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.)
Adams' Fodale Repeats, Marquette's Grzelak Wins 1st & Titans Take Team Title
By
James Cook
Special for MHSAA.com
February 27, 2023
BELLAIRE – Katie Fodale aims for three next year. Anna Grzelak got her first in her last chance.
Fodale, the Rochester Adams junior star, won the Division 1 girls slalom championship for the second-straight season Monday at Schuss Mountain in Bellaire.
Grzelak capped off her standout Marquette career with her first Finals championship after multiple all-state performances.
“I'd say it was pretty different last year,” Fodale said. “It was kind of unexpected and I was super happy to win, obviously, but I didn't know that I could do it. This year coming back, I knew I had done it last year. I felt the pressure from myself to try and win again. I knew I could do it, but I also knew that there was a lot of other girls that could beat me, too.”
She led by 12 hundredths of a second after the first run, but extended that to 0.89 following the second, posting the best time with each.
“When I was skiing it, I could feel I was getting a lot of speed and doing really well,” said Fodale, who also took fifth in giant slalom. “I was just full speed ahead. Then once I was on the last three gates, I was like, 'OK, I think I got it.' And then I finished through and I was like, 'Yeah, that was a great run.'”
Fodale said she was happy with the team's fifth-place finish, especially since the Schuss Mountain slopes are far bigger than their home hill. Adams arrived early and trained for three days on the Kingdom Come and Goosebumps courses they'd compete on Monday.
“It was really good because a lot of our team was intimidated coming up here,” she said. “Our hill is very flat, and obviously this hill is super steep. But we came up to the challenge, and I think we did a great job.”
Marquette won the team title Grzelak's freshman year. Ever since, a Traverse City team has won the overall crown.
“It took a lot of training, and a lot of people helped me out and support me,” Grzelak said. “I think that was really nice.”
Traverse City West emerged from a tiebreaker with the girls title, as both West and TC Central ended with 69.5 points. The Titans won the tiebreaker with 30 points to 38 for Central, counting the fifth skier in both disciplines (Dillyn Mohr and Avery Plummer for West).
"Our team goes really deep, all the way to six," West coach Ed Johnson said. "So many teams fall off after three or four."
Johnson said it's the first time he saw the tiebreaker system used to decide the Finals champion.
Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern/Eastern, which won the Regional over both West and Central, finished third with 100 points, 30.5 back. The rest of the top nine were Clarkston (109), Rochester Adams (201), Bloomfield Hills (212), Brighton (242), Milford (246.5) and Farmington Hills Mercy (298).
West’s boys also won, completing a Finals sweep for the school.
"It's so cool," West junior Charlie Schulz said of winning both team titles. "It's never happened in our school history. It's so cool. I'm super proud of our team, and we've been working hard for it. I was pretty confident in us, but there's definitely some good competition here today."
Schulz said this year's outcome makes next year's goal obvious.
"I'm hoping to do it again," Schulz said. "We aren't losing anybody, at least for the girls side. So I'm hoping we can even be even better next year."
Grzelak, with two cousins also competing in the Division 1 Finals for Forest Hills Northern/Eastern, took third in slalom to earn dual first-team all-state honors.
“We got that family competition going on every time, so I think it's fun,” Grzelak said of her cousins. Katie Grzelak took third in slalom and Holly Grzelak fourth. Holly took third in GS.
“I'm glad I was able to get it in my last try,” Anna Grzelak said. “It's a good way to end off my high school career.”
Anna Grzelak tied Traverse City Central freshman Quinn Gerber for the GS championship, with both posting a combined time of 53.39 seconds.
"I did not expect it at all," Gerber said. "I was hoping to top-10 in both. My GS has been stronger this year, so I was hoping to do even better in that. I was hoping for top five in GS, so I was not really expecting this."
Gerber's first run was the fastest. Grzelak posted the best second run to put the two in a tie for combined time. They were both named GS champions.
“I was going all or falls on that one,” Grzelak said. “So I think I just had enough in me, and I was able to push through. I saw Quinn at the bottom, and we were celebrating.”
Gerber came out of the second flight to share the GS title.
"I was so happy to see Quinn ski so well today," TC Central head coach Amy Kudary said. "A state championship as a freshman is a pretty big deal. We are very young on both teams, so now I’m more excited than ever to see what we can do in the next couple of years."
Gerber said winning a championship as a freshman lifts her expectations for the future.
"I would hope for the same thing in the future, but the competition is so hard," Gerber said. "Especially tying like that. Any day, people ski differently."
The top 10 in giant slalom – who all earn first-team all-state honors – were Gerber, Anna Grzelak, Holly Grzelak, TC Central's Kellan Kudary, Fodale, FHNE's Jaycee O'Neill, TC West's Lila Warren, TC Central's Erinn Hale, Schulz and TC Central's Pearl Hale.
The top 10 in GS were Fodale, Katie Grzelak, Anna Grzelak, Holly Grzelak, TC West's Avery Plummer and Olivia Bageris, Gerber, Clarkston's Sydney Thomas, O'Neill and TC West's Ellie Gruber.
PHOTOS (Top) Rochester Adams' Katie Fodale speeds through a run Monday at Schuss Mountain. (Middle) Traverse City West's Quinn Gerber races amid some flurries. (Click for more from Sports in Motion - Division 1.)