Inland Lakes girls track team makes history with conference win

INDIAN RIVER – It came down to one race. Down by a point heading into the final event of the meet, Inland Lakes track and field coach Sarah Furman went up to her 4X400 relay team – Kaylee Taglauer, Mackenzie Biesel, Addyson Price and Chloe Robinson – and gave them a quick message. KAYLEE TAGLAUER: 'All in’: Kaylee Taglauer a mainstay with Inland Lakes girls track REGIONAL CHAMPIONS: I-L girls win regional title; several area athletes qualify for states ROBINSON TO BAY COLLEGE: Inland Lakes' Robinson to continue basketball career at Bay College “I told them, ‘You girls have to decide if you want to win this meet or not,’ and I knew they could,” Furman said.

“I had four girls in that race that I trusted to go win this meet. ” With a Ski Valley Conference championship on the line , those four Bulldogs went and did the job, collected enough points, and made history for the second time in five days. Because of a second-place finish from I-L's 4X400 relay (4:29.

28), the Bulldogs (143 points) earned their first Ski Valley crown since 2023 by outlasting host Mancelona (136) on Wednesday, May 20. “It takes a lot of mental toughness to go and just chip away at (Mancelona) at every single event,” Furman said. “There were a couple of races and events that didn’t go our way, and to just go and be onto the next event and kind of believe that we can get the job done.

It’s hard to convince kids when they’re getting fourths and fifths and sixths and sevenths that that will do it in the long haul, and it’s that mental toughness of, ‘No, I’m just going to keep coming at them. ’” Grinding away was exactly what the Bulldogs did, as they offset many of Mancelona’s top finishes by securing points throughout the meet. In the end, it allowed Inland Lakes to follow up with a Ski Valley trophy after claiming its third MHSAA Division 4 regional trophy in four seasons last week.