St. Francis Sophomore Building Up to Possible Multi-Sport Championship Story

By Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com

October 7, 2022

Although there are plenty of races run on golf courses across the state, it is unlikely anyone would win both high school golf and cross country events on the same golf course.

The odds aren’t very good either that an athlete will capture an MHSAA Finals championship in both sports.

The chances must be even slimmer still for that athlete’s teams to sweep both titles in the same season.

Meet Grace Slocum, a golf and cross country standout at Traverse City St. Francis High School. Don’t bet against her work ethic and talent. Her coaches say both are second to none.

The odds of her capturing golf and cross country first place on the same golf course, winning an individual state championship in both golf and cross country in the same season and helping – if not leading – the Gladiators to team state titles in the same season cannot be calculated. 

There might not be a need to do any speculating. Her coaches and teammates can’t wait to see what she accomplishes yet this season and throughout her career. Slocum is only a sophomore. 

Her school is undergoing some re-modeling right now. A bigger trophy case perhaps should be under consideration.

She’s been accumulating hardware at golf events away from her high school team for some time. Now, she’s winning high school championships. This week, she won a golf Regional title and led her team to a second-place finish qualifying the Glads for the Lower Peninsula Division 4 Final to be played Oct. 14-15 at Grand Valley State University. St. Francis shot a 400 to trail only champion Harbor Springs – one of the strongest golf programs in the state – which finished with a 383.

Slocum finished ninth at the Finals last year as a freshman, and the Glads wound up 13th. Craig Ardery, who is in his 20th season as the St. Francis girls golf coach, is hoping his team cracks the top 10 this time.

Slocum stands next to a flag during last season’s MHSAA Girls Golf Finals. When the Golf Finals are over, veteran St. Francis cross country coach Julie Duffing will have Slocum dedicated to running – and the Glads have their eyes on a team championship again after winning LPD3 titles in 2015 and 2016. They were third last year and have ridden consecutive conference and Regional successes to the Finals every year since 2015 – the year Duffing became head coach.

That was also the year her daughter, Katelyn, was a freshman on the Glads team. Julie Duffing's role didn’t change a whole lot with the new title. Prior to joining St. Francis as an assistant track coach in 2013, she had coached at Kingsley for 17 years. The Stags regularly finished among the top 10 in boys and girls cross country during her tenure.

The last year the Glads girls did not qualify as a team for the Finals was 2014 – also the year Holly Bullough won the first of her two individual Finals championships. 

Today, the Glads are still feeling some sting from missing out on second place last year by just a few points to Kent City.

“The plan was to come back with a vengeance this year,“ said Duffing, who enjoyed a prep running career herself at Tawas and competed in track & field and cross country at Saginaw Valley State University. “Last year being third, and only two points separated second and third, was a little bitter.”

Slocum’ s twin brother, Josh, also plays golf for the Glads and runs cross country. He’s recovering from a summer injury but ran a personal record last week in his first race of the season. He was the top finisher too for the team ranked second in LPD3.

The St. Francis girls, ranked number one in LPD3, will soon have Slocum dedicated to cross country.  She’ll be with the Glads for their last three scheduled meets including the Regional in East Jordan and the Final on Nov. 5 at Michigan International Speedway.

Hart won the LPD3 girls championship last year and is currently ranked fourth. The Glads have run against the Pirates twice this season, winning one of the matchups.

Last year as a freshman, Slocum missed several cross country races but finished 29th at the Final. Sophia Rhein, despite running injured, finished 31st. Betsy Skendzel, 10th, was the Glads’ top finisher. Reilly Duffing was 52nd, Mary Masserant was 62nd and Maddie Gallagher was 84th.

Rhein is the only senior this year among the six returnees. Add stellar freshman Paige Ritchie, and the Glads are ready to contend.  Other members of the team looking to compete are senior Cora Garrey, junior Margot Haggerty, sophomores Katie Harrand and Maya Padisak, and freshmen Lucy Noggle, Olivia Padisak and Sarah Trojanowski.

