Shores Core 4 wins Fourth MHSAA Title
October 20, 2012
By Greg Chrapek
Special to Second Half
ALLENDALE – Repeating was the theme of the weekend at the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 2 Girls Golf Final.
Not only was Muskegon Mona Shores looking for a fourth straight team championship, but Okemos junior Elle Nichols had her sights set on repeating as the individual medalist at The Meadows Golf Course on the campus of Grand Valley State University.
In the end, both the Sailors and Nichols accomplished their goals, but not without plenty of thrills along the way. On the team front, Mona Shores became the first girls golf team to win four straight Lower Peninsula championships. The Sailors also came full circle as their two-day total of 666 matched the score they shot in winning the 2009 title with four of the same players.
Mona Shores led the tournament at the end of the first day with a 341 and came back on Saturday to shoot a 325. Battle Creek Lakeview finished second with a score of 707 while Okemos took third with a 711.
“We talked about the butterflies after the first day,” Mona Shores coach John Brainard said. “We talked Saturday morning about getting rid of the butterflies. About getting a fire in our bellies instead and going out after it.”
That was exactly what the Sailors did, as seniors Hailey Hrynewich and Morgan Smith led the way with scores of 79 while fellow seniors Britni Gielow and Kelsey McKinley shot rounds of 83 and 84, respectively. All four have been among the team’s top five for all four championships.
“It feels so great to win it again,” Hrynewich said. “That was our goal from day one this season, to win a fourth state title. There was a lot more pressure on us this year. Everyone knew we were going for our fourth in a row, but we knew we had to do it."
The title was bittersweet for Brainard, who will say goodbye to his special senior class.
“I’m so proud of these girls,” Brainard said. “These four seniors are very special. They set the state record that no other team has done before.”
With a fourth title heading to the trophy case, Brainard is already looking ahead to a possible fifth next year.
“That’s my job,” Brainard said. “I’ve already started looking ahead. I started last summer getting some girls out for the junior varsity team, and we’re going to work on getting some more golfers out.”
While the Sailors won by 14 strokes, Nichols had a much closer margin of victory as she had to go to a three-person playoff to repeat as champion by one stroke.
Nichols was in third place, three strokes out of first as she carded an 81 on Friday. She came back Saturday and fired a 77 to finish with a 36-hole total of 158. Hrynewich came in with scores of 79 on both days to also finish with a 158, while East Lansing senior Kristyn Crippen, who was the Division 2 runner-up last fall, shot a 76 on Saturday to go with Friday’s round of 82.
The three golfers then played the treacherous 18th hole. Nichols’ second shot landed short of the green in the tall grass that was even more of a hazard due to the heavy rain from the previous two days. However, she was up to the challenge as she blasted a shot out of the tall grass and mud and onto the green some 40 feet beyond the hole. From there, it was a 40-foot, downhill put for par. Nichols sent the ball on a smooth line to the hole, but once it arrived at its destination the ball jumped just over the lip.
After her opponents missed their bogey putts, Nichols sank her next to edge Hrynewich and Crippen by a stroke and win the playoff.
“I knew somehow I had to get out of the gunk,” Nichols said. “I knew if I could get out of that I had a chance. My first putt lipped out, but then I got my second putt to go in.”
Nichols saved her best putts until the end, according to her coach Dan Stolz.
“Elle didn’t play her best,” Stolz said. “She struggled with her putting some, but then she almost holed that 40-footer that went around the lip. She had eight or nine three-putts, and if she made some of those it wouldn’t have been as close.”
Or as dramatic.
“It was really exciting,” Nichols said. “I was not sure it was going to happen, but I had been there before so I had confidence that I could do it again. I won state last year and knew that I could get it done.”
For Hrynewich, who was on the green in two, the sting of losing the playoff was soothed by the thought of being a four-time team champion with her classmates.
“I thought I had it, but then I missed that putt,” Hrynewich said. “It was disappointing to lose in the playoff, but we won the team championship, and that was the big thing. Winning our fourth team title was what we I really wanted more then anything.”
PHOTO: (Top) Muskegon Mona Shores' Hailey Hrynewich, East Lansing's Kristyn Crippen and Okemos' Elle Nichols shake hands after their playoff hole ended with Nichols winning her second MHSAA championship. (Middle) Mona Shores receives the Division 2 team trophy for the fourth straight season. (Click to see more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
FHN's Henkel Off to Headline-Making Start
September 11, 2020
By Dean Holzwarth
Special for Second Half
GRAND RAPIDS – Lilia Henkel admitted to struggling a bit with her golf game during the months leading up to this high school girls golf season.
You wouldn’t have guessed it after the Forest Hills Northern senior sent a buzz through the statewide golf community with a record-setting performance in her season debut.
