Van Hoosen girls track team has historic 2025 season

ROCHESTER HILLS — The Van Hoosen middle school girls track team had a season to remember in 2025 thanks to an undefeated year, school records, and a first-place finish in the Oakland County Track Championship for the first time in 26 years.

The team also won the Rochester city championship and established itself as one of the best programs in the state.

“They doubled up the second place team (in the city meet). They actually scored first in every running event in that meet,” Van Hoosen track coach Donley Norris said. “The girls team was never ever close to losing (all season).”

Everyone in the program worked extremely hard to get to this point. This is a team that hadn’t won the county meet since 1999 and was able to win in dominant fashion this season.

“Both the boys and girls worked very hard. We had both boys and girls … stay after practice and work,” Norris explained. “It seemed to be the culture this year. Putting the extra effort in. … They’re very coachable.”

This culture of putting in extra work clearly paid off. Aside from the program accolades, the girls team set five unique school records this season alone, and the boys team set three.

The girls school records set were the 3200-meter, by Jesse Soldan; the 1600-meter, by Jesse Soldan; 100-meter, by Abagail Deering; the 200-meter, by Abigail Deering; and the 1600-meter relay, with Abagail Deering, Maddie Deering, Abigail Deering and Eva Wordell.

The three school records set by the boys team were 55-meter hurdles, by Anthony Thompson; the 70, also by Thompson; and 200-meter hurdles, by Nolan Dawood.

“(The kids) were just performing out of their minds,” Norris said. “We had multiple records broken against that top competition. The competition for the sprints this year was much more difficult than it was last year. … It’s that idea of bringing the best out of each other.”

One of the unique traits in track is the size of the team. Van Hoosen has a lot of impressive athletic teams in other sports, but those rosters are much smaller than track. The unity that the team is able to show makes a year like this even more special.

“I think we had 152 (kids) sign up for the city meet,” Norris said. “It’s that idea of … building towards something together. That was a big thing.”

The size of the team also allows kids from different grades to interact with each other and form bonds that they otherwise may not have had. Aside from the fantastic season on the track, there were friendships formed this season that will last a lifetime.

“This is grades six through eight,” Van Hoosen track coach Rachael Deering said. “It’s about the friendships, too.”

This was a wildly successful season for the program. The notoriety along with the size of the team will only help Van Hoosen continue to grow and maintain this level of success going forward.

“I think (this season) also adds excitement to track. The unique thing about track is there’s no cuts,” Deering said. “If anyone wants to work, they can wear that jersey and be a part of our team. … All of the sudden it’s a cool sport for kids, and they don’t have to try out.”