TC West Girls Repeat, FHNE's Grzelak Adds Sweep to Family's Success

By James Cook
Special for MHSAA.com

February 26, 2024

HARBOR SPRINGS – A Grzelak state champion seems to be the norm.

Katie Grzelak became the latest in the family to etch her name into the Michigan record books, becoming the third to claim an MHSAA Ski Finals championship over the last five years.

Her older sister Holly won the 2021 Division 1 slalom title also for Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern/Eastern, while cousin Anna (who skied for Marquette) shared the slalom title with Traverse City Central’s Quinn Gerber a season ago.

Katie one-upped them both, sweeping the slalom and giant slalom titles this time around at Boyne Highlands.

“It’s a family tradition,” Katie Grzelak said. “I've been working towards it for a while now. It just felt good to finally put it together.”

Last year, she took second behind Rochester Adams’ Katie Fodale in GS and third in slalom. She’s been all-state six times in three seasons.

“It pretty cool,” said Marquette junior Sam Dehlin, a former teammate of Anna Grzelak who won the 2024 boys slalom title. “They really have a good thing going with the Grzelaks.”

Katie Grzelak said she was already receiving texts from relatives from all over asking if she extended the family tradition.

“I wasn't really expecting it, but I was really happy in the end,” she said. “I probably could have gone harder. I was happy with it, so I didn't feel the need to put too much down.”

Traverse City West's girls repeated as team champion, going back-to-back for the first time since the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons. TC West's girls also won the state's top spot in the academic all-state awards, with a team grade-point average of 3.886.

West junior Olivia Bageris came out of the fourth flight to place second in both the slalom and giant slalom.

The five-time all-stater leads a Titans team that's aiming to extend its Finals championship streak at least another year, despite losing three of its top six skiers after this one.

Traverse City Central's Olivia Bageris completes a run for the eventual team champion."The goal is obviously to make it a three-peat," Bageris said. "Central, our best friends but our biggest rivals. It always comes down to the day of the race. Conference races are always different than the state meet, but the goal would be to make it a three-peat."

West also gets freshman Sarah Shapiro back from injury next season.

"It means a lot," Bageris said. "It hasn't happened in a while. The boys have done it, and we've kind of always been like the underdogs and overlooked compared to our boys. They had a great day, too. So that was exciting. But it means a lot to be able to do this two years in a row. Our freshman year, we come in runner-up and it was exciting because we were kind of unexpected to get that high up. But in the end, we really all wanted to win."

The Titans led by a single point (19-20) after the morning giant slalom session, but felt confident because the team's strength all season has been slalom. West outpointed Central 19-32 in slalom.

"We were only ahead by one point, so we knew we had to go for it," Bageris said. "My friend Ellie (Gruber), she had a really great day, came out skied really amazing. She definitely helped. It was a team sport today."

Gruber took seventh in GS, with Lila Warren 10th. Erinn Hale, Kellan Kudary and Quinn Gerber took eighth, fifth and fourth for Central.

West won the girls title with 38 points, compared to Central's runner-up total of 52. The rest of the field consisted of Clarkston (110), Marquette (158.5), Birmingham United (203), Milford (231), West Bloomfield (243), Brighton (242.5) and White Lake Lakeland (290).

Bageris was joined by Titans teammates Gruber (seventh), Dillyn Mohr (eighth) and Warren (ninth) in the slalom top 10, with Central represented by Gerber (third) and Cady Madion (10th), with Hale just behind in 11th.

West head coach Ed Johnson said he thinks the Titans can seriously make a run at three in a row next season.

"I think we can," Johnson said. "We're losing a couple, but we'll be back pretty strong."

Gerber took third in giant slalom and fourth in slalom to earn her third and fourth all-state spots in two seasons on varsity.

"West has a really good team, and we definitely wanted to show that we could compete," Gerber said. "We scared them a little bit, but they ended up with it."

Central brings back its entire varsity team next season and has several talented middle schoolers coming up as well.

"We want to get it, so we'll be working all offseason," Gerber said.

Traverse City as a whole was the day's big winner.

The Trojans and Titans took first and second in both boys and girls. Traverse City accomplished the same feat last year, although West won two championships and Central took runner-up honors in both.

