was hired as head coach.
But the Lady Wildcat harriers might take the cake in the “coming out of nowhere” category.
Sophomore Rylee Cronkright, who was a good, but not great runner as a freshman, very suddenly is turning heads. She was so good last Thursday that she bested quality runners such as teammate Maggie Whitney, Hopkins’ Laura Velderman and Jasmine Fisher and Hamilton’s Erica Freyhof, all of whom have earned recognition at the state level.
Mix into this strange brew Wayland taking sixth, seventh and eighth places with foreign exchange student Mie Tornbjerg, freshman Naomi Oosterhouse and senior Abbie Hasse.
Look out for the Wayland girls’ golf team, with underclassmen Lauren Drew and Abby Omness sparkling on the links. This is only two years removed from the heady days of all-stater Ali Martus.
And I hereby predict that the Wayland varsity football team will flirt with a winning record.
Obviously, I could be very wrong. The O-K Gold could prove to be too strong for Wildcat gridders and harriers and teams like Saugatuck and Fennville have yet to be played on the gridiron by Martin.
But this is as interesting a start to the fall season I’ve seen. And I’ve seen a lot of ‘em.
PHOTO: The Martin boys’ cross-country team has surprised observers by its mere existence and lately by its quality performances.
