BELMONT — The usual suspects will likely be the favorites to win state championships in MHSAA Division 1 skiing coming up in less than two weeks.

Marquette and two Traverse City schools — Central and West — swept the top-three team positions in both boys and girls meets at the D-1 regional held at the Cannonsburg Ski Hill just outside Grand Rapids on Monday.

Those top-three team finishers get automatic qualification for their entire squads at the state finals set for Boyne Mountain in Boyne Falls on Monday, Feb. 23.

And one of those three schools can usually be counted on to take home a state championship trophy when that meet is over, too, even with two other D-1 regionals that are held each year statewide.

For the boys, one of those three schools has won the past 13 state titles, MSHS nabbing eight of them. Among girls teams, those three have controlled the last 11 state championships, including five by Marquette.

Though the Sentinels didn’t win either regional title on Monday, they were much closer to achieving that than they were of missing the top-three cutoff.

The Marquette boys finished runner-up with 56 points as TC West won the regional with 45 and TC Central was third with 90. Grand Haven was a distant fourth with 169.

MSHS finished third in a tight girls meet, Central winning with 60, West having 61 and Marquette producing 75 points. Again, Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern was quite far back in fourth with 127.

Additionally, the four individual skiers not from the top three teams also qualify for the finals. Other schools at this regional were Cedar Springs, Hudsonville, Kalamazoo Loy Norrix, Plainwell, Portage Central and Rockford.

Here are Marquette’s finishers in each meet:

Boys

Though the Sentinels’ Lake Skytta swept to victories in both slalom and giant slalom, Marquette was particularly strong in slalom.

Not only did Skytta win the individual slalom title with the fastest first and second runs, he was champion by more than a full second even as runner-up Cam Lewandowski of TC West had the second fastest time in each run.

Skytta’s times were 28.10 and 29.02 seconds, giving him a two-run time of 57.12 seconds, well ahead of Lewandowski’s 28.74 and 29.51 for 58.25.

Skytta also got good support from his teammates in this discipline, with the Sentinels grabbing four more spots in the top 11.

Marquette’s Conner Henry was fourth in 59.23 seconds on runs of 29.44 and 29.79, Benjamin Kuhl sixth in 1:00.33 on runs of 30.00 and 30.33, Brady Audette eighth in 1:00.60 on runs of 30.06 and 30.54, and Connor Dunn 11th in 1:01.10 on runs of 30.51 and 30.59.

In addition, teammate Jude Balding was 17th in 1:03.78 as the Sentinels posted the lowest team score in slalom with 19 points.

In GS, though, Skytta was largely left to fend for himself. And that he did, winning by not quite a half-second on runs of 27.50 and 23.94 for a 51.44 total. TC Central’s Grayden Love jumped into second with runs of 28.04 and 23.86 for 51.90.

With TC Central’s Rocco Elkins taking third, TC West slotted into the next four positions, led by Lewandowski in fourth.

Marquette didn’t get back into the standings until eighth place, with Kuhl finishing there with runs of 29.18 and 24.70 for 53.84 seconds.

Henry was 18th with runs of 29.74 and 25.64 for 55.38, while Dunn was 22nd with runs of 30.44 and 25.71 for 56.15 and Chase Dehlin right on his heels in 23rd with runs of 30.21 and 26.03 for 56.24.

Girls

Estelle Dehlin and Sydney Kuhl were the Sentinels’ girls top finisher in each discipline.

In slalom, Dehlin was sixth with runs of 32.72 and 31.64 seconds for a 1:04.36 total, while Kuhl was right after her in seventh with runs of 32.63 and 32.01 for 1:04.64.

Then just reverse those finishes in GS. Kuhl was sixth with runs of 26.90 and 27.23 for 54.13, while Dehlin came in seventh on runs of 27.53 and 26.65 for 54.18.

Teammate Sophie Coxon was next in slalom, finishing 13th in 1:08.25 on runs of 35.32 and 32.93, Madalyn Croney 14th in 1:08.34 on runs of 34.68 and 33.66, Jillian Starr 15th in 1:08.68 on runs of 34.73 and 33.95, and Lyla Isaacson 17th in 1:09.59 on runs of 35.12 and 34.47.

In slalom, MSHS was second overall, scoring 35 points.

In GS, Croney was ninth in 54.94 on runs of 27.70 and 27.24, Coxon 13th in 55.98 on runs of 28.61 and 27.37, Isaacson 16th in 56.75 on runs of 28.35 and 28.40, and Starr 19th in 57.09 on runs of 29.02 and 28.07.

TC Central’s Quinn Gerber won girls slalom in 1:02.54, while Grand Haven’s Neave Rewa took GS in 52.76.

Story contents based on an email received from Marquette head coach Christy Provost and an examination of the MHSAA website at MHSAA.com. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.