Top 5 under the radar
Boys cross country
For the first time in sixteen years, the boys cross country team was able to qualify for the State Meet after placing second in the Regional Meet this season. At the State Meet, the team had three Rangers place in the top 150: senior Geoffrey Batterbee, junior Gabe Carlson, and freshman Sam Yaeger. During the regular season, the team finished in the top five at every meet except two. They had four second-place finishes and two third-place finishes. This led to them getting second in the conference.
“We made it to States for the first time in 16 years,“ senior co-captain Tripp Derrick said. “So it’s definitely the best we’ve done over the span of 16 years.“
Freshman football
The FHC freshman football team dominated this year and showed that the future is bright for the Ranger football program. The team went 8-1 with only one loss on the road to Grandville. The young Rangers never looked back after that loss to the Bulldogs and went on a seven-game winning streak, which led to an OK White conference first-place finish in convincing fashion. The offense was the key component to many FHC victories during the heart of their season. Freshman quarterback Hunter Robinson, along with the freshmen running back trio of Arash Kordbacheh, Tyler Weaver, and Quentin Rudolph made it extremely hard for opponents to plan for such a deep and lethal offense. The team looks to repeat as conference champions next season.
Boys tennis
This season, the boys tennis team was able to take second in the conference; the only team the Rangers lost to was Forest Hills Northern in the season-opener. After this loss, they easily took down every other conference opponent. FHC even had three matches where they went undefeated. At the end of the season, they were able to take first at both the conference meet and MHSAA Regionals. The team then took eleventh at the State Tournament.
Field hockey
After having won the State Championship last year, the Forest Hills field hockey team was moved to Division 1. Despite the drastic increase in competition, the team – consisting of all Forest Hills schools, Grand Haven, Rockford, and Grand Rapids Christian — was still able to live up to expectations. Early in the season, the team defeated rival East Grand Rapids 2-0 to kickstart a 4-0-1 run to put them at 6-2-1 for the first half of the season. The team took one more win against EGR to put their record at 8-7-2 before the season ended in the State quarterfinals to Saline. They took eighth place out of thirty teams in Michigan.
“I think we had a rough start because most of us had never played together,” junior Megan Raisch said, “but about halfway through the season we really started to pick it up, scored more, and played better defense. I think that’s probably all due to the fact that we got to know each other better and there was more trust between us.“
Girls swim and dive
With a mix of senior leadership and young talent, the girls swim and dive team finished off with a very successful season. The Lady Rangers only lost one meet the entire year to rival EGR and would later take second place behind the Pioneers in the Conference Meet just over a week ago. FHC’s future is bright, with big contributions from freshmen Jessica Doyel and Maggie Hier along with sophomores Emily Johnson and Olivia Hooper. The veterans of the team helped out also, like senior Jessica Schellenboom and juniors Maggie Zorn, Olivia Luplow, and Sarah Schenck. All-Conference swimmers included Emily, Jessica, Sarah, and Olivia.
“I think the team performed very well this year,” Jessica said. “We had many new girls make their state cuts and others dropped a lot of time in their events.“