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Above: Georgette Sake gets set to compete in the squat competition during a powerlifting event last weekend in Grand Rapids.

Right: Sake competes in deadlift.

Cadillac's Georgette Sake gets set for the deadlift.

Above: Georgette Sake gets set to compete in the squat competition during a powerlifting event last weekend in Grand Rapids.

Right: Sake competes in deadlift.

Cadillac's Georgette Sake gets set for the deadlift.

CADILLAC — Call it a quick change of pace.

Maybe even call it a little bit of fate.

Whatever you call it, Georgette Sake has found something new to direct her competitive energies.

The Cadillac High School senior, who is a member of the Vikings’ girls ski and soccer teams, has gotten into powerlifting and is doing pretty well.

Sake set four state records in the 16-17-year-old 114-pound division

at a competition last weekend in Grand Rapids. She hit 220 pounds on the squat rack, 127 on the bench press and 253 in deadlift for a 600-pound total.

All three of her lifts were state records in the US Powerlifting Association for her class and qualifies her for a national competition next July in Alabama.

“I’ve trained hundreds of powerlifters and Georgette is the first to accomplish Elite status in her very first meet,” Sake’s coach, Dave Burke, said. “She has improved 50 pounds in her totals in six and a half months.

“She has a huge heart and a ‘give me more work’ attitude so I have kept the foot on the gas pedal in her workouts and expectations and she has not faltered.”

Sake’s introduction to the sport of powerlifting came soon after she and her Cadillac ski teammates won the MHSAA Division 2 State Meet in late February. She missed part of the season due to a torn hamstring but was able to compete in the state finals.

She began Pulse Electromagnetic Field therapy through Burke, himself a former powerlifter and now a coach.

Sake broke a Cadillac High School squat record in strength and conditioning class and her mom mentioned that to Burke.

“He said I would be a good powerlifter and we started talking,” Sake said. “He sent me a basic training program because I was in soccer in the spring and then I got into more training in the summer.

“I was doing six days a week then. I was able to pick up fast because of having strength with Coach (Steve) Meyers. I loved having strength and have always liked being in the gym.”

Her first competition was the one this past weekend at Unreal Fitness in Grand Rapids and Sake is hooked, largely through the people she’s met in the sport.

“Everyone was friendly and cheering everyone on even though you’re competing against them,” she said. “It was a really cool atmosphere.

“After going to my first meet, I really liked it and it’s something you can do for the rest of your life. There was a woman who’s 61 there who broke a national deadlift record. She said took look out because this sport is addicting. It’s something I think I want to keep doing as long as I can.”

Sake and Burke will be headed to another USA Powerlifting competition in November in Mount Pleasant and potentially another one late next winter toward the end of ski season.

Burke owned four health clubs in the 1980s and had a national championship powerlifting team.

He also trained a national champion in 1989 and said Sake is set to break all of her numbers.

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