Traverse City Supports in Force on Ski Hill
February 12, 2021
By Tom Spencer
Special for Second Half
This might seem like the logical time for Traverse City West’s girls Alpine ski team to discontinue its long-standing support of its cross-town rival at the upcoming MHSAA Finals.
While Traverse City’s Central’s girls won Wednesday’s Regional at Crystal Mountain, the Titans girls didn’t finish among the top three. So the West girls won’t be at the Feb. 22 Final.
Or will they?
Three qualified as individuals. And not many would be surprised if the rest of the Titans girls squad and their supporters make the 70-some mile trip to Nub’s Nob – and continue cheering on not only the Titans boys team, but of both Central teams as well.
The West and Central boys and girls have been competing with and against each other since their beginning days on the slopes. Their families all know each other well. And no one denies the special relationship the girls have.
“We’ve known them (West’s girls) for our whole skiing careers,” said Central junior Elle Craven after the Trojans girls’ Regional win. “So we always cheer for each other, and we always want each other to do great.
“They’ve been on my team until my freshmen year – that’s when we get split up,” she continued. “They are our great friends, and we hang out with them outside of school also.”
Central’s Sarah Beattie, a senior captain, echoed the sentiment.
“They are a great group of girls too,” she noted. “They are hilarious and so fun to be around.
“We all live in Traverse City and see each other around town, and our families know each other and that makes us closer.”
West freshman Charlie Schultz, one of the three Titans’ individual qualifiers, admitted it was tough seeing her Central friends move on but not her team.
West missed the final qualifying berth by eight points.
“We pretty much have been skiing together our whole lives, so we’re all pretty close,” she said. “It is competitive, but it is like friendly competitive.
“Our team was kind of bummed. We’re just hoping next year we can (reach the Finals).”
Lila Warren and Ellie Gruber also qualified for the Final for West. Central was led by Beattie and Craven. Trojans Maddy Cox, Lily Kuberski, and Pearl Hale also had top-10 finishes in the Regional.
West junior Aiden Lewandowski won both the slalom and giant slalom in the boys Regional as West topped the field including Central and third-place qualifier Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern.
The other top-10 West finishers on the boys side were Andy Hill, Luke Wiersma and Caleb Lewandowski. Max Werner, Will Russell, Michael Booher and Gus Dutmers posted top-10 finishes for Central.
West coach Ed Johnson has seen a lot during his more than 30-year tenure coaching West’s boys and girls. The closeness of the boys and girls teams from each school really adds to the fun for him.
“It doesn’t matter which side of town they’re from or which school they go to, they are all really close friends,” he said. “It is a close-knit group, and it is really fun to see.
“The coaches get along great. The athletes get along great. (Skiing) is a fun program for both schools.”
Central boys and girls coach Amy Kudary agrees.
“They have grown up together,” she said. “It is very cool when other teams look at us when we’re cheering for our biggest rivals.
“And, I think that is teaching the kids a lot beyond the ski hill too.”
Championships are in the sight for both Central squads and the West boys due to all three teams’ depth. Marquette’s boys, Division 1 champs the past eight years, finished fourth at the same Regional and did not qualify for the Finals. The Marquette girls, Division 1 champions the last five years, finished 33 points behind Central at the Regional.
“Today (at Regionals) that (depth) was why both of our teams did so well,” said Kudary. “They all skied as a team. We didn’t have to rely on one or two skiers.
“We each had a couple skiers go down,” she continued. “The other skiers stepped in and performed like they needed to. It was truly team skiing today, and that is what is most fun to see as a coach.”
Now, both coaches have the difficult, but welcomed, challenge of selecting the six skiers from their deep squads to compete for the Division 1 championships.
“That’s tough for those alternates,” Kudary acknowledged. “I have to tell them they’re not racing for the Regionals and states when they could be one of the top skiers on any other team in the state.”
Tom Spencer is a longtime MHSAA-registered basketball and soccer official, and former softball and baseball official, and he also has coached in the northern Lower Peninsula area. He previously has written for the Saginaw News, Bay County Sports Page and Midland Daily News. 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: (Top) Traverse City West and Central skiers support each other’s teams together during their Division 1 Regional, from left: Maddy Cox, Pearl Hale, Mackenzie Cronk, Avery Sill, Charlie Schultz, Lola Hisenkcamp and Ellie Gruber. (Middle) One of the Titans’ boys competitors keeps an eye on the hill. (Photos by Tom Spencer.)
TC West Girls Repeat, FHNE's Grzelak Adds Sweep to Family's Success
By
James Cook
Special for MHSAA.com
February 26, 2024
HARBOR SPRINGS – A Grzelak state champion seems to be the norm.
Katie Grzelak became the latest in the family to etch her name into the Michigan record books, becoming the third to claim an MHSAA Ski Finals championship over the last five years.
