Northville Nets 3rd-Straight Team Title, Griswold Rides Fast Start to Medalist Honor
By
Tom Lang
Special for MHSAA.com
October 17, 2026
BATTLE CREEK – For the Northville Mustangs, it seems like a case of rinse and repeat.
Northville won its third consecutive Lower Peninsula Division 1 girls golf championship this weekend at Bedford Valley. Three Mustangs tied for 11th place to lead the way – McKenzie Stevens, Naaz Gill and Cam Baker, all with two-day scores of 156.
This year’s team title was not the only repeat, however, as the same three golfers (plus a fourth who has since graduated) tied each other for eighth place in 2024 while leading Northville to the first of the three consecutive titles.
“We’re all usually within 2-to-3 stokes of each other,” said Gill, the lineup’s lone senior. “I think we all play the same game, and we like to help each other out. It’s funny, but it makes some sense.
“Our consistency and the stability that we have was what went right this weekend,” Gill added. “Even if we have one bad hole, we’re able to hold on and not blow up; just stay stable throughout. One bad hole doesn’t dictate our round.”
As for feeling extra pressure or instead using it as motivation to earn a third-straight title, Gill said: “It is a motivator, just to keep things going. And not just to win the title but for all of us to play our game that we like.”
Northville finished at 312-319-631 for an 18-shot margin over runner-up Macomb Dakota (330-319-649). Third was Portage Central (whose leader Olivia Griswold earned medalist) at 320-346-666 to place six strokes better than Okemos (337-335-672) in fourth. Rochester Adams (333-342-675) rounded out the top five.
Griswold blitzed the field in the opening round with a 5-under 67, making it very difficult to be caught. She added a 74 on day two for an overall 141 at 3-under par. Duo runners-up Saisha Patil of Okemos and Hannah Kim of Troy came in seven strokes back at 148 each. That pair were in fourth place to start the day.
“I wasn’t taking as many risks today (Saturday), just kind of staying patient, letting my game do what it does,” Griswold said shortly before being handed the medalist trophy. “I wasn’t worried about making mistakes. In the first round my putting was really good. I only had 29 putts. My wedges were also really tight, which helped me get so few putts. Overall, it was really solid. Didn’t make many mistakes.
“I’ve played here so many times. I was really, really happy that states was playing here (at Bedford Valley). We have lots of conference matches, and I’ve played some summer events here too.”
Regarding the team’s third-place showing, Griswold added: “We’ve been in sixth place the last couple of years, and that’s about where we were projected to be this year, so I’m so proud of everyone for staying in it and playing some of their best golf of the year, especially in the first round. We didn’t expect to be top three, so super proud of everyone.
“I’m happy with his win because starting with Regionals the last couple of years I haven’t done great, and haven’t been all that good at states,” Griswold said about a 21st-place finish last year and 19th in 2024. “So, I worked really, really hard this entire summer and changed a bunch of stuff with my swing. I had a lot of ups and downs this summer, but really felt at the peak of my game the last couple weeks. So, getting to perform well at Regionals and here at states was something I haven’t done well before, felt really good this time.”
Like any competitor, Kim wanted to seal a victory in her first Final as a freshman but knew Griswold’s huge first-round lead was insurmountable in most cases.
“My putting was a big improvement from yesterday,” Kim said. “It was the biggest factor that led me to score this good today (even-par 72). “Even if I had shot really good, it was going to be hard to catch her. I got a hole-in-one this year … so I’m happy. It’s not easy to play well here.”
(Photos by High School Sports Scene.)
Bluejays Learn Fast, Enjoy 'Magical' Rise
October 13, 2017
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
It’s complicated finding just the right word to describe what Shepherd’s girls golf program has accomplished over the last three seasons.
Incredible. Improbable? Coach Julie Prout calls it “magical,” and that might work best of all.
Before the fall of 2015, there was no Shepherd girls golf program. That August, it held its first practices ever, and two people in the entire program had some golf knowledge coming in. Prout herself was not one of them – she wasn’t a big golfer at the time, although now she loves the sport.
