HARBOR SPRINGS — The first birthday gift of the day for Jace Rowell was hard to beat.
The Traverse City Central junior had all of his Trojan teammates and parents sing “Happy Birthday” as he went to the podium to accept his medal for placing third in the state in the slalom at Monday’s Division 1 alpine skiing state championships at Boyne Highlands in Harbor Springs.
The medal was the first of several for Rowell and many of his TCC teammates as the Trojans won the boys program’s first state championship since 2011.
“It’s super big,” Rowell said. “We’ve been working hard at it and been super close the past few years, and we finally, finally got it this year. It feels really good.”
Rowell’s all-state slalom effort helped Traverse City Central win its 20th state championship.
“He had a great birthday today,” Trojans head coach Amy Kudary said. “What a present for his day. It was icing on the cake.”
Traverse City West’s girls repeated as state champions, going back-to-back for the first time since the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons.
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.”
Central and West won 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.
Kudary becomes only the fourth woman to lead a boys team to the Division 1 state title and sixth overall in any class.
“It’s pretty cool to be a female coach of a boys team and win this,” Kudary said. “They give me the same respect they give everybody.”
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 the state-title streak at least another year, despite losing three of its top six skiers.
“The goal is to obviously 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.”
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.”
The Titans led by a single point (19-20) after the morning’s giant slalom session, but West skiers 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 girls finals field consisted of Clarkston (110), Marquette (158.5), Birmingham (203), Milford (231), West Bloomfield (243), Brighton (242.5) and White Lake Lakeland (290).
Bageris was joined by Titan teammates Gruber (seventh), Dillyn Mohr (eighth) and Warren (ninth) in the slalom top 10, with Central represented by Gerber (third), Cady Madion (10th) and Hale just behind in 11th.
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 the Trojans have several talented middle schoolers coming up as well.
“We want to get it, so we’ll be working all offseason,” Gerber said.
West senior Caleb Lewandowski added to his legacy with a GS championship, raising his career total to four state titles.
“It’s pretty cool to do that, but kind of sad the team couldn’t do it, too,” Lewandowski said.
Lewandowski took a gate too tightly early in his first slalom run, resulting in a bobble that cost him precious time. He made up for it the rest of the run and with a solid second run that put him in second overall to Marquette’s Sam Dehlin by 1.02 seconds.
He rebounded in GS with the day’s two fastest runs to edge out Dehlin by 0.56 seconds.
“It was my last high school race ever,” said Lewandowski. “We were hoping to come away with it, but we had fun out there.”
Central’s boys were nearly flawless in the morning slalom session, leading three-time defending state champ West 18-41. The Titans cut into that deficit in slalom with an 18-point performance of its own, but Central scored 29 to come away with a 47-59 final tally.
The remainder of the finals field consisted of Marquette (97), Linden-Lake Fenton (191), Northville (202), Birmingham (210), Milford (235), Clarkston (244) and Detroit Catholic Central (246).
West had won the last three boys D1 state titles, getting dual titles last year with the girls’ first since 2015. Central’s boys were state runners-up in seven of the last 10 years.
“We finally ended that drought,” Kudary said. “Anything could happen today. It’s always been a battle with West all season. All of the team contributed to the effort today. So happy to bring one home this year. The boys have been working on this for a while.”
Sophomore Rocco Elkins helped lead Central’s efforts with a fourth-place slalom finish and fifth in GS.
“Last year, it was really, really close,” Elkins said. “It definitely felt good to come from a close loss last year to a pretty good win this year.”
Central’s slalom group put four in the top 10, with Rowell third, Elkins fourth, Asher Paul fifth, and Trevor Suttle seventh.
“The morning was awesome,” Kudary said. “The boys just completely dominated in slalom, and we knew we had a good lead going into the afternoon.”
Isaac Shapiro (fourth) and Grady Ellis (ninth) joined Lewandowski in the GS top 10 for West. Didier Ramoie (seventh) and Cooper Gerber (10th) joined Elkins in the GS top 10.
“It feels really good knowing Central is one of the best teams in Michigan,” Elkins said. “The whole Traverse City area just has the best skiers in Michigan.”