Her older sister Holly won the 2021 Division 1 slalom title also for Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern/Eastern, while cousin Anna (who skied for Marquette) shared the slalom title with Traverse City Central’s Quinn Gerber a season ago.
Katie one-upped them both, sweeping the slalom and giant slalom titles this time around at Boyne Highlands.
“It’s a family tradition,” Katie Grzelak said. “I've been working towards it for a while now. It just felt good to finally put it together.”
Last year, she took second behind Rochester Adams’ Katie Fodale in GS and third in slalom. She’s been all-state six times in three seasons.
“It pretty cool,” said Marquette junior Sam Dehlin, a former teammate of Anna Grzelak who won the 2024 boys slalom title. “They really have a good thing going with the Grzelaks.”
Katie Grzelak said she was already receiving texts from relatives from all over asking if she extended the family tradition.
“I wasn't really expecting it, but I was really happy in the end,” she said. “I probably could have gone harder. I was happy with it, so I didn't feel the need to put too much down.”
Traverse City West's girls repeated as team champion, going back-to-back for the first time since the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons. TC West's girls also won the state's top spot in the academic all-state awards, with a team grade-point average of 3.886.
West junior Olivia Bageris came out of the fourth flight to place second in both the slalom and giant slalom.
The five-time all-stater leads a Titans team that's aiming to extend its Finals championship streak at least another year, despite losing three of its top six skiers after this one.
"The goal is obviously to make it a three-peat," Bageris said. "Central, our best friends but our biggest rivals. It always comes down to the day of the race. Conference races are always different than the state meet, but the goal would be to make it a three-peat."
West also gets freshman Sarah Shapiro back from injury next season.
"It means a lot," Bageris said. "It hasn't happened in a while. The boys have done it, and we've kind of always been like the underdogs and overlooked compared to our boys. They had a great day, too. So that was exciting. But it means a lot to be able to do this two years in a row. Our freshman year, we come in runner-up and it was exciting because we were kind of unexpected to get that high up. But in the end, we really all wanted to win."
The Titans led by a single point (19-20) after the morning giant slalom session, but felt confident because the team's strength all season has been slalom. West outpointed Central 19-32 in slalom.
"We were only ahead by one point, so we knew we had to go for it," Bageris said. "My friend Ellie (Gruber), she had a really great day, came out skied really amazing. She definitely helped. It was a team sport today."
Gruber took seventh in GS, with Lila Warren 10th. Erinn Hale, Kellan Kudary and Quinn Gerber took eighth, fifth and fourth for Central.
West won the girls title with 38 points, compared to Central's runner-up total of 52. The rest of the field consisted of Clarkston (110), Marquette (158.5), Birmingham United (203), Milford (231), West Bloomfield (243), Brighton (242.5) and White Lake Lakeland (290).
Bageris was joined by Titans teammates Gruber (seventh), Dillyn Mohr (eighth) and Warren (ninth) in the slalom top 10, with Central represented by Gerber (third) and Cady Madion (10th), with Hale just behind in 11th.
West head coach Ed Johnson said he thinks the Titans can seriously make a run at three in a row next season.
"I think we can," Johnson said. "We're losing a couple, but we'll be back pretty strong."
Gerber took third in giant slalom and fourth in slalom to earn her third and fourth all-state spots in two seasons on varsity.
"West has a really good team, and we definitely wanted to show that we could compete," Gerber said. "We scared them a little bit, but they ended up with it."
Central brings back its entire varsity team next season and has several talented middle schoolers coming up as well.
"We want to get it, so we'll be working all offseason," Gerber said.
Traverse City as a whole was the day's big winner.
The Trojans and Titans took first and second in both boys and girls. Traverse City accomplished the same feat last year, although West won two championships and Central took runner-up honors in both.
"It's good for Traverse City to bring that clean sweep again," TC West head coach Ed Johnson said. "That's one of the things I'm most excited about is to see that clean sweep for Traverse City. One-two for the boys, one-two for the girls. It goes from one side of town to the other, but it's all good."
Traverse City Central and West have combined to win the last four Division 1 titles in both boys and girls.
Twenty-three of the 40 first-team all-state spots went to skiers from Traverse City, with another 17 on the second team.
Only four spots in the slalom top-10 didn’t go to Central or West. After Grzelak, Grand Haven’s Neave Rewa was fourth, Birmingham’s Blanca Srock fifth and Clarkston’s Cameron Thomas sixth.
The same applied to GS, where Holly’s Finley DeCubber placed third, Berkley’s Tessa Rontal was sixth and Rewa placed ninth.
PHOTOS (Top) Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern/Eastern's Katie Grzelak skis a championship run Monday at Boyne Highlands. (Middle) Traverse City Central's Olivia Bageris completes a run for the eventual team champion. (Photos by Tori Burley. Click for more; photos will be added throughout this week.)