Thanks everyone for a great day of racing!

Good Evening:

Made it to Lacrosse with Luke.  Just want to get the race results from Afton and Hyland into your hands before I put my head on the pillow.

Thank you parents and coaches for all your hard work today.  We brought 83 athletes to Afton.  They were on time for the bus, eager to get on the snow, performed their warm up drills exceptionally well, focused well during course inspection, and race beautifully.  Best of all, they cheered each other on with great enthusiasm.  Parents: another fantastic lunch (and breakfast).   I am overwhelmed by the support we get from you.   Thanks for everything you do to make these events so much fun.   

Congratulations to Luke and Elsa on your first place finishes.  Luke won by exactly two seconds over the second place finisher and Elsa also put a rather large gap between first and second place, winning by over a second and a half.  Oliver Mueller finished sixth overall and Willem Robertson tenth.   Eli Showalter-Loch and Charlie Smith had stellar performances, finishing 16th and 19th respectively.   Augie Bent finished 20th which meant Mpls skiers occupied 6 of the top 20 places out of 135 racers.  The Washburn boys finished third in team scoring behind Brainard and Stillwater who are two very good teams.  The Washburn girls also finished third in team scoring.   A very good performance less than two weeks before Section Champs.  Addie Streble had an excellent day of racing finishing fifth overall and Avery Taylor had a great day finishing in 12th place.  Quinn Jurek put down two strong runs to finish 16th and Gabby Harritt was close behind to place 19th.  Congratulations to Nahlah Mkaouri for having two excellent runs today on a hard hill.  Nahlah has been struggling all year to cleanly finish runs in practice and at races.  Today, her persistence paid off.   Way to stay at it, Nahlah. 

In the JV race, Chloe Bitney, Lucy Renz and Eleanor Vap skied aggressively and finish in 4th, 5th and 6th overall.   Elle Miller (9th) and Anne McConville (10th) gave us five in the top ten.   Great skiing girls.  Callum White (9th) and Lucas Casperson (10th)  were our only JV boy to finish in the top ten against a really deep Stillwater team.   Also breaking up the Stillwater dominance were Jonas Geere (12th), Clement Finney (14th), Jack Bajek (18th), and Alex Barbatsis (23rd).   The only teams to put boys in the top twenty five were Stillwater and Mpls. Never seen that before.  At least we were able to break up their monopoly a bit.  

I was really proud of all of you today.  You were focused on putting forth your best effort. That is all we coaches as you to do.  Give us your best effort mentally and physically.   Thank you for doing this.

And back at Hyland, looks like Henry Moore had a great afternoon.  Henry finished first overall.   Good job Henry.

Have a great practice Saturday.  Keep getting better.

Mark