February Athletics Highlights

• Bloomfield Hills Schools is so proud to congratulate two outstanding grade 12 BHHS student athletes, Noah Kaplan and Asher Langwell! Both students will be recognized as 2025 MHSAA Scholar Athlete Award recipients at the Breslin Student Events Center on March 15. Students awarded this honor must earn at least a 3.5 (on a 4.0 scale) GPA and have previously won a letter in a varsity sport, in which the MHSAA sponsors a postseason tournament. Awardees must also show active participation in other school and community activities and produce an essay on the importance of sportsmanship in educational athletics. Congratulations Noah and Asher!

 

• The BHHS Boys Varsity Basketball team continues winning games with a record of 13-9 this season. The team competes at Districts this week.

 

• BHHS Girls Varsity Basketball athlete, Briana Young (grade 12), scored an incredible 1,000 career high points in a recent game against Troy on senior night. 

 

• BHHS Boys Basketball Junior Varsity and Freshman teams both ended their seasons on a high note winning their last games of the season.

 

• The BHHS Boys and Girls Bowling teams finished a great season at the regional tournament at Century Bowl in Waterford.  With a season of experience, the 9 out of 10 returning bowlers look to elevate our program next year. 

 

• The BHHS Dance team ended the year taking two 1st place trophies for JV and Varsity! Other highlights include performing at football and basketball games, and placing in all three Regional Competitions. Auditions for the 2025-2026 year will take place in May.

 

• The BHHS Boys Hockey team had an outstanding finish against Troy in their playoff opener, winning 5-0, but fell in the next round to Detroit Catholic Central. 

 

• The BHHS Girls Hockey team went 5-2 in February. Goalie Birdie Parker (grade 12) led the way with 2 shutouts and a 50 save performance! Offensively, Alia Somero (grade 12) had 14 points and Natalia Ben-Ezra (grade 9) added 10 points of her own. Avery Walters (grade 9) chipped in 6 points while playing lockdown defense. 

 

• The BHHS Wrestling team will advance two athletes to the MHSAA State championship being held February 28 at Ford Field. Good luck to wrestlers Anthony Najjar (grade 12) and Kanata Richardson (grade 11)!

 

• The BHHS Ski Team had its D2 Regional ski race on Tuesday Feb 11, 2025 at Alpine Valley. Coach Holmes Ahari admiringly recalled the race.

Skiing by its nature is a very difficult sport. Add to that the weather and constantly changing snow conditions, the challenge of doing well is overwhelming. Only the top three boys and girls teams qualify for the State Championship. Both BHHS teams had top quality skiers, but the competition from other teams was fierce.

Our girls team…had some unfortunate falls from their top skiers and was short by 8 points to qualify for the Championship. It attests to the difficulty of the race that even the top teams and top skiers could fall victim to the hill. However, three of our girls, Kate Iuppenlatz (grade 12), Storey Huntley (grade 12), and Brooke Panozzo (grade 12), all coming in at top 10 (out of 71 skiers) qualified individually for the State Championship.

After the first race, Slalom, BHHS boys team sat comfortably in second place. All they needed to do was come in strong during Giant Slalom (GS) to qualify. The race started as expected as our first two racers, Jonah Yaksich (grade 11) and Arvin Ahari (grade 11), finished strongly. But as the day went on, temperature increased and snow conditions deteriorated. Then, our third racer, Ethan Tigay (grade 11), one of our top skiers who contributed tremendously to our Slalom standing, took an edge on a soft and deteriorating snow and fell as his teammates gasped. Our next skier, Jude Badreddine (grade 12), also finished his race solidly. It was now up to our Freshman Varsity skier, Jasper Camello, a GS specialist, to bring the prize home. Alas, [it was] not the case as he also took an edge, only one turn before the finish line, and fell. The gasp was heard throughout the hill. Although he finished his race, his time was not good enough to put the team in contention. 

[The] team now only had one more skier left to point and he needed to point well to get the team qualified for the State. The pressure on him could not have been higher. Mitchell Weiss (grade 10), our skier number 6, who was just promoted from JV to Varsity only a month ago needed to put down the run of his life to get the team qualified. And to make matters worse, as our last skier in the last flight, he had to ski on the completely destroyed course. As he left the starting gate and started making his turns, all the team held their breath. As he crossed the race timer, finishing the run of his life, the team (and all the coaches) exploded with cheers. Mitch, putting down a fast and clean run, was able to point enough to qualify the team in third place for the State Championship. His run will be remembered for years to come as he delivered in the time of need and helped his team qualify for the State Championship under tremendous pressure.

 The teams competed in the States races on Feb 24th. The boys team placed 8th overall with Badreddine earning a 15th place finish in Slalom. For the girls, Panozzo scored a 10th place finish in Giant Slalom.