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.)
Marquette Ski Teams Lead Chase Again
March 16, 2018
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
There are communities all over Michigan known for nurturing their athletes from the youngest levels through high school – football towns, basketball towns, volleyball towns, etc.
Marquette is a skiing town, with a decades-old infrastructure that would seem to guarantee no slowing down for the Marquette High boys team that has won six straight Division 1 championships and the girls team that last month clinched its third consecutive title.
Marquette’s boys and girls ski teams are the MHSAA/Applebee’s Teams of the Month for February after continuing those impressive streaks.
In Marquette, skiers who fill the high school teams came up on the local Marquette Mountain Race Team and Great Lakes Ski Academy. And every once in a while there’s an athlete with especially high aspirations who chooses to continue competing solely outside the high school.
But second-year coach Dan Menze – who has coached in both non-school programs and skied for the Redmen through graduation in 2009 – said over the last two seasons every student who ski races has raced with his high school teams.
“The amount of skiing that’s available to these kids to make them better athletes and come to high school as already accomplished skiers – this wouldn’t be possible if we didn’t have the programs that do bring those kids up,” Menze said.
“They teach skiing the right way. When they come to the high school, (athletes) already have a good foundation and good base. It’s just taking them to the next level for me, which I don’t usually have a ton of kids that I have to bring up to that level.”
The boys team won its title Feb. 26 at Boyne Mountain with 56 points, as Traverse City Central came in second for the fifth straight season this time with 80.5. The Redettes scored 48 points to finish ahead of Traverse City West’s 76.
Sophomore Ainsley Kirk and senior Sadah Scheidt took first and second in the girls slalom, and junior teammate Natalie Robinia was sixth. Kirk was then third in the giant slalom, and sophomore Jacey Johnson was seventh.
On the boys side, sophomore Aaron Grzelak, senior Andrew Thomas and freshman Haydn Kauppila took the first three places, respectively, in the slalom. They then finished second, fourth and fifth, respectively, in the giant slalom.
If the feeder programs are the key, Marquette Mountain’s participation is nearly as important. Menze said the hill “bends over backwards” to make it easier for the Redmen and Redettes to get in their training runs – and with the ability to set up courses comparable to any of the terrain the teams might see elsewhere.
Marquette High, the largest school in the Upper Peninsula, dominates in a number of sports throughout the school year. But also making the ski teams’ accomplishments impressive is the competition – skiing and hockey are two sports where Marquette regularly sees and succeeds against teams from both the Upper Peninsula and downstate.
The boys team has won 13 MHSAA Finals titles, dating to its first in 1997. The girls have won 11 going back to 1999.
“There’s not really a lot of other teams at the high school that get to compete with a lot of these teams from downstate,” Menze said. “It is nice to go down there; we’re in our element.
“The last 30 years we’ve been fairly consistent and competitive, and it’s awesome to bring that back to the school.”
Past Teams of the Month, 2017-18
January: Sterling Heights Stevenson competitive cheer - Report
December: Cadillac boys bowling - Report
November: Ottawa Lake Whiteford football - Report
October: Beaverton volleyball - Report
September: Shepherd girls golf - Report
PHOTO: Marquette’s girls and boys ski teams hold up their latest MHSAA championship trophies last month at Boyne Mountain. (Photo by Keith Dunlap.)