“We did beat Hart at Benzie, and everybody was super excited about that,” Duffing noted. “And then we lost to them this last weekend.

“We didn’t have Grace this last weekend,” she continued. “We just didn’t have a great weekend.”

The loss to Hart can only help the Glads as they prepare for the postseason.

“I told the girls it’s OK. … Let’s have our bad races now,” Duffing said. “Let’s get them out now, and then we don’t have to worry about having another one.”

Slocum and twin bother Josh, left, are both golfing and running cross country for the Gladiators this fall. Slocum, whose favorite sport is golf, considered focusing exclusively on golf this fall. The pressures of two sports at one time with homework demands and school absences were weighing on her as the fall season began.

Duffing was prepared as the possibility was contemplated, having known Slocum for some time through her daughter’s close friendship and all the years they played hockey together. At the top of Duffing’s mind was – and is – Slocum’s happiness.

Duffing came up with a convenient plan for Slocum to follow and participate in cross country. The running Glads were thrilled with it.  As a smaller school, the coach knew the importance of flexibility for student-athletes.

“I just looked at her and said, ‘You have a spot on the team no matter what,’” Duffing said. “‘You come when you can – we’ll work with you.’

“‘You don’t golf on Saturdays,’” Duffing recalled telling Slocum. “‘So race on Saturdays, and when you can get some runs in (during) the week, great.”

Knowing Slocum would be in the Glads’ top five whether she practiced regularly or not, the team set its sights on repeating as conference champs and moving through the Regional to the Final.

“I think our job with Grace was to keep the pressure off her and keep her happy,” Duffing noted. “I want her smiling, and I want her to have fun.

“It’s a team sport with a lot of really high goals, and she is part of those,” Duffing continued. “I just want her to be a part of it.”

The two worked out a schedule for training that focused on Sunday running as all the other pieces fell in place. They lost a few Saturdays so Slocum could golf on the courses where the Regional and Final were scheduled.

Slocum will wrap up her golf season next Friday and Saturday in Allendale. She’ll then run Oct. 22 in the Northern Michigan Cross Country Championship at Gaylord – on a golf course at the Otsego Club – and then is expected to help the Glads at the Regional on Oct. 29 before going after the Finals championship.

As she moves through her high school career, Slocum likely will shatter every single golf record at her school — if she hasn’t already. She’s been the team’s top golfer since joining the program a year ago. Before her victory Tuesday, only one other St. Francis golfer had won a girls golf Regional title.

“She’s the number one golfer in my history of girls golf,” Ardery said.  “She’s hitting a bar that will be difficult for other golfers to meet.

“The girls before her know about her, and they are very pleased to have their records broken,” he continued. “It’s pretty impressive what she’s been able to do.”

Slocum is nearing the mid-point of her high school career. It would be difficult to bet against her possibly winning golf and cross country races on the same course – or team and individual Finals championships during the same season.

“She has the lowest scoring average of any golfer I’ve coached, and she’s only a sophomore,” Ardery said. “It’s real early in the story.”

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) Grace Slocum (908) and Traverse City St. Francis teammate Grace Skendzel round a corner during a race this fall. (Middle) Slocum stands next to a flag during last season’s MHSAA Girls Golf Finals. (Below) Slocum and twin bother Josh, left, are both golfing and running cross country for the Gladiators this fall. (Top two photos courtesy of Jessica Slocum; bottom photo by Tom Spencer.)

Longterm Investment Paying Off as Kingston Racers Pace Among State's D4 Elite

By Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com

August 16, 2023

When dozens of Kingston elementary students made the decision during the mid-2010s to run cross country, they didn’t realize what they were building. 

Bay & ThumbBut their coach, Melinda Freeland, knew that for the program she was building to have a chance at success, it needed a foundation – even if it was more about simply getting involved with something positive at the time.

“It was always a fun thing,” she said. “There was never any pressure. It was just, ‘Do this race, have some snacks, and have a good time.’”