Henkel fired an eye-popping 12-under-par 60 last month in the Mona Shores Invitational at Stonegate Golf Club.
“It was a mediocre summer, and the past few tournaments before then I didn’t play that well,” Henkel said. “I played some of my worst golf, and I just wasn’t hitting the ball where I needed to. I was frustrated and confused about what was happening.”
Henkel overcame the issues she was encountering in the first event of a fall season that was in jeopardy due to the current Covid-19 pandemic.
Golf, tennis and cross country were the first sports cleared to play after five months, and the three-time all-state selection took advantage of the opportunity.
“It was obviously the first event for any high school sport and everything just set up perfectly,” said Henkel, who made the all-state Super Team last season. “The weather was beautiful, the course was awesome and it was good to be back with the team. With everything that has been going on, we all just wanted to go out and have fun and make it as memorable as possible.”
Henkel has enjoyed her share of high school golf highlights; she individually tied for second at the 2019 Lower Peninsula Division 2 Final, tied for third in 2018 and was seventh as a freshman.
But her round at Stonegate certainly made for another memorable moment.
She set a course record, besting the previous low round of 66, set by former Miss Golf and two-time MHSAA Finals champion Laura Kueny.
“The pro at Stonegate couldn’t believe it, and he gave her a certificate,” Forest Hills Northern coach Kent Graves said. “That’s a difficult course. We’ve been going out there to play for a number of years and it’s not an easy course by any means, but she was just all over it that day.”
Henkel’s first nine holes included three birdies and three eagles, as she shot a stunning 8-under-par 28 entering the back nine.
She rolled in a 25-foot eagle putt on No. 5, and then followed with a 20-foot chip-in from just off the green on No. 6. She chipped in for an unexpected eagle yet again on No. 9.
“That was one of my favorite holes,” Henkel said. “It was a short par 4 and I drove it to the side of a greenside bunker. I didn’t realize how fast and downhill that green was, and I duffed my chip. I hit ground first, and it landed just five feet on the green. I thought it was going to be short, but it kept going and went in.”
Henkel made four more birdies on the back nine for a 32. Her final score bested her previous low round by seven strokes; however, she wasn’t completely satisfied after the round.
“It sounds bad, but I didn’t feel like I played great golf, I just played good golf,” Henkel said. “I know I’m capable of shooting that score. Sixty is real low, but I know I’m capable of shooting an under-par round.
“If I didn’t leave anything out there I would’ve been like, ‘Wow, I just shot a really good score,’ but I honestly felt like at the very least I left three (shots) out there, if not four or five, because I had two three-putts and then I remember a 6-foot birdie putt that I missed.”
Graves, who has guided the Huskies to three straight wins at the MHSAA Division 2 Finals, also believed Henkel could’ve gone even lower.
“I hate to say this, but I looked at her card and saw 60 and I was disappointed,” Graves said. “She had 28 (on the front nine) so I was hoping for sub-60. That is the silliest thing in the world to say in retrospect, but what a great round. It was just one of those days when everything came together.”
Henkel admitted to having aspirations of bettering her score as well.
“On the 11th tee box I said to myself and to the girls I was playing with that I was going to shoot 59,” she said. “That was my goal. There wasn’t a sliver of doubt in my mind that I couldn’t go and do it. I was having fun, it was an awesome day, so I thought, ‘Let’s go do this.’”
Led by Henkel and senior Anna Fay, a two-time all-stater, the Huskies have since won two more tournaments – the Kent County Classic and Forest Hills Central Invitational. Henkel shot under par at both.
Henkel likes this year’s veteran group as she and her teammate pursue a rare fourth Finals win in a row. The Mona Shores teams from 2009-12, with four straight titles, are the only Lower Peninsula girls golf teams to win more than three straight Finals championships.
“If we could get the four-peat it would be a cherry on the top, mic drop, I’m out,” Henkel said. “I’m really looking forward to the rest of the season, and the other girls have been shooting great scores so far. I see the potential in this team, and we’ve been working hard in practice. It’s been really nice.”
Graves believes this year’s team can contend for another Division 2 title.
“You certainly give yourself a chance anytime you have players like Lilia and Anna on the team,” he said. “Everyone has a great one and two, but it’s that three, four and five (player) that really wins championships. And I think we’re really solid in those positions this year.”
Dean Holzwarth has covered primarily high school sports for Grand Rapids-based WOOD-TV for four years after serving at the Grand Rapids Press and MLive for 16 years along with shorter stints at the Ionia Sentinel and WZZM. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Allegan, Kent and Ottawa counties.
PHOTO: Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern's Lilia Henkel putts during last season's Lower Peninsula Division 2 Final at Forest Akers East. (Click to see more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)