By Journal Sports Staff

MARQUETTE — The Marquette Senior High School downhill skiing teams accomplished their main mission on Monday, qualifying both its boys and girls teams for the MHSAA Division 1 finals.

One of the MHSAA Division 1 regionals was held at Marquette Mountain and included the Sentinels with 10 Lower Peninsula schools ranging from a pair of Traverse City schools south to Kalamazoo and Saginaw.

MSHS finished third in each meet as the top three schools qualified their entire teams for the finals at Boyne Highlands in downstate Harbor Springs on Feb. 26.

Skiers who placed in the top 10 from a nonqualifying school also get to advance to the finals.

Each meet included two disciplines, slalom and giant slalom, with the points from each competition added together for a final team score.

The Marquette boys scored 67 points to finish a fairly close third to Traverse City West’s winning score of 47 and TC Central’s runner-up finish with 52.

The next team after the Sentinels shot up to 149 points, which was Rockford from suburban Grand Rapids. After that, Kalamazoo Loy Norrix totaled 236, Okemos 290, Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern 304, Grand Haven 316, Portage Central 364 and Hudsonville 402.

The MSHS girls rolled up 115 1/2 points for third place in their meet as TC West won with 52 and TC Central second with 67 1/2.

Forest Hills Northern was a closer fourth in this meet, totaling up 136, while Grand Haven had 140, Rockford 236, Okemos 263, Hudsonville 342 and Loy Norrix 343.

Similar to cross country running in the fall, the places of the top four skiers are added together for team scores.

Sam Dehlin was Marquette’s top finisher of the day, finishing second in both boys’ slalom and giant slalom.

With the time of two runs added together for each individual score, Dehlin missed winning the boys GS by just 0.15 of a second. His runs were 28.25 and 27.75 seconds for a total of 56.00.

Winning skier Caleb Lewandowski of TC West came in at 55.85 on runs of 28.21 and 27.64.

Those two skiers had the same finish in slalom. Dehlin’s time was 1:21.32 on runs of 39.93 and 41.39, his first run the only sub-40-second time of the day.

Lewandowski won by less than half a second in 1:20.90, timing 40.01 and 40.89 on his runs.

Also for the Sentinels boys, Ben Kuhl was seventh in the GS in 58.32 with runs of 28.83 and 58.32 and 10th in slalom in 1:28.18 with runs of 44.05 and 44.13.

Teammate Brady Audette was eighth in slalom in 1:27.74 with runs of 43.55 and 44.19 and 10th in GS in 59.10 with runs of 29.62 and 29.48.

MSHS’ Conner Henry was ninth in slalom in 1:28.11 with runs of 44.10 and 44.01 and 31st in GS in 1:06.56 with runs of 38.13 and 28.43.

Marquette’s Ben Kirk was 16th in slalom in 1:33.86 on runs of 46.16 and 47.70 and 25th in the GS in 1:04.14 on runs of 31.89 and 32.25.

And teammate Connor Dunn was 19th in GS in 1:01.39 with runs of 31.18 and 30.21 and 27th in slalom in 1:50.94 with runs of 46.13 and 1:04.81.

In the girls meet, Lucy Stern had Marquette’s top finishes, placing eighth in both GS and slalom. Her GS time was 1:10.07 with runs of 33.46 an 36.61, while her slalom finish was in 1:36.36 with runs of 46.50 and 49.86.

Katie Grzelak of Forest Hills Northern won both disciplines, clocking 1:05.59 in the GS on runs of 31.26 and 34.33, each the fastest of their runs.

Ava Stern had the Sentinels’ second-best finishes, coming in ninth in GS in 1:10.54 on runs of 33.68 and 36.86 and 12th in slalom in 1:38.73 with runs of 47.80 and 50.93.

Lexi Hammerstorm had Marquette’s third-best finishes as she came in 16th in slalom in 1:41.91 on runs of 48.51 and 53.40 and 19th in GS in 1:12.16 with runs of 34.13 and 38.03.

Also for the Sentinels, Anna Bernard was 23rd in slalom in 1:48.27 on runs of 51.79 and 56.48 and also 23rd in GS in 1:13.18 on runs of 34.58 and 38.60.

Teammate Nora Skytta was 21st in GS in 1:12.59 with runs of 34.07 and 38.52 and 34th in slalom in 2:11.30 with runs of 1:16.73 and 54.57.

MSHS’ Cadyn Grim was 22nd in the slalom in 1:47.11 with runs of 50.41 and 56.70, while teammate Maddy Croney was 24th in GS in 1:13.78 on runs of 35.40 and 38.38.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.