High 5s: 11/7/12

November 7, 2012

This past Saturday saw eight teams and eight individuals crowned MHSAA champions, and this week we feature a few who will be listed among the best for all time. 

Erin Finn
West Bloomfield senior
Cross country

Finn won her second straight MHSAA individual Lower Peninsula Division 1 championship, this time in 17:07.9. Her finish was the fastest from any of the four divisions that raced Saturday at Michigan International Speedway, and gave her the victory in hers by 27 seconds. Finn’s time was the fourth-best ever at an MHSAA Final. She has three of the top 15 times ever run at MIS, more than any other runner.

On track for more: Finn also won an MHSAA Track and Field championship last season, setting an all-division/class record in the 1,600 with a time of 10:17.86. That time was nearly five seconds better than the previous best.

Maize and Blue: Finn will run next season at the University of Michigan. The Wolverines cross country team is ranked No. 7 nationally heading into Friday's NCAA Great Lakes Regional. 

Scientifically speaking: Finn intends to study biomechanical engineering at U-M. "My junior year, I found out I love physics, and I already knew I loved bio and chemistry. So, what's better than to combine those?"

Runners to chase: “I looked up to Megan Goethals (of Rochester), number one, and Shannon Osika (of Waterford Mott). They’re people I competed with. I know that one day I can be like that. It’s more real to me.”

Click to read more.

Nick Raymond
Erie Mason senior
Cross country

After dashing to the lead last season and finishing fourth, Nick Raymond dominated the Lower Peninsula Division 3 Final at MIS with a time of 15:05.1 – the second-fastest time for a Division 3/Class C MHSAA Final to only Maverick Darling's 14:52.8 for Ovid-Elsie in 2007. Raymond is the first individual cross country champion from Erie Mason (not counting another who finished first among individuals before team and individual placers were combined for one race beginning in 1997) and also placed in both the 1,600 and 3,200 at the spring's Lower Peninsula Division 3 Track and Field Final. 

A long drive: "I've been working hard, since the first time (I ran) in sixth grade. Working hard and training hard over the summer and during mandatory practices too." 

Brotherly influence: Raymond began running cross country in the footsteps of his older brother Andrew Raymond, a 2010 graduate. "He told me, 'If you just keep working hard, just look forward at your dream, your goal, you will achieve it.'"

Now the pool, then the track: Raymond swims during the winter, specializing in butterfly and breaststroke. Then it's on to track. Raymond finished fourth in the 1,600 (4:21.84) and seventh in the 3,200 (9:44.91) at last season's Lower Peninsula Division 3 Final. 

Looking up to Pre: Like many in the running community, Raymond considers former Oregon and international star Steve Prefontaine a major influence. "I liked how he had a lot of faith in himself."

Click to read more. 

East Kentwood soccer

The top-ranked Falcons edged Grand Blanc 1-0 at Troy Athens to claim their fourth Division 1 championship in six seasons. They finished 22-1-4, their seventh with at least 20 wins in the last eight years. 

Click to read more. 

Previous 2012-13 honorees:

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.)