West Ottawan reporters conducted extensive research into West Ottawa’s best male and female programs, teams, and athletes over the past decade.

Girls

Best Program: Girls Cross Country

   The Girls Cross Country program earned the best program over say the Girls Tennis team because Girls Cross Country has had bigger successes such as winning states as a team and beating the fifteenth-best Girls Cross Country team in the country. They are also currently ranked 11th in the country right now. 

   They have continued success over multiple years winning a state championship in 2022 and getting runner-up in 2021 with a loaded team the year they were runner-up. Last year when the Taylor Swift movie came out, they rented out a movie theater and watched it all as a team. That may not sound important to their team’s success but one of their strongest qualities is their closeness and family atmosphere and it puts them ahead of other teams and programs. 

Best Team:  Girls Cross Country 2021

   “The year before the girls won the state title in cross country, you’ve got the two Bonnema sisters running at Michigan State,” West Ottawa Athletic Director Bill Kennedy said. They also had Abby Olson who has recently transferred from Butler to GVSU, Arianne Olson who is running at Notre Dame, and Helen Sachs who is a WO senior and best runner in the state of Michigan. They have had countless runners come out of their program and have a promising future. 

   Sachs said, “The Bonnema sisters provided me with invaluable advice and I was able to learn and observe Arianne Olson’s elite training routine.” Such influences help illustrate how impressive that team was. One of the best runners in the country talked about the girls she looked up to who were on the team. She also reiterates the earlier point about how the team is so close-knit and worked so hard to get there. Countless hours were spent grinding together to become the best team in the state. That same year they got runner-up in the states only to Ann Arbor Pioneer which is an annual powerhouse for cross country. 

Best Female Athlete: Helen Sachs 

  “When I crossed the finish line in first place at the state XC meet, I couldn’t believe it. I remember crossing the timing mats with both of my hands held up displaying the number 1. The accomplishment I felt after realizing I had just won the state meet, and put my name onto the list of state champions, was unreal. I will never forget the joy I felt in that moment coupled with the exhaustion from the state-champion performance I just ran.” Sr. Helen Sachs said. 

   Sachs is one of the best athletes to ever attend West Ottawa High School. She is a state champion and dominant runner, currently ranked as the best female runner in Michigan, and in preseason rankings, she was ranked as the 26th-best female runner in the nation. 

   Sachs recently committed to Notre Dame to run cross country and challenge herself academically. “Having the opportunity to pursue my academic and athletic careers at one of the top universities in the nation was a dream come true.” Sachs will have the opportunity to run with friend and old teammate Olson at Notre Dame. She currently holds the second-fastest time in school history and the fastest time in the state this year. Sach’s success at WO is some of the best seen from a West Ottawa athlete and has a whole college future ahead of her.

Boys

Best Program: Boys Varsity Swimming

  With 19 state championship events in the last ten years, Boys Varsity Swim is the obvious choice for the best boys program over the past decade. Like Girls Cross Country, Boys Varsity Swim has had countless Division I athletes go on to swim at college. The Maas brothers swam at Alabama and Michigan, Kadan Soto swam at Purdue, and Sam Smith swam at Oakland. These elite competitors helped lead West Ottawa to finish as one of the top teams in the state consistently. 

   Over the last ten years, Boys Varsity Swim has been dominant with a state title, a third, fourth, and two second-place finishes at state. They have also won all ten OK Red conference titles over the past decade. Such a dominant performance in the OK Red “shouldn’t happen,” Kennedy said. The OK Red is the best division on Michigan’s west side, and WO Boys Varsity Swim is dominating.

Best Team: Boys Varsity Basketball State Finals 2017-2018

   The 2017-2018 Boys Varsity Basketball Team earned the right to be called the best boys team at WO in the past 10 years because all five starters continued to play collegiate athletics, accomplished a state runner-up title, and were OK Red Champs. This was all in the 2017-2018 men’s basketball season. 

   That year, the West Ottawa Panthers made it to the State finals game which is a massive outlier compared to seasons prior and seasons after. The 2017-2018 sports season as a whole was a great year for WO. “It was really that group of kids, that senior class,” Kennedy said. The starters on the basketball team were: Tyler Bosma, Xavier Wade, Nick Wehrmeyer, Drew Pederson, and Liam Cavanaugh. Each one of those kids played sports at the collegiate level. That group of kids and their class also led WO to the state quarterfinals in football. Kennedy said WO also, “won a baseball regional, won a hockey regional,” that same year. However, Boys Varsity Basketball had the most success out of all of the WO sports teams.

Best Male Athlete: Derek Maas -9:30

   The 2019 male athlete of the year, five-time record breaker at West Ottawa, and was “kind of a freak show,” Kennedy said. His name is Derek Maas. Maas was not only a phenomenal swimmer but also a great tennis player. He ended up reaching first doubles on the varsity tennis team, another team that has won many conference titles recently. However, Maas was most dominant in the pool. He won five state events at WO:

2018, 200m Medley Relay

2018, 100m Backstroke

2019, 200m Medley Relay

2019, 200m Indv. Medley

2019, 100m Butterfly

His success continued even after WO. Maas continued to swim at Alabama, an NCAA Division I university, and later transferred to NYU (New York University) to swim while studying in medical school. He might have transferred from DI to DIII, but his success continued. He “broke two division three records and won a national championship at the division three level,” Kennedy said. Unquestionably, Maas is one of the best athletes to ever come out of West Ottawa.