"It's good for Traverse City to bring that clean sweep again," TC West head coach Ed Johnson said. "That's one of the things I'm most excited about is to see that clean sweep for Traverse City. One-two for the boys, one-two for the girls. It goes from one side of town to the other, but it's all good."

Traverse City Central and West have combined to win the last four Division 1 titles in both boys and girls.

Twenty-three of the 40 first-team all-state spots went to skiers from Traverse City, with another 17 on the second team.

Only four spots in the slalom top-10 didn’t go to Central or West. After Grzelak, Grand Haven’s Neave Rewa was fourth, Birmingham’s Blanca Srock fifth and Clarkston’s Cameron Thomas sixth.

The same applied to GS, where Holly’s Finley DeCubber placed third, Berkley’s Tessa Rontal was sixth and Rewa placed ninth.

Click for full results.

PHOTOS (Top) Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern/Eastern's Katie Grzelak skis a championship run Monday at Boyne Highlands. (Middle) Traverse City Central's Olivia Bageris completes a run for the eventual team champion. (Photos by Tori Burley. Click for more; photos will be added throughout this week.)

Performance of the Week: Cadillac's Onalee Wallis

February 8, 2024

Onalee Wallis headshotOnalee Wallis ♦ Cadillac
Senior ♦ Skiing

Warm weather has made this season trickier than most lately, but Michigan high schools are skiing – and Wallis is again among the state’s elite as she enters the final month of her Cadillac career. On her team’s home hill at Caberfae Peaks, Wallis finished first in both the slalom (43.63) and giant slalom (41.58) at the Cadillac Invitational on Feb. 1, leading the Vikings to the team championship as well.

Wallis has helped Cadillac to outstanding Division 2 Finals finishes her first three seasons of high school; the Vikings won the championship in 2022 and finished third both last season and when she was a freshman. Her top individual finishes at Finals were second in the giant slalom as a freshman and fourth in slalom as a sophomore, and she was fifth in GS and 21st in slalom last season. She also played golf at Cadillac, finishing her career in the fall tying for 13th at her Regional and making the all-Big North Conference team, and plays soccer in the spring and earned an all-BNC honorable mention last season.

@mhsaasports ⛷️POW: Onalee Wallis #ski #slalom #giantslalom #cadillac #letsgo #part1 #highschoolsports #tiktalk #interview #performanceoftheweek #mistudentaid #fyp #MHSAA ♬ original sound - MHSAA

@mhsaasports ⛷️POW: Onalee Wallis #tiktalk #questiontime #part2 #greysanatomy #tangled #nerdclusters #car #dog #bed #redheart #performanceoftheweek #mistudentaid #fyp #MHSAA ♬ original sound - MHSAA

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Past 2023-24 Honorees

Feb. 1: Abbey DeGraw, Rochester Hills Stoney Creek competitive cheer - Report
Jan. 25:
Ewan Todd, Riverview swimming - Report
Jan. 18:
Ashley Weller, Jackson Northwest basketball - Report
Jan. 11:
Michael Baldwin, Saginaw Arthur Hill wrestling - Report
Dec. 15:
Jena Fijolek, Fenton bowling - Report
Dec. 8:
Sophia Wagner, Escanaba gymnastics - Report
Dec. 1:
Isaiah Marshall, Southfield Arts & Technology football - Report
Nov. 24:
Sarah Bradley, Clarkston Everest Collegiate volleyball - Report
Nov. 17:
Kalieb Osborne, Waterford Mott football - Report
Nov. 10:
Tekalegn Vlasma, Muskegon Western Michigan Christian soccer - Report
Nov. 3:
Colton Kinnie, Birmingham Seaholm football - Report
Oct. 27:
Lauren Timpf, Macomb Lutheran North golf - Report
Oct. 20:
Alena Li, Okemos golf - Report
Oct. 13:
Seth Norder, Grand Haven cross country - Report
Oct. 5:
Paige Anderson, Muskegon Reeths-Puffer golf - Report
Sept. 29:
MacKenzie Bisballe, Lake City volleyball - Report
Sept. 22:
Jhace Massey, Gladwin football - Report
Sept. 15:
Kaylee Draper, Sturgis swimming - Report
Sept. 8:
Owen Jackson, Traverse City St. Francis tennis - Report
Sept. 1:
Rachel Forsyth, Ann Arbor Pioneer cross country - Report

(Photos courtesy of the Cadillac girls skiing program.)