Rochester Hills is home to Oakland County’s fastest cross country runners.
From a girls’ perspective, that’s nothing out of the ordinary.
Rochester High reestablished its supremacy in that particular event after one of its own again captured first place last Saturday at the 67th Oakland County Cross Country Championships at Kensington Metropark, where junior Charlotte Jones was the winner by finishing in 18 minutes, 37.6 seconds.
Lucy Cook dominated the girls’ race for four years, the only time that’s happened other than when Rochester Adams’ Katie Boyles did so just before the turn of the century, and then Adams’ El McMahan won the 2025 race beating out Holly’s Maddie Lindley and Rochester’s Ella Abraham (while Adams’ Jessica Soldan and Stoney Creek’s Leah Corby rounded out the top-5).
Berkley junior Paige Rohda came runner-up on Saturday with a time of 18:45.8. Another junior, Birmingham Seaholm’s Alexandra Green (19:32.5), finished just ahead of Bloomfield Hills sophomore Claire Lawrence (19:35.1) for third, with the Highlanders’ Soldan ending in fifth.
Behind Soldan, the Highlanders had three more top-10 finishes from Anna Mansilla, Abby Deering and McMahan, which helped them take first-place honors as a team. Lakeland, led by senior Morgan Scally, who came seventh, finished second behind Adams, followed by the Falcons.
Rochester’s Charlotte Jones, right, runs at the MHSAA D1 cross country championships held at Michigan International Speedway Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025. Jones won the girls’ race at last Saturday’s county meet. (A.M. ARRICK – For MediaNews Group, file)
Not since Seaholm’s Audrey Dadamio, also the county champ in 2020, has Oakland County produced a state champion in a girls’ finals race. McMahan took fifth in 2025, while Jones’ improvement — she finished 10th at Kensington last fall — could make her a contender as well at Michigan International Speedway in a little over a month.
Meanwhile, Lutheran Northwest junior Nole Lorenzen was the winner of the boys’ race on Saturday.
Lorenzen came in third at the county race as a sophomore behind winner Kyle O’Rourke of Milford and Lake Orion’s Max Houvener, but Lorenzen cut almost 30 seconds off his clip from the last go-around and crossed the finish line first in 15 minutes, 59.7 seconds.
Clarkston senior Cooper McNaughton showed tremendous improvement. He took 54th place by running at a pace of 17:50 last fall, and came runner-up on Saturday with a time of 16:11.6.
Milford junior Todd Tobin, who recorded a fifth-place finish as a sophomore, took third individually (16:31.8), and the rest of the top-5 included Stoney Creek junior Aidan Schwalbach (16:41.7) and Troy Athens senior Colin Blachford (16:44.5).
Lake Orion may not have had any of the top handful of runners, but it had three of the next five in junior Ricardo Guajardo and sophomores Avery Clinton-Barnett and Luis Nava. That, as well as top-20 finishes by Logan Meerschaert and Zach McGee helped the Dragons take the top spot as a collective.
The Mavericks, who had a second top-10 runner in sophomore Aiden Doggett, finished second, followed by Novi, Rochester and Troy.
Lorenzen projects to be the county’s best bet as far as a boys’ state champion. He finished fifth place at last year’s D3 finals. The now graduated O’Rourke finished fifth in D1 in 2025.
