Did you see that?
June 4, 2012
Saturday annually is the busiest high school sports day on the MHSAA calendar.
The Spring Finals match began with Girls and Boys Track and Field and Girls Tennis Finals at sites all over both peninsulas. There were Regionals for both boys and girls lacrosse, which finish up this weekend. And, of course, there were Districts galore for softball, baseball and girls soccer.
Here's our sampling of some of the highlights:
Girls Track and Field
19 records fall: It was quite day across the seven MHSAA Girls Track and Field Finals, with 19 records broken, and two athletes – Reed City’s Sami Michell and Norway’s Dani Gagne – winning four individual events apiece. (Second Half)
Coast to coast: The Grosse Pointe South 3,200 relay was responsible for one of two all-Finals records, and ran a time of 8:48.29 that also surpassed the national record for that event (but may or may not stand as the national record, depending on what other times were run and will be submitted after this spring.) (Detroit Free Press)
Boys Track and Field
LP filled with first-time champs: Lake Orion in Division 1, Auburn Hills Avondale in Division 2 and Lansing Catholic in Division 3 won their first MHSAA team championships. Also, nine records fell across the state. (Second Half)
Quite a comeback: Marquette trailed Gladstone by 27 points at the Upper Peninsula Division 1 Final with four events to run. But the Redmen outscored Gladstone 42-0 over those events to win their third straight championship. (Marquette Mining Journal)
Girls Tennis
Southeast sweep: Detroit suburban schools claimed all four MHSAA Lower Peninsula team championships – Grosse Pointe South in Division 1, Birmingham Seaholm in Division 2, Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood in Division 3 and Bloomfield Hills Academy of the Sacred Heart in Division 4. (Second Half)
Freshman reigns: Utica freshman Davina Nguyen beat both the first and second seeds on her way to claiming the individual championship at No. 1 singles in Division 1. Nguyen was seeded fifth. (Macomb Daily)
Boys lacrosse
Cranbrook comes out on top: Cranbrook-Kingswood, ranked No. 3 in Division 2, emerged from a Regional that also included No. 4 Haslett/Williamston and No. 5 East Grand Rapids, beating the latter 8-4 in the Final. (Bloomfield Patch)
Girls lacrosse
EGR plays to top ranking, again: Rivals East Grand Rapids and Grand Rapids Catholic Central met in one of the multiple close Regional Finals, with the top-ranked Pioneers downing No. 2 GRCC one more time, 11-9. (Grand Rapids Press)
Baseball
It’s Holt, again: The Rams claimed their second championship in a week over rival Grand Ledge – both have been ranked in Division 1 this season. Two weeks ago, Holt split with the Comets to win the Capital Area Activities Conference Blue. Standout Justin Alleman gave up two hits and struck out 18 as Holt also won Saturday to claim a District title. (Lansing State Journal)
Softball
In the end, it’s Mattawan: The season-long battle for statewide Division 1 and Kalamazoo-area supremacy was decided in part at Saturday’s District at Portage Central. Reigning MHSAA champion Mattawan emerged as the winner from a field that included top-ranked Portage Central – which was upset by Kalamazoo Loy Norrix in a semifinal. (Kalamazoo Gazette)
Soccer
AAGR moves on: Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard, No. 8 in Division 3, shut out No. 7 Jackson Lumen Christi 3-0 in the Division 3 District final at Brooklyn Columbia Central (AnnArbor.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.
"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.
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.)