The Cook County Nordic Vikings raced in two very different events last week, at the Marshall Sprints and the Duluth East Invite. Above: Shelby Ahrendt finished 14th in the first round and skied her way into the quarterfinals at the Marshall Sprints. Above right: At the Marshall Sprints, Kieran Scannell placed 9th in the first round, advancing through three heats and ending strong in the semifinal race.
The Cook County Nordic Vikings hit the road twice this past week traveling to Duluth on Monday for the Marshall Sprints, and again on Friday to the Duluth East Invite.
Each race had a very different format. The Marshall Sprints were held at the Hill Topper stadium with a 1.2-kilometer sprint course. All varsity racers skied a qualifying heat with hopes of advancing to the quarter, semi, and final championship heats. The top 30 skiers in the qualifying sprint advance to the quarterfinal rounds.
Kieran Scannell placed 9th in the first round, Shelby Ahrendt 14th which took them to the next round. Ben Seaton and Audrey Summers came close with Ben in 33rd just one second behind 30th place, and Audrey in 35th. Kieran advanced through three heats ending with the semi final race and Shelby made it to the quarterfinals.
The Varsity skiers who did not advance joined the JV Racers in a 2.4 freestyle race on a nice little loop around the Marshall School Campus. Jr. High skiers had a mass start race on the same course.
The Duluth East Invite, held at Snowflake Nordic was the team’s first pursuit race of the season. In a pursuit race skiers compete in a 5k skate race, take a break, switch equipment, and start a 5k classic race in the order that they finished their first race.
We had several kids place in the top 10 of their race. Kieran finished 9th in the Boys’ Varsity Pursuit with a time of 29.02, a very tough completion in a race with 71 Section 7 skiers.
Other boys in the varsity pursuit included, Hank Bemlott 36th place, 32:37, Ben Seaton 40th place, 33:33, Alex Ditmanson 54h, 36:18, Daniel Ditmanson 67th, 38:47. Levi Axtell did not post a time because he mistakenly took the road less traveled and knocked himself out of the competition.
Shelby was our top varsity finisher in the girls’ race with a total time of 35:32 and 21st place, Audrey finished 43rd with a time of 38:46.
Joey Chmelik and Cheyenne Sorlie both had their first top 10 finish in the JV race, Joey coming in 3rd and Cheyenne coming in 8th. Way to go!
Other JV racers included CeCe Schnobrich in 12th and Natalie Nalezny in 13th. Will Seaton was first in for Vikings Jr. High Boys earning 12th place, followed by Nate Carlson 23rd, Bjorn Johnson 26th, and Dylan Deschampe 30th.
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