Forest Hills Eastern, ranked at #5 in the state entering the Regional round, have been looking up at 1st place Ionia the entire season. The Hawks have had an extremely successful season by any measure, but Ionia has been on an entirely different level, demolishing their opposition with consistency.  So no matter how much success they enjoyed, in order to have realistic visions of a state championship, there was no way around it — they’d have to beat the Bulldogs.

Mission accomplished, thanks to an outstanding 4th place finish by the Hawks senior leader, Garrett Cullen.  Cullen lead his team to a first place finish at last week’s Regional at Carson City, besting the runner up Bulldogs by 14 points.

It’s a huge accomplishment, particularly given Ionia’s dominance throughout the season.  But it’s only the first step on the road to a championship.  The Hawks will have to do the same thing again at the state meet next week, where they will face off against 29-other teams, one of them an Ionia team looking to avenge their unexpected defeat.

Cullen and his Forest Hills Eastern teammates will be ready.

Congratulations to Garrett Cullen, this week’s Good GMC West Michigan All Star.

EK's Erica Hippe has a future as a motivational speaker

This week’s Good GMC West Michigan All-Star is Erica Hippe, junior cross country runner for East Kentwood.

On September 8th, the first day of school, Hippe was rushed to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy.  The operation was successful in removing an appendix that likely would have burst within hours.  This type of surgery has an average recovery time of between three- and six-weeks, depending on the conditions of the surgery (emergencies, like Hippe’s, can take longer).  This meant bad news for the Falcons, who had finished third in Division-1 in 2008 and were counting on Hippe’s contributions in 2009.

But Hippe’s doctors left the door open.  They said that her running was only a matter of how much pain she could endure.  If she could grit her teeth through the pain, she could run.

Hippe loves running.  Has since the 8th-grade.  And she knew she was going to run, with or without her appendix. That’s all there was to it.

“I knew I could do it eventually,” Hippe said. “I just didn’t know how long it would take.”

And so it came as little surprise that she was mobile, albeit dragging an IV, less than 24-hours after surgery.  In less than a week, she was running.  And in 8-days, she competed in the Triangular Meet against West Ottawa and Hudsonville.

Many people have trouble dragging themselves out of bed in the morning.

Congratulations to Erica Hippe, this week’s inspirational Good GMC West Michigan All-Star.

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