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 Senior High School, 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.

TC West scored 38 points while TC Central was a close runner-up with 52. Then came Clarkston in third with 110, while Marquette was fourth with 158 1/2. The Sentinels placed fourth with 76 points in slalom and also fourth in GS with 82 1/2.

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.

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.

Marquette’s top finisher of the day was Lucy Stern in the slalom as she came in 20th place with a two-run time of 77.91 seconds. For scoring purposes, she was 15th as some of the Traverse City schools’ lowest finishers didn’t count in the team standings.

Stern had runs of 39.42 and 38.49 seconds, each also 20th for that particular run.

Also in slalom, MSHS’ Ava Stern was 23rd in 79.03 seconds with runs of 42.41 and 36.62. While she struggled a bit in the opening run, placing 41st in the field, she was eighth fastest in her second run.

Joining them were teammates Nora Skytta, 26th in 79.44 with runs of 40.39 and 39.05; Cadyn Grim, 35th in 83.05 with runs of 42.24 and 40.81; Anna Bernard, 37th in 83.24 on runs of 41.85 and 41.39; and Lexi Hammerstrom, 60th in 109.51 seconds on runs of 38.93 and 1:10.58. Hammerstrom’s opening run was 17th in the field before she had struggles in the second run.

In GS, Hammerstrom topped Marquette skiers in a tie for 24th place in 71.05 seconds and runs of 33.73 and 37.32. Her opening run was 19th in the field.

Ava Stern was right behind her in 27th in 71.35 and runs of 34.03 and 37.32, her opener 24th. Then came teammate Maddy Croney in 28th in 71.47 and runs of 34.52 and 36.95, her second run 22nd.

Following them for the Sentinels were Skytta, tied for 34th in 72.52 on runs of 34.68 and 37.84; Bernard, 40th in 73.29 on runs of 35.50 and 37.79; and Lucy Stern, 62nd in 82.97 on runs of 33.21 and 49.76. Lucy Stern’s opening runs was 13th before she had struggles in the second run.

James Cook is a senior sports writer for the Record-Eagle of Traverse City. He wrote this story for the MHSAA website, www.mhsaa.com.