01.26.26 Scott West Nordic Ski Conference Meet Recap

Our Conference Championship day started out really cold with athlete's wax checks right at 9:30, air temp was -8 real feel was about -20. Mr. Jamison was out there bright and early setting up our wax camp and making sure plan A was the perfect plan for the kick wax . Everything checked our perfect, the glide was fast and the kick was sticky so our athletes were able to spend team time in the chalet while Mr. Jamison and I waxed the remainder of the skis. Temperature fluctuated around barely legal at race time as well as throughout the day due to sustained winds.

Our first round of competition was the 5k classic. Our athletes were amazing. We are very strong as a team when it comes to classic. Classic tends to not be most athletes' favorite skill and therefore tends to be their less competitive technique but our athletes have always risen to the top at these classic events. Monday several conference coaches complemented our athlete's speed and transitions skill in their classic skis. After the boy's team completed their races they were sitting in second place overall. Saint Paul Highland Park was in first and St. Paul Central was in 3rd place trailing us by 6 points. The first round of 5k is set in a random draw bib order. All of our athletes were racing the clock rather than each other. Isaac Bemmels was our fastest classic skier with a 14:08 placing 3rd overall. Jackson Nagel skied 15:15 for 11th place, Ben Pint 16:06 for 16th place. Wilson Menden 17:26 for 27, Carter Bolster 17:43 29th Owen Dahnert 17:59 30th. Cooper Kalal was 49th with a 20:10. Jayden Koonst 51st with 20:58.

We were excited to have a full girl's squad skiing to see how we stack up overall within our conference. They skied very competitively against St. Paul Como Park and Mound-Westonka especially considering 6 of our 10 skiers are first year skiers (this means they have only just started learning to ski 7 weeks ago) and 1 is a second year skier. Tirzah Juaire our most experienced skier was our fastest classic skier. She placed 14th in the first round skiing a 18:08. Izzy Haugen competed in the pursuit for the first time as in the past she has always been a sprinter. But as her form strengthens and her endurance builds she has become more competitive in these longer pursuits. She had a great day placing 18th in classic with a 19:08. Ashlynn Mieseler in only her second year skiing placed 27th with a 20:58. She improved by over 3 minutes from last year which is fantastic in any circumstances but even more amazing as the snow was faster last year! Izzy Kalal, Isabel Holladay, Morgan Giles, Vivian Thorstad and Eleanor Voight all accepted the challenge to push themselves in a new type of competition to gain experience and see what they can do. The weather was absolutely terrible. While we have had cold starts before for conference we have never had the temperature stay consistently at barely legal all day. This was definitely an extreme experience for our first year skiers if not all of our skiers. Izzy Kalal placed 37th with a 23:40, Vivian Thorstad placed 49th with a 24:50, Isabel Holladay placed 45th with a 26:06. Morgan Giles placed 47 with a 26:30 and Eleanor Voight placed 52 with a 29:42.

The second round of competition was our classic sprint relays. Etta Fahey and Anayah Hill started us out in a really good position. We had been competing very closely with Mound-Westonka and St. Paul Como Park. St Paul Central and St. Paul Highland park are both strong state elite teams that never seem to need to be in a rebuilding process. Both Central and Highland Park had dominant leads over the rest of the field, therefore the rest of us were competing for 3rd place. Etta and Anayah did just that. Etta claimed the 3rd place position immediately striding up the first rounds of hills. She tagged off to Anayah in 3rd not too far behind St. Paul Highland park. But during Anayah's round Mound-Westonka made a surge and challenged her for the 3rd place. Etta was able to get the team back into a solid 3rd place standing and Anayah finished her final round pushing hard creating a huge gap where Mound-Westonka and Como had no shot at catching her. Etta and Anayah placed 3rd place overall in the sprint competition bringing 153 points for the team. Tyler Frey and Elias Newson were next up for the boy's sprint relay. Elias is one of our more experienced skiers when it comes to both the sprint and the pursuit. This was Tyler's first time skiing in a conference meet and in the highly contested sprint relay. The start was very fast. Tyler was able to lock in the 5th place spot and hand off to Elias who closed the gap on 4th place. Sprint relays often come with a lot of excitement especially on the exchange's as collisions can change the entire field in an instant. As Elias came in to exchange with Tyler Elias tripped snapping his  pole. Tyler was able to tag him while we ran to our team camp looking for a legal height pole to give him. Tyler's gave us just enough time to find the right size poles and strap them on before the next exchange. They did a great job racing the clock and gaining experience placing 5th overall, bringing in 147 points for the team.

The rest of the day got a little crazy. The air temperatures were warmer but the wind picked up. Unfortunately the wind was straight-line right into the starting gates. We originally had a 20 minute delay then a 40 minute delay while the timers were struggling to get the computer to populate the pursuit race start list. What happens in a pursuit is the winner of the classic race starts out at 1 minute on the clock then every other athlete takes off at the clock time where they finished behind the first athletes. Therefore the computer should have had Peter from Central starting at 1:00, Noah from Highland starting at 1:30 and Isaac starting at 2:13. These kids chase each other down throughout the course. Your final finish time from the pursuit dictates what your over point score would be. Isaac was ready to chase down Peter and Noah while keeping Kai and Koen from overtaking him. After the original 20 minute delay all of the boys had been warming up in the wind and the cold waiting to be lined up. We attempted to line them up in the pursuit start. However all of us realized none of the release times were correct. The boys stood in their line up for an additional 20 minutes until it was determined we had had to reline them up in their original bib order just to get the race going all the while they were standing there taking the brunt of the wind while waiting to begin. For our experienced skiers this was aggravating as they were once again racing a clock not sure who were their competitors for the day. This also meant we had no results and no ability to handout awards at the meet. The timers timed the athletes. Then added the skate times to their classic time and came up with the overall pursuit times and finishes. 

