LocalSportsJournal.com

GRAND HAVEN–Grand Haven junior Seth Norder has been chosen as the Local Sports Journal boys runner of the month.

Norder is currently ranked the No. 1 cross country runner in Division 1 in Michigan.

This season, Norder finished in second place at the Calvary Christian Invite with a time of 16:33.1. He followed that up at the West Ottawa Bredeweg Invite with a first-place finish in 15:55.6. He finished in the runner-up position at the Spartan Invitational at Michigan State University with a time of 14:58.8.

“Seth has a great deal of natural talent that has been enhanced with the training in the Grand Haven cross country program,” said Grand Haven cross country coach John Tarr. “When he came out as a freshman, he had not done much running over the summer, so we brought him along slowly and he ended up breaking the freshman 5K record with a 16:18.”

From there, he started participating in off-season training programs and it quickly paid dividends as  his times drastically improved during the track season and over the course of two cross country seasons.

He finished second in the state finals at MIS and then second in the 1,600 meter at the Division 1 track and field finals with a time of 4:07, a school record.  He also set a school record in the 3,200 meter with 8:59.

Michigan State, the University of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Wake Forest have shown a great deal of interest in him.

Norder is the son of Karen and Jared Norder. He has a 4.0 grade-point-average.