Northmen Kings of the Mountain Again
By
John Vrancic
Special for MHSAA.com
February 26, 2013
MARQUETTE — The Petoskey boys were nearly in top form Monday, earning their third straight MHSAA Division 2 ski title at Marquette Mountain with 39 points.
They were followed by Bloomfield Hills Andover with 119 and Houghton-Hancock with 129.
The Northmen placed three among the top six in giant slalom and a trio among the top nine in slalom.
Petoskey junior Gunner Lundteigen became a double winner, taking giant slalom in 59.76 seconds and slalom in 1:19.22.
“We have a deep team this year,” Lundteigen said. “We all have the potential to win a race on any given day. We can also trust each other. If somebody has an off day, we have somebody else who can pick up the slack. It’s been like that all year. We felt there was a little extra pressure on us this time, although we tend to use that to our advantage.
“We’re a close-knit group and we all worked real hard for this. Some of my best friends are on this team. I just tried to ski to my potential and push myself harder each time.”
Lundteigen toured the course in 28.94 during the first run, and followed with a 30.82 in giant slalom. In slalom, he opened at 39.64 and improved to 39.58 in the second run.
Senior teammate Brian Erhart was runner-up in giant slalom (1:00.13), with Gerret Lundteigen sixth (1:01.22) and Ben Loomis 12th (1:02.31).
“This is definitely an exciting time for us,” said Erhart, who plans to attend a college in Colorado this fall. “We felt we had pretty good chance to win it. Although, we didn’t really plan anything. You never know what might happen. I was glad to see my teammate win. We train together all the time. This has been an awesome season. We’re a real strong team.”
Noah Honaker added a sixth in slalom (1:22.45), with Gerret Lundteigen ninth (1:23.61), Trevor Kingsbury 13th (1:26.8) and Erhart 16th (1:27.08) on a partly sunny and mild day.
Petoskey had just 13 points in giant slalom and 26 in slalom. Its top four skiers finished within three seconds of each in giant slalom.
The Northmen were coming off an even more dominant performance in this year’s Regional at Boyne Mountain, where they won by 90 points.
“The boys were one point away from a perfect score in the regional,” said Petoskey coach Travis Hill. “When you have momentum like that, it’s a great thing. And the kids really wanted it. This is good stuff.”
Maple City Glen Lake’s Thomas Waning was runner-up in slalom (1:19.38) and ninth in giant slalom (1:01.77).
Andover’s T.J. Stewart was third in both races. He was clocked at 1:00.23 in giant slalom and 1:20.03 in slalom. The Barons’ stronger event on this day appeared to be giant slalom, where Braden Cleary was 14th (1:02.53) with Ryan Stewart 16th (1:02.55).
Houghton’s Ian Helman was the highest Upper Peninsula finisher, taking 10th in slalom (1:25.08). Teammate Jacob Jarvis was 11th in giant slalom (1:02.16).
The Houghton-Hancock unit was the lone U.P. team to qualify for the Finals. Its next highest finisher was Tony Stein, who was 15th in slalom (1:26.98) and 22nd in giant slalom (1:03.71).
PHOTO: The Petoskey boys ski team poses with its MHSAA championship trophy. (Photo courtesy of Petoskey skiing program.
1st Finals Win Might Only be Start for Traverse City West
By
James Cook
Special for MHSAA.com
February 22, 2021
HARBOR SPRINGS — Recent history in Michigan high school skiing is dotted with dynasties.
Maybe it's time to welcome the newest one.
Traverse City West's boys ski team made history Monday, winning the program's first MHSAA Finals championship at Nub's Nob in Harbor Springs. The Titans can return the same lineup next season for a title defense.
"We had the talent," Titans sophomore Luke Wiersema said. "We just had to put it all together, and then we could be a state champions. It's really exciting. I feel like we could do this for the next two, three years."
West won with 63.5 points, surviving a Rochester Adams comeback attempt in the afternoon to win by 5.5. Bloomfield Hills placed third at 85.5 and Traverse City Central fourth with 140.
Wiersema placed eighth in slalom and seventh in giant slalom to earn first-team all-state in both disciplines. Junior Andy Hill did the same all-state double dip, placing eighth in GS and taking runner-up honors in the afternoon's slalom.