Isaac had an amazing day holding his own in the skate. He came in 6th overall for the skate race but his pursuit time placed him 3rd overall scoring 78 points for the team and earning All-Conference! His skate time was 12:53 that combined with his superb classic race added up to the 3rd place pursuit time of 27:02. Jackson moved up from 11th place to 9th place after the skate race. He wowed the spectators wirth his quick transitions and race V1 in the final hills series. He got the attention of a lot of coaches with his skill in that final stretch. His skate time was 13:15 giving him a final pursuit time of 28:31 which brought in 72 points for the team and earning him All-conference. Ben Pint was next to take off, but since he was in morning bib order he had to wait so much longer to start. Had this been a pursuit start he would have been the 16th athlete released on the course. The longer the kids had to wait in line the colder they got which was an unfortunate disadvantage. Ben skied a 14:30 skate which gave him a 30:37 pursuit time placing him 21st overall bringing in 60 points for the team. Wilson had an incredible skate. The change in the line up gave him a great advantage getting to be the 9th skater released and then having a really good race, his best one all year. He skated a 14:37. His pursuit time was 32:04 and he finished 25th overall moving up from 27th place. Owen was next in for the pursuit, in only his second year of skiing he skied so much faster than last year's conference meet that were in faster conditions. His skate time was 14:53, pursuit time was 32:53 placing 28th moving up from 30th. Carter had a great race for his very first time skiing in a pursuit and only in his second year of skiing. His skate time was 15:42 pursuit time was 33:26 and overall place was 31st. Cooper had a great day today pushing himself and taking minutes off of his time from last year's race. His skate time was a 17:50 for a pursuit time of 38:01 and 46th place moving up from 49th. Jayden Koonst was the final skier to reach the starting gate in both races today which is an unfortunate disadvantage especially when he was not the slowest skier in the conference. He was able to work had and chase down other skiers in both races. His skate time was 18:45 for a pursuit time of 39:44 maintaining 51st place. 

We ended up swapping places with Central during the pursuit. They finished the pursuit with 219 points to our 201 points. This is really good for our team. We got up in there and competed really hard for that second place step on the podium against two skiing program behemoths. I am really happy that our athletes accepted the challenge to go after these bigger schools and see what they can do. We then add in our relay points. Como won the relay with Highland park and Central placing 2nd in 3rd great a bigger overall deficit. While no announcements have been made and I hesitate to even say it as I have been wrong in the past with additional changes and updates. I do believe we will receive official word that Highland Park won with 285 out of the 9 teams competing, Central 2nd with 275, Scott West 3rd with 357, Como Park 4th with 355. 

The girls had the opportunity to stay in the chalet and keep as warm as possible but this did limit their warmup space and time. They were lined up in original bib order. But with more than half our girls never skiing a pursuit, we had the mental advantage of not being disappointed and expecting something different. Tirzah went out hard and had her best skate of the season. She said she felt incredible. She finished one point behind Mound-Westonka fastest skier. She skated a 15:21 for the total pursuit time of 33:30 placing 12th of all-conference honorable mention, scored 69 points for the team and moved up from 14th place. Izzy Haugen had a great day with the longer races. She skated a 16:35 for a pursuit time of 35:19, placed 19th and scored 62 points 1 point behind Mound-Westonka's second skier. Ashlynn also had a really good skate so much faster than last years at this meet. She skated a 18:53 for a total pursuit time of 39:51 and 52 points. Izzy Kalal was next in placing 35th with a skate time of 19:37 and pursuit time of 43:18 moving up from 37. Vivian was our 5th skier of the day she skated a 21:44 for a pursuit time of 46:34 placing 43rd moving up from 49. Isabel Holladay placed 45th with a skate time of 21:20 and an overall pursuit time of 47:27.Morgan placed 46th with a skate time of 22:27 and a pursuit time of 48:58 moving up from 46th. Eleanor placed 50th with a skate time of 23:03 and an overall pursuit time of 52:36 moving up from 52nd place. Highland Park took the W with an astounding 393. They perfect scored the pursuit with 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in the pursuit and then placed second in the sprint. Highland Park was also very dominant with their sprint win and their point scorers in the top ten earning a total of 386 points. We competed well with Mound-Westonka and had 3 points on them from our 3rd place finish in the sprint to their 4th place finish. However their more experienced skiers bested us with 191 points earned in the pursuit to our 183. In the end Mound-Westonka took 3rd with 341 points and We took 4th out of 10 conference teams with 336 points. I am very excited to continue to build the girl's team over the next several years and hope the weather has not scared these competitors away!

I am really proud that the kids locked in, competed well on this course that we rarely race and in the incredibly difficult and defeating weather. They also stepped up to the plate today in their individual sprints. More details to come!!

Here are the official meet results from the TCNC Championships Welcome to Endurance Promotions!