Team of the Month: Houghton Boys Golf
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
June 24, 2022
The Houghton boys golf team won its 10th Finals championship this season, and sixth Upper Peninsula Division 1 title over the last 10 seasons. Two of those other four seasons, the Gremlins finished runners-up. With a run like that, more success isn't going to surprise anyone.
But this spring’s team exceeded expectations.
The outdoor portion of Houghton’s boys golf season lasted about five weeks. The Gremlins’ home course, Portage Lake, opened May 9, and the team’s first outdoor practice was that day. But by June 1, the Gremlins were shooting in the 320s as a team and clinching another Division 1 title – earning the MHSAA/Applebee’s “Team of the Month” honor for May with that first day of June an exclamation mark on another fantastic season.
“Some of our other teams have had more golf talent. But these guys have worked hard and gotten better and better and kept improving and exceeded expectations a little bit,” said Houghton coach Corey Markham, who also leads the perennially state-contending hockey program. “It’s an awesome group.”
After finishing UPD1 runner-up and five strokes back of champion Marquette in 2021, Houghton took back the top spot this time shooting a 329 at Sage Run to edge Marquette by five strokes. Sophomore Marino Pisani (78) and junior Camden Markham (83) finished second and tied for eighth, respectively, in the individual standings. Juniors Cooper Leonard (84) and Ryan Schmierer (84), and senior Ryan Vlahos (85) – who also was back from the 2021 group – rounded out the winning lineup.
Corey Markham noted how his three returnees helped the lineup find more consistency this season. Marino dropping his scores into the 70s also was a big plus. “He puts in the most time and just lives golf,” Markham said.
Boys golf teams in Michigan could begin practice March 14 and competition March 21. The Upper Peninsula as a whole, due to winter weather, generally gets going later – but Markham said teams in the southern U.P. have even a two or three-week head start on those at the northern tip of the peninsula.
Markham called what his team can do with practice over that first month “minimal” – for obvious reasons – and also as it shares indoor space with the softball and baseball teams also waiting for the weather to turn. The golf team does some work on rules and with video, and uses a simulator to bring back some of the muscle memory from the previous summer.
The Gremlins played in two tournaments during the last week of April – nearly two weeks before that first outdoor practice. They finished third in both of those events and in another May 10 the day after they’d finally gotten outside. But soon after the run started, and Houghton clinched the Western Peninsula Athletic Conference championship on the way to finishing with another Finals title.
“Our biggest success is due to our junior program at our golf course,” Markham said. “You get kids out, and they play a lot in the summer. Their basics and their background are the reasons they’re able to step in and start doing well with a short season.”
Past Teams of the Month, 2021-22
April: Plainwell girls soccer - Read
March: West Bloomfield girls basketball - Read
February: Cadillac girls skiing - Read
January: Hartland hockey - Read
December: Midland Dow girls basketball - Read
November: Reese girls volleyball - Read
October: Birmingham Groves boys tennis - Read
Sintkowski's Final-Hole Eagle Secures UP Finals Repeat for Hancock
By
Jason Juno
Special for MHSAA.com
May 30, 2025
NORWAY — Hancock’s Jackson Sintkowski said he wasn’t playing the best at Friday’s Upper Peninsula Division 2 Final. His last hole, and what happened to be the team’s final one for the day, went exceedingly well, though.
His tee shot landed right down the middle of the fairway, he hit a 9-iron to within 10 feet of the hole and he drained the putt.
“I was pretty pumped up,” the senior said.
It was good for an eagle. The Bulldogs won the tournament by two strokes.
Hancock repeated as Division 2 champion, edging Painesdale Jeffers 324-326 at Oak Crest Golf Course in Norway.
“What we’ve always stressed to these kids is always play to the end,” Hancock coach Paul Sintkowski said. “You never know. I always tell them before every meet that every shot counts. Even though you’re not playing good — 87, if you would have shot an 89, we don’t win. Those kids did that today, they played till the end and I think that is part of the reason why we won again.”
He believes they were the favorites to win coming into the day. They won the Final last year and had won everything in the Western Peninsula Athletic Conference during the regular season.
“I think that’s probably why some of our scores were probably not where they should be,” Coach Sintkowski said. “I think it’s probably a little bit of the pressure.”
It all worked out in the end – thanks, in part, to the big-time eagle by Jackson Sintkowski, who finished with a score of 78, good for third place individually.
“It’s a great feeling” to repeat, he said. “We have a solid team. All of us put up pretty good scores.”
Every Hancock player shot under 90. Kirby Storm joined Sintkowski under 80 with a 79 to finish fourth. Teammate Nolan Hanner carded an 80 to finish sixth.
Four golfers among the top 11 wasn’t quite enough for Jeffers to avoid finishing runner-up as a team for the third straight year. Jets junior Griffin Heinonen finished individual runner-up himself with a 77, Max Nordstrom had an 81 to take seventh, Easton Therrian was eighth with an 82 and Benton Rajala was 11th with an 86.
Cedarville/DeTour placed third as a team with a 363, Ironwood was fourth with a 369 and Newberry rounded out the top five with a 375.
Stephenson’s Owen Kuehnau had the round of the day, carding a 71 to win the individual Finals title, with the runner-up Heinonen six strokes back.
“It feels good,” he said. “It was always a goal of mine, so it definitely feels good.”
The senior finished third at the Final last year and ninth the year before that.
It wasn’t easy to win it Friday.
“The pin positions were really tough, so you just had to go in the middle of green and hope to two-putt,” Kuehnau said.
His score was the lowest recorded by a U.P. Division 2 champion since the MHSAA created the division in 2001.
Munising’s Carter Deatsman rounded out the top five with a 79.
PHOTOS (Top) The Hancock boys golf team holds up its latest Finals championship trophy. (Middle) Painesdale Jeffers’ Benton Rajala follows his shot during Friday’s round. (Photos by Jason Juno.)