Petoskey Cruises to 6th Straight Title
February 29, 2016
By Scott Keyes
Special for Second Half
BELLAIRE – Regardless of the sport, winning an MHSAA championship is an impressive feat.
But what about winning six titles in a row?
That's the possibility the Petoskey boys ski team faced entering Monday's Division 2 Finals at Schuss Mountain.
With hard work, dedication and a few breaks along the way, Petoskey pulled off the inevitable by winning its sixth straight championship, and third straight under current coach Erik Lundteigen.
Following Petoskey was the Elk Rapids/Traverse City St. Francis cooperative program in second, Cadillac (third), East Grand Rapids (fourth) and Charlevoix (fifth).
"Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever thought about being a part of six straight championships," Lundteigen said. "To be that good for so long comes with a lot of hard work and definitely a lot of luck along the way. But to take nothing away from our kids, they work so hard every time they hit the slopes. We have a tremendous feeder program, and the kids buy into what we are teaching. It's that dedication that allows us to stay competitive year after year."
Lundteigen tried to downplay the feat of six titles, which is second only to Traverse City’s run of eight consecutive MHSAA championships from 1988-95.
“When you ski well, good things happen," he said. "We had a tremendous season."
The Northmen were led by Garrett Lundteigen and Mitch Makala.
Makala won the giant slalom in 47.24, defeating last year's champion Ben Hicks of Elk Rapids/St. Francis (47.30), and Makala’s teammate Garret Lundteigen was third. (47.43).
In the slalom, it was Garret Lundteigen finishing first in 1:03.01, Makala was second (103.88) and Victor Pierret of Harbor Springs was third (1:05.57).
“We’ve got a great one-two punch with Garret and Mitch,” Erik Lundteigen said. “They go back and forth. They push each other, and I love it.
“It’s like we have a one and a 1-A.”
With the win, Garrett was able replicate the feat of his older brother Gunner, who won both the slalom and giant slalom championships in 2013. But, echoing his father, Garrett also said the titles aren’t what’s at the forefront at the starting line.
“Once you get to the top of the hill, it’s just all about skiing,” Garrett said. “We don’t even think about the record. It’s just thinking about getting to the bottom as fast as you can.”
PHOTO: The Petoskey boys ski team poses with its championship trophy after its sixth straight win in Division 2. (Click for more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
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.)