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With Kettlewell's record effort in the pole vault and two other firsts, and teammate Neil Grundman's three firsts, Cros-Lex scored 189.5 points and fought off good performances from Marlette (142) and Deckerville (131.5) for the championship trophy.

"It's been quite a year," remarked Lisa Shaw, head coach of the BWAC champions. "We haven't lost to anybody, in duals or invitationals, all year. That's nice.

"These same seniors were here when I took over, for the second time, four years ago."

The Robert Sullivan Award for Male Athlete of the Meet was pinned down by Kettlewell during his duel in the pole vault with CPS's Shane Albrecht. The final vaulters remaining, they both broke the old County Meet record of 13'6" by clearing 13'8.5". Kettlewell then went on to win the event with the meet and school record height of 14'6". Earlier, he out-strode Deckerville's Seth McVittie to win both the 110 high hurdles (14.61) and the 300 intermediate hurdles (39.74).

"Josh isn't just a pole vault guru," noted Shaw, "he does tons of stuff for us. He runs those hurdles and runs the relay, and he's a captain." Kettlewell usually runs on the 1600 meter relay team, but stepped out of that to complete his run to the record in the pole vault.

Grundman had some hopes of breaking a meet record or two in distance events Thursday, but the combination of heat and some wind were detrimental. The All-State cross country and track runner still was dominating, winning the 1600 (:33.86, just under five seconds off the meet record), the 800 (2:05.5) and the 3200 (10:03.96). He was also on the first place 1600 relay (3:39.63) squad with Terry Roll, David Soflin, and Mike Hartson.

"Neil wanted the mile (record) but it just wasn't his race... it was so gusty out there," noted Shaw.

Shaw then praised both Kettlewell and Grundman, her two captains. "Those guys got better every year. Both put in their time."

Shaw was also quick to point out the contributions of other seniors like sprinters Kevin Maro and Scott Lentz.

Maro won the 100 meter dash (11.11) and Lentz was first in the 200 (22.85), both posting career-best times. They also were half of the winning 800 (1:34.49) and 400 (45.67) meter relay teams. Sean Colwell was also on both of those teams while Roll ran a leg on 800 and Hartson was the fourth member on the 400 unit.

The Pioneers' other first in the meet came from Brad Farley in the high jump (6').

Marlette's second place finish in the team standings was highlighted by senior Justin Marquardt's pair of gold-medal performances. He won the shot put with a toss of 50'9.5" and the discus with an effort of 140'5".

McVittie, a senior, recorded one of Deckerville's two firsts on the day. He won the long jump with a career-best leap of 20'9". McVittie also broke the school record in the 110 hurdles (14.77), less than a stride behind Kettlewell.

The Deckerville team of Sean Hornby, Steve Foster, Justin Stankiewicz and Chris Burgess turned in the other first place finish, winning the gold in the 3200 meter relay (8:43.42, less than five seconds off their own school record).