67th Oakland County Championships
(At Kensington Metropark’s Possum Hollow)
BOYS TOP 10 TEAMS:
1. Lake Orion (55), 2. Milford (94), 3. Novi (164), 4. Rochester (169), 5. Troy (182), 6. Clarkston (224), 7. Rochester Adams (279), 8. Troy Athens (291), 9. Rochester Hills Lutheran Northwest (299), 10. Oxford (306)
BOYS TOP 30 RUNNERS:
1. Nole Lorenzen, Rochester Hills Lutheran Northwest (15:59.7), 2. Cooper McNaughton, Clarkston (16:11.6), 3. Todd Tobin, Milford (16:31.8), 4. Aidan Schwalbach, Stoney Creek (16:41.7), 5. Colin Blachford, Troy Athens (16:44.5), 6. Ricardo Guajardo, Lake Orion (16:46.3), 7. Devin Lau, Farmington (16:45.5), 8. Trevor Baptist, Novi (16:47.9), 9. Avery Clinton-Barnett, Lake Orion, 16:50.9), 10. Luis Nava, Lake Orion (16:54.0), 11. Aiden Doggett, Milford (16:55.1), 12. Jesse Reed, Rochester Adams (16:55.6), 13. Keats Rosenbrock, Royal Oak (16:57.3), 14. Vern Clyne, Clarkston (16:57.7), 15. Logan Meerschaert, Lake Orion (17:04.2), 16. George Mockeridge, Seaholm (17:05.1), 17. Asa Nonwinski, Troy (17:06.6), 18. Asher Lawson, Walled Lake Northern (17:07.4), 19. Zach McGee, Lake Orion (17:08.1), 20. Owen Windgaston, Clawson (17:08.4), 21. Andrew Nunning, Pontiac Notre Dame Prep (17:09.6), 22. Beckett Sipes, Royal Oak (17:10.4), 23. Henry Witt, Troy (17:10.7), 24. Rowan DeHority, Milford (17:10.9), 25. Coen Lorenzen, Rochester Hills Lutheran Northwest (17:13.7), 26. Austin Zielinski, Miford (17:14.1), 27. Tyler Hennessey, Berkley (17:16.2), 28. Owen Lawrence, Bloomfield Hills (17:16.2), 29. Nikhil Ball, South Lyon East (17:20.8), 30. Ethan Christoff, Oxford (17:22.9)
GIRLS TOP 10 TEAMS:
1. Rochester Adams (98), 2. Lakeland (108), 3. Rochester (160), 4. Novi (164), 5. Bloomfield Hills Marian (214), 6. Clarkston (237), 7. Lake Orion (269), 8. South Lyon East (276), 9. Farmington (298(, 10. Walled Lake Northern (299)
GIRLS TOP 30 RUNNERS:
1. Charlotte Jones, Rochester (19:55.39), 2. Paige Rohda, Berkley (18:45.8), 3. Alexandra Green, Birmingham Seaholm (19:32.5), 4. Claire Lawrence, Bloomfield Hills (19:35.1), 5. Jessica Soldan, Rochester Adams (19:44.8), 6. Avery DeGrendel, Clarkston (19:48.9), 7. Morgan Scally, Lakeland (19:50.4), 8. Anna Mansilla, Rochester Adams (19:51.2), 9. Abby Deering, Rochester Adams (20:03.4), 10. El McMahan, Rochester Adams (20:06.2), 11. Jillian Broyles, Milford (20:08.1), 12. Anna Macdonald, Royal Oak (20:08.5), 13. Clare O’Reilly, Troy Athens (20:09.3), 14. Claire Galas, Novi (20:12.1), 15. Marian Byrd, Bloomfield Hills Marian (20:12.9), 16. Maddie Newman, South Lyon East (20:18.7), 17. Sophia Baier, Lake Orion (20:18.9), 18. Katelyn Parrish, Farmington (20:19.2), 19. Maya Pletzer, Lakeland (20:19.4), 20. Piper Lyon, Rochester Hills Lutheran Northwest (20:19.6), 21. Ella German, Novi (20:21.5), 22. Zahiya Khan, Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood (20:21.9), 23. Maren Greve, Rochester (20:22.3), 24. Genevieve Connolly, Lakeland (20:24.1), 25. Katelynn Egli, Novi (20:24.1), 26. Allie Gallagher, Walled Lake Northern (20:25.2), 27. Isabelle Verellen, Lakeland (20:25.7), 28. Sienna Chapin, Oxford (20:26.6), 29. Katherine Estes, Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood (20:28.7), 30. Hailey Lan, Troy (20:34.1)