How can she not with all her team has enjoyed so quickly? As this September came to a close, Shepherd won its second straight Tri-Valley Conference West championship – earning the first MHSAA/Applebee’s “Team of the Month” award for the 2017-18 school year. The Bluejays added their first Regional title Wednesday and are ranked No. 9 in today’s Lower Peninsula Division 4 coaches association poll.
“I have an extremely hard-working bunch of girls. They play all summer and then they are in a simulator in the winter; they have their hands on golf clubs a lot,” Prout said. “Other than that, I would tell you they have great chemistry. They’re hard-working, they’re great students, really good people, and they are enjoying golf.”
Shepherd shot an aggregate team score of 929 over five TVC West jamborees this fall, averaging out to 186 strokes per nine holes and 46.5 per player whose scored counted toward the total. The Bluejays shot a 410 in Wednesday’s rainy gloom at home course Maple Creek to finish 16 strokes ahead of reigning Regional champ Frankenmuth and move on to next weekend’s Lower Peninsula Division 4 Finals.
Three Bluejays, all juniors, placed among the top 10 at the Regional, which was astounding considering again that those golfers were incoming freshman the first year of the program. In fact, junior Maggie Bryant was the catalyst in the team’s formation, making initial contact with the athletic department about starting a team. Prout, now in her 30th year teaching in the district, also coaches softball and coached cheerleading a while ago, and took on the golf program in large part because no one else showed interest.
Shepherd had nine golfers the first year and 10 last season. The Bluejays then graduated four off the team that not only won that first league title but made the MHSAA Finals and finished 15th in LP Division 4 last fall.
This season there are six players, but they’ve become good ones – lone senior Adri Bush, juniors Bryant, Morgan Yates and Olivia Raymond and freshmen Maddie Skeel and Georgia Kusbel. As a group, they’re talented and busy; Yates also plays volleyball, while Skeel is a likely all-conference cross country runner and Kusbel runs cross country and plays high-level club ice hockey in addition to golfing in the fall.
Four players are shooting in the low to mid-40s on average; Yates shot an 18-hole 96 to take third at the Regional and Raymond was fourth at 99, while Bryant was ninth at 105.
Again, only two players had notable knowledge of the game before two years ago. So on the first day in program history, Prout started with fundamentals. She took some of what is taught in the local youth program, and a graduate of Shepherd’s boys golf team came in and taught basics. Prout, with the help of her coaching colleagues in the TVC, learned and taught the many rules of the game, and Shepherd’s boys program welcomed the girls into one big family. (The boys team won the Class C-D championship all the way back in 1970 and also has had recent success winning its Regional this past spring.)
“I put a lot of people in front of them that were knowledgeable,” Prout said. “We had a lot of help along the way from past coaches who were on the staff years ago. I’ve taken them to different courses to play, but also to be instructed by the youth programs. I’ve learned just as much as my girls.”
And now the Bluejays are passing it forward. Clare has a first-year team this fall, and Prout said see the Pioneers this fall was like looking in a mirror.
Shepherd offered its knowledge and anything else, paying it forward just as so many did in getting Prout’s program off and golfing.
Her athletes are a little tired now, she admits, from playing a lot of golf to this point in the season. But the Bluejays surely have two more great rounds left in them this fall with another incredible opportunity to accomplish success seemingly years ahead of schedule.
“Years and years and years ago, one of my players, Morgan Yates, her mother played with the boys on the boys golf team, and I coached her in a different sport,” Prout said. “Now her daughter, they’re building something here. These girls are the foundation of what’s to come in the future, and I tell them every day how special it is – and it really is.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Shepherd’s girls golf team poses with its championship trophy after winning a Regional title Wednesday. (Middle) Shepherd girls golf coach Julie Prout, left, and lone senior Adri Bush. (Photos courtesy of Shepherd’s girls golf program.)