Notre Dame Prep Extends Reign with 3-Peat
February 23, 2021
By Andrew Rosenthal
Special for Second Half
HARBOR SPRINGS — Craig McLeod — quite literally — coaches state championship teams.
McLeod, Pontiac Notre Dame Prep and the Fighting Irish girls made it a three-peat Monday afternoon at the MHSAA Division 2 Ski Finals at Boyne Highlands. The third-year ski coach won his third girls championship after helping break the program’s 13-year title hiatus with the first of this string in 2019.
Before winning three Finals titles in a row (and every divisional and Regional meet during those three seasons) Notre Dame Prep had last won a girls Finals championship in 2006.
Teams north of the 45th parallel typically dominate the alpine ski meet, but now downstate teams have claimed four of the last five Division 2 girls titles as Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central won in 2017. Notre Dame was runner-up in 2017 and 2018 before its three-peat began.
“These girls have really worked hard,” McLeod said through tears. “You think about it, they've been putting their ski boots on like six or seven days a week since Thanksgiving. That takes a lot of work and a lot of focus.”
For a school with an enrollment of roughly 635 students, McLeod said 51 athletes (girls and boys combined) on this year's team was impressive. And there’s more to come. Three of Notre Dame’s four all-state finishers Monday are sophomores including slalom champion Sydney Schulte.
“We're drawn from our JV team and continuing to work and grow with our sophomore team,” McLeod said.
Schulte, who won slalom with a time of 1:27.14 and took fourth in giant slalom with a time of 1:00.11, said the girls she’s been around have felt more like a family than a team.
“I definitely think that there's more to come,” Schulte said. “It'll be kind of challenging that we're losing a little bit of the team, but I definitely think that there are some good people coming up on our team, and it's definitely not going to end.
“I just kind of thought about what I was working on in practice and just got rid of all the nerves and just laid it down.”
McLeod said four titles in a row is certainly a big challenge, but he knows his skiers are up for it.
“They are a bunch of great, hard-working young ladies that are really smart, get great grades and do well in every aspect of their life,” McLeod said. “It's fun to be a part of being with them and coaching them and helping them to be better people and create memories they'll have the rest of your life.”
Lowell’s Kaylee Byrne edged out Cadillac freshman Onalee Wallis for the GS title by 13 hundredths of a second after beating her in the Regional meet last week. All medalists in the GS were separated by less than a second, and that list also included fellow Vikings freshman Avery Meyer.
“She’s sneaky fast,” Cadillac coach James Netzley said of Wallis. "It's been a long, long time since we've had a Cadillac girl finish that high … so yeah, that was impressive. That was really impressive."
East Grand Rapids finished team runner-up with 115 points — a newcomer to Finals hardware in skiing. Cadillac tied Petoskey with 130 points for third place in Division 2, beating the Northmen in a tiebreaker because its fifth racer had a better finish. Last year Cadillac finished in sixth place, but the Vikings returned three members of that team.
PHOTOS: (Top) Pontiac Notre Dame Prep’s Sydney Schulte makes her way past a gate during one of her title-winning slalom runs Monday. (Middle) Lowell’s Kaylee Byrne races to the championship in the giant slalom. (Click for more from Sports in Motion.)
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.)