Snow or No, Skiers Prep for Races Ahead
December 26, 2015
By Dennis Chase
Special for Second Half
TRAVERSE CITY – With the sun shining, and the mercury inching into the 40s, Carlee McCardel was enjoying what felt like a spring day of skiing Dec. 20 on the two slopes that were open at Crystal Mountain Resort in Thompsonville.
Except this was late December, just days before Christmas.
Above average temperatures, coupled with rain, put ski resort operators throughout the state in a bind as they tried to open their facilities before the holidays. A handful of resorts in the northern Lower Peninsula opened a limited number of slopes last week, although the weather continued to be a problem.
"I don't remember many Decembers where it's been this warm for this long and with so few opportunities to even make snow," said Ben Ferris, co-coach of the Traverse City St. Francis, Elk Rapids, Central Lake and Grand Traverse Academy co-op ski team.
That's why McCardel, a St. Francis senior and two-time MHSAA individual champion, was grateful just to be on snow, even though the slopes were surrounded by green grass.
Most teams had yet to conduct a practice on snow as of Tuesday. Traverse City West coach Ed Johnson was hoping to take his squad to Boyne Mountain on Wednesday, weather permitting.
Instead, skiers have had to embrace dryland training – weight lifting, running and plyometric exercises – to keep physically fit. Still, it does not replace practicing on a pair of skis.
"You can get all the conditioning you want," Johnson said, "but they're (skiers) not going to have the timing, and all the other skill development that they need to race and be productive and successful at it. We desperately need some snow time."
The first invitational of the season, the Harbor Springs-Petoskey Invitational, has already been canceled. It was scheduled for Jan. 6.
With snow not available, coaches are doing the next best thing – simulating.
The co-op team, which meets at Mt. Holiday, sprints down a slalom course on the hill, focusing on body posture, running the right line through the gates, and planting the outside foot correctly.
"We want them to envision what it's like once they get on the snow," Ferris said.
Now, some skiers have been on snow. Johnson, his son Austin and daughter Morgan led a group on a ski trip to Austria over Thanksgiving. The group included six skiers from West, plus a few from Traverse City Central.
McCardel and Central Lake's Ben Hicks, the defending Division 2 champion in the giant slalom, attended camps at Copper Mountain, Colo., during that same period.
Once the season starts, McCardel and Hicks will be two of the top skiers to watch. McCardel won the girls Division 2 giant slalom as a freshman and sophomore. She was edged by Houghton's Jenna Stein (53.04 to 53.31) last February.
"I couldn't have asked for a better high school career," the 18-year-old said. "I've achieved more than I ever wished I could. It's humbled me."
McCardel said she was not too upset placing second to Stein last season because she felt she gave it her best.
"I left it all on the hill," she said. "I was happy with how I skied. Jenna happened to ski faster that day. I was happy for her."
To prep for this season, McCardel has spent considerable time in the gym.
"She's put in a lot of time in the offseason, working on her leg strength, her core strength, to make sure her body is ready," Ferris said.
She's also been watching World Cup ski action on TV to visually "get into it."
The girls co-op team finished third at the MHSAA Final last season and returns the nucleus of that squad with McCardel and Sarah Trilla at the top of the lineup.
"We only lost one girl (to graduation) and we gained a fast freshman (Claire Kalajian)," Ferris said.
Hicks headlines the boys team. He's coming off an impressive football season, capturing first-team all-Ski Valley honors on both sides of the ball, even though he suffered a groin injury the first game of the year.
"Every week I would take it light in practice, not run that hard, and then play Friday," he said.
He still finished with 1,088 yards rushing and 17 touchdowns. He also had nearly 400 yards receiving with three touchdowns and returned a kick for another score.
"He's just now getting back to 100 percent," Ferris said. "That kid is so focused. He's such a good athlete and he's so coachable. He works hard all the time."
Hicks, who turns 18 next month, said he feels fine now.
"I’ve had a long opportunity to test it, ice it and gently stretch it," he said. "It feels almost back to normal."
Hicks edged his friend, Petoskey's Mitch Makela, to win the giant slalom a year ago (52.30 to 52.52). Makela also attended the camp at Copper Mountain over Thanksgiving.
The giant slalom is Hicks’ favorite discipline.
"It's a lot more technical," he said. "And I've always been better at it."
Meanwhile, Johnson expects to have another strong girls team at West. The Titans are the defending Division 1 champions. West lost Morgan Culp to graduation, but returns plenty of experience with Kitt Hornbogen and Claire Podges leading the way.
Now all that’s needed is snow.
Dennis Chase worked 32 years as a sportswriter at the Traverse City Record-Eagle, including as sports editor from 2000-14. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.
PHOTOS: Skiers, including Central Lake's Ben Hicks (125), compete during last season's Division 2 Finals at Nub's Nob.
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.)