Fast forward to 2022, and the Kingston girls, all of whom had started running in third, fourth or fifth grades, found themselves finishing among the top four as a team at the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 4 Final.

“I had high aspirations and high goals all the way through,” Freeland said. “I knew it was a good group when I started coaching them. Eight years ago, I had these kids as elementary kids. On both sides (boys and girls), I’ve been coaching them for a long time.”

Lilah Kiley (2053) paces a pack at MIS last fall.The 2022 season wasn’t a culmination, however. It feels more like the beginning of the next step for the Cardinals, who have their top six runners back.

While the division’s top teams were filled with underclassmen – Johannesburg-Lewiston, Hillsdale Academy and Whitmore Lake, which finished ahead of Kingston, graduated a combined five runners from their top 7s – Kingston’s strong group of returners has the team excited as well about what’s ahead.

“We think it would be awesome to get top three, that’s something that we’re keeping in the back of our heads,” senior Gracy Walker said. “We want to start out strong this year. We started summer workouts in June, and it’s been pretty consistent since June. We’re definitely going to be more in shape this year. Our workouts have been a lot more intense.”

Spending significant offseason time on a sport can be tough in Kingston, where the best athletes are needed for multiple sports throughout the year, or sometimes during a single season. 

Walker, for example, is part of the Cardinals’ highly-successful basketball program, which also demands quite a bit of a player’s time during the summer months.

“You just kind of have to find a way to make all of it work,” she said. “I have cross country in the morning and basketball at night. You try to make it work and do the best you can.”

Walker is one of two seniors, along with Zoe Van Rijn, on a still-young Kingston team. Meegan Flikkie is the lone junior, while three sophomores – Lilah Kiley, Molly Walker and Hailey McGuire – are back for their second seasons. Freshman Violet Tetil joins the group, which does feature just seven runners. 

“I think we’re all so close together in our times, if one person can’t go 100 percent that day, the other person makes up for it,” Van Rijn said. “But we push each other more at practice. We all push each other to go better, and that really helps us. It’s so much fun going to practice every day. We’re more than just teammates – these are some of my closest friends.”

Meegan Flikkie (2052) charges toward the finishWhile Gracy Walker had the highest finish (24th) at the Final last fall, it’s Kiley that spent the majority of the season as the Cardinals’ No. 1 runner. Her personal best of 19 minutes, 45.6 seconds, which was good for second at the Regional meet, was the team’s best time of the season. 

She started running in third grade, and she credits that extra time running competitively with having her ready to compete as a freshman – even if she wasn’t 100 percent sure what she was getting into at first.

“I always liked watching the Olympics, and honestly, when I thought about cross country, I automatically thought about track,” Kiley said. “I didn’t think I was going to be running around the yard and stuff. My first cross country meet, I was very surprised. I just liked running. I think it was sixth grade at North Branch, I came in first and I was surprised. I didn’t know my body could do that. That was the turning point for me.”

Gracy Walker was close behind Kiley with a PR (personal record) of 20:03, while Molly Walker and Flikkie both have PRs within a minute of Kiley, and Van Rijn has run 21:50. 

“I think there’s a lot of motivation, with it being a small group, they all realize the role they have to play,” Freeland said. “It’s not a situation of, ‘If I run bad, somebody else will take my spot on the team.’ I was involved in the restart of Kingston cross country. Back in the 80s (1983), our girls program won a state championship for Class D. We’ve been told the story, they had five girls and there was a tie, so that fifth girl won it. Everybody has to contribute if we want to be a success.”

Paul CostanzoPaul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.

PHOTOS (Top) Kingston's Gracy Walker (2057) pushes down the stretch during last season's LP Division 4 Final at Michigan International Speedway. (Middle) Lilah Kiley (2053) paces a pack at MIS last fall. (Below) Meegan Flikkie (2052) charges toward the finish. (Click for more from Carter Sherline/Run Michigan.)