Petoskey Boys Go 8 Straight to Tie Record
February 26, 2018
By James Cook
Special for Second Half
BELLAIRE — Ethan Siegwart knows nothing but winning MHSAA Finals championships.
The Petoskey senior saw that through to its conclusion Monday, leading the Northmen to the school's eighth consecutive Division 2 crown at Schuss Mountain.
The streak matches Traverse City Central's from 1988-95 as the longest in state skiing history.
"There's been a lot of energy all season," said Siegwart, who placed second in giant slalom and fourth in slalom to earn his fourth and fifth first-team all-state finishes. "Coach always tells us it's hard to win it, and once you do, it's ever harder to keep winning it. It's never been easy. To keep up that record has been a goal since we were in middle school."
Petoskey led Great North Alpine — a cooperative program of Traverse City St. Francis, Elk Rapids, Central Lake and Grand Traverse Academy — by 16 points after the morning's giant slalom. The Northmen typically specialize in the slalom, but a few bobbles and some great GNA times saw the lead advance only 7.5 points.
The Northmen ended with 82.5 points to GNA's 106. The rest of the leaders were Pontiac Notre Dame (132), Benzie Central (136), Harbor Springs (146.5), Cadillac (186), Flint Powers Catholic (186.5), East Grand Rapids (195.5) and Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood (294).
Siegwart said a friendly rivalry with Great North Alpine — which finished second for the third consecutive year — has been a good thing for everyone involved.
"We were watching them, for sure," Siegwart said. "I'm pretty good friends with all the guys over there. We're always egging each other on. Last night and this morning, we were texting each other to make sure we were on our toes. Just a lot of trash talk going back and forth, which is healthy. It pushed everyone."
GNA coach Doug White held the runner-up trophy after team photos Monday. Aside from a contrasting hue, the first and second-place trophies look almost exactly alike.
"Just a little bit different," White said. "Theirs is gold, ours is silver.
"Naturally, do you want to walk away with first place? But second-place isn’t that bad. To beat Petoskey, you can’t make a mistake."
GNA's Finn Husband won the slalom, and was the only entrant to finish two runs in under a combined one minute.
"Petoskey is a juggernaut, for sure," Husband said. "What is it, eight years now? They're deep and have a lot of guys who can put down a good run. It's really difficult for other teams to sneak in there. We're a young team this year, so hopefully we can take it next year. Eight is enough for them. We need one."
Husband had the second-best time on his first slalom run, and shaved almost 0.8 seconds off that the second time around.
"His first run in slalom, he came down and had a really clean run," White said. "He was sitting in second at that time, back by just a couple hundredths of a second. He came down that second time, and you just had to hold your breath a couple times. It looks like he was going to come out, but he’s very athletic and held it in the course. He pushed that to the limit."
His second run came in at 29.55 seconds — the only one under 30 seconds all day.
"The snow was a little iffy for me, running in the second seed, but I felt like I was able to take control of it and just feel it through," Husband said. "Speed-wise, on the second run, I just kind of sent it and really hoped for the best. Obviously, it worked. I almost blew out a couple times. Just had to hold it."
Cadillac's Alex Netzley trailed Flint Powers' Devin Hope and Husband after the GS' first runs, but posting the best time the second time down the hill leapfrogged him into first as he won the race for the second straight year.
"My first run wasn't great," Netzley said. "I skied a little conservatively. I knew that second run I just had to attack and lay down a good run."
The junior also placed third in slalom, improving upon last year's result by four spots.
"I just wanted to go out and lay down four good runs," Netzley said. "I was happy. I just skied solid in both events."
Hope finished second in giant slalom, followed by Husband, Siegwart, GNA's Cooper Kerkhof, Benzie Central's Gabe Johnson, Pontiac Notre Dame Prep's Joseph Warsecke, Onekama's Keagan Thomas and the Petoskey duo of David Paquette and William Thomas.
William Thomas' 10th-place finish in GS made him the only D2 racer with a top-10 finish out of the fifth or sixth flight. He also took seventh in slalom.
Husband, Siegwart, Netzley and Johnson occupied the top four slalom spots to each double up on first-team all-state honors for the day. Keagan Thomas was again eighth, with East Grand Rapids' Rori Anderson sixth, William Thomas seventh, Benzie Central's Bowen Stoops ninth and Harbor Springs' Andrew Truman 10th.
Siegwart said proximity to good ski slopes is a major factor in Petoskey's dynasty.
"Location for us is huge," Siegwart said. "We have Nubs (Nob) and Boyne (Highlands) right there on our backdoor, so it's easy to get good, free skiing in."
Northmen coach Erik Lundteigen wouldn't even rule out winning a ninth title in a row next year.
"We'll be pretty strong," Lundteigen said. "We'll be losing some great seniors, but we always do. The key to the program is building it up. We've got underclassmen that learned this year, and they'll step into that role next year. I'm optimistic."
PHOTOS: (Top) Petoskey’s Ethan Siegwart sends up a spray of snow during one of his runs Monday. (Middle) Finn Husband was the slalom champion, representing Great Northern Alpine. (Photos by James Cook.)
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.)