Neither Sun Nor Slush Slows Marquette
February 26, 2018
By Keith Dunlap
Special for Second Half
BOYNE FALLS – Nothing else has stopped the Marquette boys ski team from dominating the state the past five years
So Mother Nature did its best Monday at the MHSAA Division 1 Finals.
However, not even unseasonable conditions slowed down the Redmen.
For the sixth straight year, Marquette finished the season as a champion in boys skiing following another dominant performance on a warm day at Boyne Mountain that wreaked havoc on a field not used to such mild and slushy conditions for a Finals meet.
Marquette finished with 56 points to once again best Traverse City Central, which was the runner-up for the fifth straight year with 80.5 points.
Rochester Adams/Stoney Creek’s combined team was third with 124.5 points, White Lake Lakeland was fourth with 153 and Brighton took fifth with 158.5 points.
Marquette coach Dan Menze said conditions were firm for the morning runs, but he had to tell his team to use caution when the warmth and sun softened the courses up considerably in the afternoon.
“Definitely in the afternoon, I had to let them know to be soft on their edges,” Menze said. “No hard pressures because as soon as you do in the soft stuff it’s going to eat you up. But they’ve had the opportunity the last couple of weeks in training to see different snow types, so they were a little used to it.”
Marquette started the day by dominating the morning slalom run, taking the top three places in that event.
Aaron Grzelak won with time of 57.96, Andrew Thomas was second at 58.97 and Hayden Kauppila came in third at 1:00.57.
James Wenzloff of Lakeland was fourth with a time of 1:00.64, and Max Wiedemann of Clarkston was fifth at 1:01.56.
Marquette wasn’t quite as dominant in the giant slalom when the afternoon arrived, but it was still good enough to score plenty of points.
Thomas was second at 1:05.17, Grzelak was fourth at 1:06.89 and Kauppila finished fifth with a time of 1:07.22.
Of the bunch, the only senior is Thomas, and he leaves with MHSAA team titles for every year of his high school career.
“It was surreal when we won the first one,” Thomas said. “Before you know it, I’m already a senior. I just got really lucky to be on teams that had awesome skiers every year.”
Nick Rupert of Rockford won the individual championship in the giant slalom with a time of 1:04.67, while Wenzloff took third with a time of 1:06.42.
PHOTOS: (Top) Marquette's Aaron Grzelak races toward a first-place finish in slalom Monday. (Middle) Rockford's Nick Rupert cuts through a turn during the giant slalom. (Click for more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
Petoskey Overtakes Rival to Repeat as D2 Champ
February 22, 2021
By Andrew Rosenthal
Special for Second Half
HARBOR SPRINGS — The streak has started again.
Petoskey beat out Great North Alpine for the Division 2 skiing title at Boyne Highlands Resort on Monday after missing out on the Regional title to GNA last week.
The Northmen went back-to-back to make it 10 championships out of the last 11 years. The only team to win a Division 2 title during that run was Great North Alpine in 2019, the co-op program combining athletes from Elk Rapids, Traverse City St. Francis and Grand Traverse Academy.
Monday’s win also made the Northmen the third team in the Big North Conference to take home a Finals championship trophy this winter. Traverse City West’s boys and Traverse City Central’s girls won titles just across the street at Nubs Nob in the Division 1 Finals.
Ben Crockett, who coaches the Petoskey boys, wasn't really surprised at that given the reputation of BNC schools producing quality skiers.
"We're getting a lot more challenges from schools in the Grand Rapids and Detroit areas," Crockett said. "To stay on top, we're going to have to keep working hard to be able to stay in the position that we're in, but we're feeling pretty good that we've got such good strength locally here."
Both Petoskey and GNA had a bevy of all-state finishers Monday.
For Petoskey in the giant slalom, Anders McCarthy was the leader taking third (1:02.13), Wyatt Mattson took fifth (1:02.86), and William Goelz placed 12th for second-team all-state (1:04.02). McCarthy (fifth) and Goelz (10th) finished with all-state honors in the slalom, Nolan Walkerdine (11th) and Mattson (13th) earning second-team all-state. Michael Iverson finished 21st in slalom to narrowly miss making the second team.
Sully Husband was the only Great North Alpine skier to medal in the morning session, taking fourth in the GS with a time of 1:02.41. Ayden Ferris (13th), Shane Pilate (15th) and Corbin Murphy (19th) each earned second-team all-state nods. Husband doubled up in the afternoon, finishing sixth in slalom, and Ferris joined him at the podium in seventh.
Husband attributed the team's success to getting four solid runs in. He said that's also what led to GNA's Regional title win over Petoskey.
"I'm kind of happy that we got a nice finish," Husband said. "We got second place; kind of stinks that we didn't get first place. But you know, I'm happy that we made it down in one piece because that's really the challenge at the end of the day."
Ben Ferris, who coaches GNA, said it's always nice to bring hardware back. When a co-op school wins a Finals trophy, a duplicate trophy goes to each school that is a part of the co-op.
"It's really about who skis the cleanest all day long and brings things together," Ferris said. "D2 has a really strong skier population anyways, so anytime you get somewhere up and you can make (it) in that top three it's a pretty successful season."
Crockett said 10 titles in 11 years doesn't take away from the years the Northmen won eight straight. If anything, he said it's a good thing to have several teams knocking on the door.
Pontiac Notre Dame Prep (72 points) finished just behind Great North Alpine (71 points), narrowly missing a first top-two Finals finish in program history.
"We want a sport where we have competitive teams and where we're all pushing each other to be better athletes and better competitors," Crockett said. "I think the more competition that we have, and the closer it is, the more the win means."
Jack Lintol led the Fighting Irish in their third-place finish, taking home a title from the morning giant slalom session with a time of 1:01.35. Reed Heathman, who competed individually from Houghton, took second in that same event.
But then Heathman, a junior, came back and beat out Lintol in the slalom for the other individual title of the day. He had the fastest time on his first run with a 39.17 and built on that time with the fastest on the second run as well, a 41.95 to win with 1:21.12.
Heathman took third in GS last year — and said his goal going into last offseason was to improve on that.
“I’m glad to see that was accomplished. I’m happy,” Heathman said. “I didn’t know that I was going to win, but that was the ultimate goal. I knew that competition was going be tough, so I had my work cut out for me.
“I felt in control the whole time. I stayed forward, I stayed ahead of it, it felt good.”
Outside of Petoskey or Great North Alpine, the only other skiers to medal in both GS and slalom were Harbor Springs' Conner Truman and Quincy Thayer, a Frankfort student who competes for Benzie Central. Thayer took seventh in GS with a time of 1:03.31 and eighth in slalom at 1:26.06, while Truman was fourth in slalom at 1:23.40 and ninth in GS with a 1:03.80.
PHOTOS: (Top) Petoskey celebrates its 10th Division 2 championship in 11 seasons Monday. (Middle) Houghton’s Reed Heathman races toward his championship in the slalom. (Click for more from Sports in Motion.)