Notre Dame Prep Dominates in Repeat
February 24, 2020
By Andrew Rosenthal
Special for Second Half
HARBOR SPRINGS – Downstate teams winning an MHSAA alpine ski championship hasn't usually been a frequent occurrence.
But Pontiac Notre Dame Prep now has done so back-to-back years, giving downstate three of the last four titles in Division 2 girls.
Notre Dame scored 56 points Monday afternoon at Nub’s Nob to cap off one of the most dominant postseason runs possible. The Fighting Irish qualified with a perfect score at their Regional, then won Monday by a landslide. Harbor Springs earned the runner-up nod with 114.5 points, and Petoskey took third with 116.
“Our girls have fought really hard this year,” said an emotional Notre Dame coach Craig McLeod. “We've had a bunch of girls that have really worked hard together.
“They're all great students, they're all great athletes, and they're all great people.”
Within minutes of accepting the champion’s trophy, each member of the team took turns etching her name into the back of it.
“Let’s just say we brought the gold paint pen just in case,” McLeod admitted.
Soon the trophy would be a part of history. The Irish have made it to the Finals as a team 16 of the last 17 years and won the Class B-C-D championship in 2006.
Senior Meghan Kozole earned two medals for the Irish, earning a third-place finish in slalom with a time of 1:14.54 and then taking fourth in giant slalom with a time of 53.42.
Five of Notre Dame’s skiers placed in the top 16 in GS. Kozole led the pack with Delaney Flavin in ninth, Sydney Schulte in 11th, Keely McLeod in 12th and Claire Kirchner in 16th.
“It was really nerve-wracking in the beginning, but once the day got on the nerves wore off,” Kozole said. “It was really exciting to support each other, and we definitely work together as a team. If someone fell, we were like super supportive. We understood that if we wanted to do well, we had to support each other. It wasn't an individual race.”
Reagan Olli of Gaylord started off the day with an individual title in the slalom. Olli posted the best time in the first run at 35.41 seconds, then the second-best her second run at 36.95. Megan Paache of Grand Rapids Northview took second.
Olli became the ninth athlete in MHSAA history to become a two-time slalom champion. She won in 2017, her sophomore season, and battled back from a broken wrist during her junior year.
“I've been working on my slalom all year and trying to get back to it,” Olli said.
Paache edged Olli by five hundredths of a second in GS, giving the senior her first Finals title. After starting out fourth with a first run of 25.81, Paache’s second run secured the title. Her 27.09 jumped her from fourth place into first.
A four-year Finals qualifier, she was joined by Northview’s entire team this year. After the races were over, Paache said that’s what made it so special for her.
“It's been a big goal of mine since I was a freshman,” Paache said. “At some point I wanted to get one. I did it now. That's exciting for me.”
Harbor Springs’ Frannie Kelbel earned two medals with a fourth-place finish in slalom (1:15.20) and an eighth-place finish in GS (55.08).
The Rams’ boys ski team also earned the state runner-up nod.
“It feels really great to have them both go home with trophies,” Harbor Springs coach Jane Ramer said.
PHOTOS: (Top) Pontiac Notre Dame Prep claims the Division 2 championship trophy Monday for the second-straight season. (Middle) Grand Rapids Northview’s Megan Paache races downhill for one of her two top-two individual finishes. (Click to see more from Sports in Motion.)
Sophomore-Paced Cadillac Arrives, Earns 1st Finals Title Since 1990
By
James Cook
Special for MHSAA.com
February 28, 2022
BELLAIRE — Thirty-two years.
Cadillac's girls skiing team made 1990 a distant memory Monday, capturing the school's first MHSAA Finals team championship in any sport since the Vikings girls skiers won in 1990.
They prevailed by a slim four-point margin, unleashing a storm of screams and hugs when East Grand Rapids was named runner-up at the Division 2 Finals at Schuss Mountain in Bellaire.
"It's amazing," said Vikings sophomore Onalee Wallis, who placed fourth in slalom and 11th in giant slalom. "It's so exciting to be able to do that. And we had such a young team."
Cadillac's top six skiers included only one senior, Emily Mason. Wallis and fellow sophomore Avery Meyer helped lead the team, with Meyer placing fifth in slalom and 10th in giant slalom to earn first-team all-state in both disciplines. Junior Georgette Sake took 15th in slalom to earn second-team all-state. Cadillac's other two skiers in the Finals were sophomore Mairyn Kinnie and junior Kinsey Cornwell.
"We've got a young team," Meyer said. "A lot ahead of us."
Cadillac won with 104 points, going into the afternoon GS session with a 14-point lead on Houghton. East Grand Rapids (110) and Harbor Springs (112) jumped past the Gremlins (121) in the slalom. Petoskey finished fifth with 128 and Pontiac Notre Dame Prep sixth at 129, with just 25 points separating first from sixth.
"We knew we had to all put down four solid runs," Meyer said. "We knew we had to ski well, but we thought that we could do it."
Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood (233) placed seventh, Bloomfield Hills Marian (239) eighth and Grand Rapids Christian (260) ninth.
"It was on the radar, and we didn't know when it would happen or if it would happen," Cadillac head coach James Netzley said. "But we didn't make any big mistakes, and that's really what made that small separation between us and the other teams. We had almost no errors at all today."
Being such a young team, the Vikings knew they were talented but weren’t taking their championship potential for granted.
"We were hoping to," Wallis said. "We really tried our best and wanted to win this. We didn't really expect to, though."
Meyer said they hope to keep this going in future years, with almost all the team returning next season.
"Our team chemistry is great," Meyer said. "We just all get along so well. And it's so fun."
Petoskey sophomore Marley Spence won the giant slalom championship, finishing second in slalom behind Notre Dame's Sydney Schulte and posting the top second-run time at 32.68 seconds.
"Slalom was a little disappointing," Spence said. "I really wanted to come up with a first, but second is good, too."
Lake Charlevoix's Avery Kita placed 16th in GS and 19th in slalom. Petoskey's Cassidy Whitener added to a strong showing by that team, placing eighth in GS and sixth in slalom to earn first-team all-state in both.
Cadillac's boys team won state crowns in 1980 and 1978. The girls team also won in 1977, 1978 and 1983, with eight runner-up finishes from 1975-89.
"I thought Cadillac, all of them really skied really well," Spence said. "So proud of them. I thought Notre Dame Prep would come out on top, but two of them fell today. That's what cost them."
Petoskey was set back last week when Allison Goelz was injured in the Regional.
"We had one of our girls get hurt last week, so that kind of made us fall down a bit, but I feel like everyone skied how they needed to," Spence said. "We all came out and had a good positive attitude, and I feel like we all skied our best and that's all we could have really done."
PHOTOS (Top) Cadillac celebrates its Division 2 championship Monday at Schuss Mountain. (Middle) Petoskey’s Marley Spence passes a gate during a slalom run. (Click for more from Sports in Motion.)