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Good Afternoon MAST Families and Fans: The Washburn boys and girls had a very successful day yesterday at the Minnesota State High School Alpine Championships. The Southwest girls had some bad luck and, like the Washburn boys last year, will learn from their experience. With continued hard work they will be more formidable than ever next year. The good news: All twelve Washburn boys and girls skied clean first and second runs. All raced knowing that they were skiing for the best possible team result. No one took undue risks or pushed their tactics to advance their own overall result over that of the team. It is rare for any team of six to put down twelve clean runs in a race. Even more rare: two teams putting down twenty-four clean runs in a row. Impressive. The result: Washburn boys are the 2024 Minnesota State High School Alpine Champions over the defending State Champs, Minnetonka. The Washburn girls finished second to the Minnetonka girls, who seem to win the championship every other year. Outstanding performance. In a field of 88 boys, Finn Cherveny led the way for the Washburn boys with his 17th place finish, followed by the always reliable and king of the one-liners, Jack Bajek, in 28th place. Beckett Wedren and Levi Ehlers completed the scoring with their 36th and 37th place finishes. Stuart Durand helped seal the result by finishing in front of the fourth skiers for both Minnetonka and Hill-Murray to keep an additional point away from those two teams who ended up with 151 points to Washburn’s 153. This was especially significant because Stuart lost his pole exiting the start on the first run, but managed to ski to a fine first run result to keep the Washburn boys hopes alive. And Stefan Drekonja had an impressive result for an eighth grader, finishing in 62nd place overall and gaining valuable experience that he can share with his Washburn teammates next year. Parker Hunt, our only skier in the race from the Southwest boys’ team, had a strong result as well, finishing in 22nd place. Finn earned All-State Honors and Parker earned All State Honorable Mention honors. In the girls’ race, Gabby Harritt and Lucy Renz both earned All-State Honors, finishing 14th and 19th respectively. Reese Kuehn put her quick feet on display to finish 29th. One second and eight skiers behind Reese was Kate Moore who finished in 37th place and third for the Washburn girls. And having a breakout race to complete the scoring for the Washburn girls was Amelia Moertel who finished in 49th. It was going to be impossible for our girls to catch Minnetonka, who had three girls finish in the top ten. The challenge now was to hold off the other teams, a feat that Ellie Arbeiter and Julia Westphal both accomplished by finishing in front of the fourth skier for Brainard. Washburn finishes second with 141 points to Brainard’s 137. The Southwest girls finished in sixth place. Considering that Eva had some bad luck as she approached the finish of the first run, and Lia experienced her bad luck on the second run, sixth place was very respectable. Avery Patterson (52nd), Mila Voyakin (57th), and Ingrid Hartzell (59th) skied very well and scored enough points to give the SW girls a very solid sixth place finish. Avery and Mila gained wonderful experience and hopefully a boost of confidence to take on the competition next year. The bad luck that Eva and Lia experienced will provide some useful lessons to share with our athletes in the years ahead. Let it be known that Eva was having the run of her life on her first run before bad luck hit and Lia had put down a fantastic first run before she got hit with some bad luck on the second. I am really proud of Eva and Lia for how they handled their disappointment. You demonstrated maturity and grace. I want to thank the parents for all of your support. The team dinner, the State Meet hats, the lunch and snacks on the hill, the tent city—ALL of that was so helpful. Thank you Janna for taking photos and thank you to the parents who helped with training on Monday. You gave our coaches the opportunity to focus on giving feedback. Thank you Chris Renz and Dimitri Drekonja for answering the call to gate judge. That was a big sacrifice you made for the good of the event. Much appreciated. And thank you to all the MAST athletes, parents, and alums who came up to the Range to support our team... and to those who followed the action on Live-Timing. I hope you enjoyed the day. Finally, a big thank you to Coach Liam who stayed back on Monday and Tuesday to give the rest of the team a chance to get in two more days of training. You kept the MAST train moving along for 2025. Thank you to all the parents who came out to the hill to assist Liam. We had a marvelous season. Every day on the hill with you was a privilege. You worked tremendously hard and made impressive improvements both technically and tactically. Your enthusiasm never wavered and the way you supported each other was inspiring. I am sad to see it end. Keep skiing. Keep working the drills. Hopefully you can get in a vacation to the mountains and enjoy the fruits of your hard-earned technique. I know you will turn heads with your perfectly carved turns. Save the date for the banquet: Sunday, March 10th at 5PM. Be well. Study hard. Make good decisions. Thank your parents. Mark 612-275-8392 PS. Congratulations to Vivian Pihlstrom who skied herself onto the top step of the podium yesterday. Vivian skis for Blake but is our neighbor living on Queen Avenue in Minneapolis. Her sister Ava skied for SW as an eighth grader and helped the girls team win the Section IV Championship in 2018. She attended Blake for high school and went on to win the 2021 State Championship. Once a MAST family, always a MAST family.
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