|
Good Evening MAST Families: What a beautiful evening for a ski race. Warm temperatures. Rock hard grippy snow conditions. The glow of a magnificent sunset silhouetting the mountain top. Excellent course sets. Enthusiastic racers. Parents and coaches: please know how grateful I am to all of you. You filled our race worker positions and supported our athletes with enthusiastic cheering and some much-needed food and drink. As I stood on the knoll watching you descend the courses, I was struck by how much more aggressively and confidently you skied tonight. Yesterday, on an easier pitch, in bright sunlight, you skied ... somewhat tentatively. Tonight was a different story. I was most pleased by how so many of you attacked the line on the pitch. In addition, the course setters kept you turning all the way to the finish line and you succeeded in nailing the tactical challenge of making a clean arc to the gate and completing the direction change as you cleared the gate. And you did this in low light conditions. I am really proud of all of you. Continue to dream about making strong pole plants, driving your inside shoulder forward as you complete the turn, making a quick switch to the new edge-set in the transition, and making one strong, clean arc back to the gate with strong pressure over the outside ski. Bring the same confidence and determination to our final MEC race on Thursday. We do have practice tomorrow. Given that we have had two long days of racing already this week, the coaches want you to know that practice is optional tomorrow (Wednesday). Performing at your peak might mean giving yourself a brief break to catch up on sleep, schoolwork, ski tuning, family time, and some quiet. If something needs to be sacrificed, sacrifice training. If you can do it all, then by all means, come out and train. And be sure to train on Friday and Saturday. Now for some race results. Sam Moore and Lia Rulf were our top male and female competitors tonight, both finishing in sixth place overall. This is an impressive result against some very strong and experienced competition. Well done. Tonight, Wyatt Shelton, Eric Hemer, Sammy Hokenson (skiing for MAST tonight) and Xavier Turpin sent a message to their Washburn teammates that they intended to compete for one of the coveted six starting positions on the Section IV team with their 13th, 15th, 16th, and 17th place finishes. Will Moertel also finished strong after his brief sojourn in Florida with a 19th place result. Then it was the SW boys turn to stack in there. Sully Hunt bested teammate Massi Bray by less than a half a second to finish in 20thplace to Massi’s 21st. In 23rd and 24th position were the Krueger brothers, Beckett and Rowan. Beckett has bragging rights tonight. For the girls, Violet Mueller and Avery Patterson had breakout race days, finishing in 9th and 10th places respectively. Rounding out the top 15 were Ella O’Connor(11th), Amelia Moertel(12th), Phoenix Ehlers(13th), and Harlowe Petersen (15th). In all, 16 of the top 30 female finishers were from the Mpls Alpine Ski Team. And in team scoring, SW came in second, Washburn third, and MAST fourth. You girls just keep getting stronger and stronger. And I need to commend you for one more thing: hill clean-up. The lane you slipped was silky smooth after you finished your work. Perfection. I want to extend a heartfelt thank you and good-bye to Marieke Ischebeck, our beloved exchange student and teammate from Germany. Marieke participated fully in our practices, camps, and races. She filled our days and evenings with positivity, joy, enthusiasm, and kindness. We helped her become a better skier and she brought us an endless stream of goodness. Safe travels home Marieke. We hope we will have the opportunity to see you again. Thank you for all that you contributed to our team and culture. Hopefully all of you are asleep now, dreaming of making perfectly carved turns down a never-ending mountain slope. Two weeks remain of our season. I encourage you to make the most of every day, every turn. See you on the hill. Mark and your loving coaches.
Comments are closed.
|
Archives
February 2025
Categories |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
RSS Feed