Elk Rapids/St. Francis Celebrates D2 win

March 1, 2016

By Scott Keyes
Special for Second Half

BELLAIRE – The Elk Rapids/Traverse City St. Francis girls ski team didn’t exactly anticipate winning the MHSAA Division 2 championship Monday at Schuss Mountain.

Maybe that’s an understatement.

"It was a complete shock," said Carlee McCardel, who helped the ER/SF team to victory. "(We had) no idea. My brother and a few of the siblings were (doing the math), but I said, 'Don't tell me, I want to be surprised.' With skiing you never know what could happen. The calculations can mess up. I wanted to wait until now. It makes it better."

The cooperative team also includes athletes from Central Lake and Grand Traverse Academy and scored 78 points to edge runner-up Houghton/Hancock (80), with Harbor Springs (88), Pontiac Notre Dame Prep (181) and Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central (187) rounding out the top five.

The Elk Rapids/St. Francis boys finished second only to six-time reigning champion Petoskey in their meet, making for a special day all around for the program.

"Seeing the girls win a title so close to home is definitely a great way to end the season," said ER/SF coach Ben Ferrism, who co-coaches the team with Doug White. "But to see the boys team finish second and the girls win a title is extremely gratifying. What a great way to end the season. This is a pretty special day for both squads.

"I think I might have slept two hours last night, because I didn't know what direction the weather was heading," Ferrism added. "Lucky for us, it got colder and our athletes adapted to the conditions."

Houghton/Hancock did sweep the individual championships. Jenna Stine won the slalom in 1:02.94, followed by teammate Allyson Fenton (1:04.61) and McCardel in third (1:05.01).

In the giant slalom, Fenton won in 53.10 seconds, followed by McCardel (53.54) and Forest Hills Central's Sydney Reynolds (54.67).

"To have our team finish second while winning the slalom and giant slalom is pretty impressive," Stein said. "I couldn't be happier for my team."

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PHOTOS: (Top) The Elk Rapids/Traverse City St. Francis girls ski team celebrates the Division 2 championship Monday. (Middle) A competitor races downhill at Schuss Mountain. (Click for more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)

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.

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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.)