1/6/26 Scott West Nordic Ski Results

Tuesday was our first day back to competition and our first time out at Wirth for the season. We will be back at Wirth for our conference meet. 

We now have had everyone on the team officially become Nordic skiers as everyone on the team has now raced at least once. Our skiers who opted to be in the novice heat today skied Meadow to La Squadra cut off for a 3k race. Braxton was our fastest Novice skier of the day completing the course in 10:55. Nolan was next in with a time of 12:54. Levi finished the race in 17:22, Sophia skied 19:57, Dominic skied a 22:33 and Charles skied 28:33. 

Varsity/JV skied a different course which will be a portion of what we will ski at the conference championships. Today's meet was a 2 loop course which included La Squadra twice for a 5k. The course was icy on the flats and slushy on the hills. These were by far not optimal race conditions but we have to race whenever we get the opportunity. We were super excited to debut a point scoring team today on the girls team. We opted for the chipped bibs at this meet but there was once again some malfunction. Unfortunately for us, Tirzah was not recorded and she happened to be our fastest skier. The race officials are reviewing. It looks like she crossed the line between 19-19:30. But she was left off of the overall results which affects our team scores as well. Izzy Haugen was next in with a 20:27, Ashlynn Mieseler skied a 21:12, Minka Hage skied varsity for the first time today and was our 4th point scorer of the day finishing 22:39 setting a new PR, and Isabel Holladay also debuted on varsity becoming our 5th points scorer today with a PR. She skied 23:14. Etta Fahey also skied varsity today and finished in a time of 24:29. I do believe we will have a couple of more new girls ready to try varsity very soon so that we can have a full team at our conference meet.

Mpls SW beat out St. Paul Highland park for the win. Mpls Washburn was only 1 point behind them for third. St. Paul Central placed 4th. Mpls-Roosevelt took 5th . Mound-Westonka took 6th, but once we recalculate Tirzah as our #1 skier our team with newbies placed 7th overall out of the 15 teams and 4th out of our conference teams. That is exciting and very motivating as we prepare for our conference meet. We had several of our new girls ski JV so that they can get experience on this course as well. Izzy Kalal was our fastest JV skier of the day skiing 26:03 setting a new PR. Morgan was seconds behind her with a 26:18 almost a full minute PR from before Christmas. Eleanor skied a 27:53 a two minute PR, Bianca skied 28:53, Addy skied 29:16, Evelyn skied 31:26 and Vivian skied a 32:17.

Isaac was our fastest skier on the boys team. He skied 14:47, Jackson Nagel skied 15:38, Elias skied 17:13, Wilson skied 17:38, Ben Pint skied 17:56, Carter Bolster skied 17:58. Owen Dahnert skied 18:05, Cooper Kalal skied 20:06, Wyatt skied 21:15 and Tyler skied 23:07. As of right now the results indicate that St. Paul Highland park won and that St. Paul Como park beat St. Paul Central. I do know even though our boy's varsity times were correct some teams were missing their skiers in the results. I am not sure if tht will change the overall results once the issue gets resolved. Scott West boys placed 7th out of the 15 teams competing and 4th in our conference. Our JV boys also got some great experience on the course. Due to an issue at the start we are unsure if Jayden skied a 22:13 or a 23:13. Ben Saunders skied a 24:35, Alex skied a 24:44. Baret skied 25:57. Cameryn skied 26:47, Evan skied 27:09, Noah skied 27:53. Gavin skied 30:24, Liam skied 31:47 and Jackson Waller skied 33:08.

As nice as the idea was to have the meet chipped time I still prefer the old fashion hand timing as we know who our skiers are and when they cross the finish line. Our next meet is Team Sprints in Classics on Tuesday January 13th. This will be chipped time as well but we have learned our lesson and now know we need to have a backup timer recording results. 

Tuesday was a really good training opportunity where the kids built some more muscle and some more endurance with an adrenaline push that only comes from actual racing. Today's race helps us get back in competition mode after having two weeks off. You all are starting to realize what you need to work on and where you need to concentrate to keep improving. I was really excited to see how well everyone made smart transitions where I was standing. I saw a lot of our skiers working on better pole positions and putting more power into their poles especially on their uphills. I also saw a lot of smart choices when working to navigate the crowd of skiers. Freestyle is a race where you are allowed any technique to get where you to need to go as fast as possible. A couple of our savvy skiers hopped in the tracks to double pole past other kids, Jackson Nagel was able to pass 5 skiers going into an uphill by making that quick decision. I also saw skiers using the tracks to get a speed boost on the downhills. If you fell a lot today during the race, shake that off. It does happen especially when we have so many skiers on the course at the same time. This is the biggest meet most of our skiers will ski in the season. This congested meet will make our sprint relays feel easy with the smaller crowd you will be competing against next week. Great job today working hard!