"I think everyone thought at the beginning of the season that we could," Wiersema said. "We could destroy this season. We could win it all."
West junior Aiden Lewandowski won the giant slalom by one tenth of a second over Nathan Dehart of Rochester Adams, posting the only sub-24-second GS time of the day in his second run. He trailed Dehart by 0.03 after the first.
The Titans' history-making championship is the first since the school split off from Traverse City Central in 1997. Ed Johnson, who coached West its first season in 1997, said finally getting that championship trophy was a huge relief, especially after three runner-up finishes, the most recent in 2019 behind Marquette.
"It means a lot. It means a lot for me," Johnson said. "I've been coaching at that school since the school was opened. So it's incredible just to see it finally happen. We've had a number of runner-ups over the years, so we were close, and we had other teams that could have done it as well but just didn't quite pull it together on that day. So it's just so nice to see it happen finally."
Marquette's run of eight straight Division 1 championships ended at Regionals, when the Redmen didn't qualify among the top three to move on to Monday's Finals. Since 1997 when TC West opened, the only schools that had won a D1 Finals title were Marquette (15 times), TC Central (four), Clarkston (one), Petoskey (two) and Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice (one).
Hill was eighth after the first slalom run, then made up for that with the best time of all second runs at 34.53 seconds, 0.99 seconds better than eventual champ Hunter Halstead of Bloomfield Hills.
"The first one I felt really iffy," Hill said. "I just wasn't really mentally prepared. We were waiting at the top for a long time, so I kind of lost my focus. But the second run, I knew that I had to make up some time. So I just got in the zone and gave it all I had."
After Halstead and Hill in slalom were Adams' Zeke King in third, followed by Bloomfield Hills' Matthew Coates, Adams' Jacob Corsi, Traverse City Central’s Max Werner, West's Caleb Lewandowski, Wiersema, Adams' Charlie Buckmaster and Brighton's Andrew Myers.
Halstead placed third in GS, behind Aiden Lewandowski and Dehart. The rest of the top 10 was comprised of Clarkston's Andrew Roeser, Marquette's Logan Audette, Brighton's Luke Vaden, Wiersema, Bloomfield Hills' Bode Iuppenlatz, Hill and West’s Ben Lober.
Aiden Lewandowski finished 45th in slalom after hiking on both runs, but his GS championship helped give the Titans a nice cushion over Rochester Adams going into slalom.
"We were definitely concerned to have that happen on that first run of the afternoon, so that put the rest of our guys into a tough spot," Johnson said. "But they all work together and without Aidan's win in the morning, it wouldn't have happened either. So everybody did their thing today, did what they had to do so."
While Lewandowski didn't place in slalom, the family still did. His younger brother Caleb took seventh as a freshman.
"It's just amazing how much we can do when we put everything together," Hill said. "We're all super strong individuals, but when we put ourselves together we make something that's like unbreakable. We will be back in full force next year."
West was the only team with more than two competitors in the GS top 10, boasting four.
"First run of GS, we all score within the top 10," Hill said. "And we're like, 'If we do this, we can really do it,' and then GS ends and we had four in the top 10. We knew from there that as long as we make it down with relatively good times, we will win.
“But then slalom was a bit of a scare; some of our top athletes fell. So then we all had to ski a little bit more conservatively and just make sure not to fall."
Maybe Nub's Nob itself served as a lift for the Titans, who had been strong all season. The green and gold lifts match the Titans’ colors and suited them well as a youthful West team reached new heights.
"It's so much fun to see these guys do this," Johnson said. "We knew we could do it at the beginning of the year. We just had to pull them together as a team and not just a bunch of individuals that were really good. That was our main focus all season was to ski as a team, perform as a team, and they stepped up to it. They stepped up in the middle of the season, and just kept carrying it all the way through."
PHOTOS: (Top) Traverse City West's Aiden Lewandowski navigates the course during Monday's Division 1 Finals at Nub's Nob. (Middle) Bloomfield Hills' Hunter Halstead claimed the slalom championship. (Click for more photos from Sports in Motion.)