The performance of the Cook County Alpine team at the Moose Mountain Invite at Lutsen Mountains on Friday, January 10 was nothing short of phenomenal. Above left: Seventh-grade standout Reilly Wahlers races to a first place finish. Above: Freshman Will Lamb charges his way to the top of the poduim!
I’ve been around this sport a long time, and what your Cook County Alpine Vikings demonstrated at the Moose Mountain Invitational on Friday, January 10 was “one for the ages.”
Here’s the short summary
. Alpine varsity girls won first place as a team
. Alpine varsity boys won first place as a team
. Cook County had three 1st place podium finishes
. Santina McMillan was JV girls’ champ
. 7th grade Reilly Wahlers was your girls’ varsity champ
. Freshman Will Lamb won the boys’ varsity race
Combine the above with the following performances:
. The varsity boys placed three racers in the top 10. Freshman standout Logan Backstrom was second place followed by teammate Damian Zimmer in 7th place. Team Tri-Captain Joe Borud was 14th.
. The girls were even more impressive placing five racers in the top 11. Tri-Captain Megan Lehto, Sela Backstrom, Morgan Weyrens-Welch and Alyssa Martinson finished 5th, 6th, 8th and 11th respectively. Teammates Madysen McKeever and Ava McMillan had top 20 finishes with Danielle Hansen close behind.
. The boys’ JV team was not quiet, either. While Centennial High School JV was tough (taking the first six places), Ezra Lunde and Isaak Terrill were on their heels finishing 7th and 10th. New teammate Greg Howe followed in 15th.
. And the same stood for the girls’ JV team. Hanna Borson, Melanie Stoddard, Elsa Lunde and Lauren Thompson all had top 10 finishes. Your Austrian exchange student Sophie Honeder finished 11th (macht schnell) with True Nies and Natassja Shields following.
While the field of teams (six high schools were represented) was not necessarily the toughest competition of the season, in one respect, it’s irrelevant. Here’s why:
As in any race, your ski racer must put together two relatively flawless runs in order to place at a high level, irrespective of the number of racers. Described another way, the pressure remains the same to perform whether there are 60 individual racers or 100. And that pressure lies solely on the individual racer.
Left: Junior varsity racers Santina McMillan who took 1st (middle) and Hanna Borson with 3rd (right) were all smiles on the podium after a great day of racing.
The Moose Mountain Invite is the longest slalom racecourse throughout the entire Minnesota State High School League race circuit. To put this in perspective, finishing times are nearly two times as long on Moose Mountain than when compared to say Spirit Mountain or Giants Ridge.
Combine the pressure to put together two clean runs with the inordinate amount of concentration and athleticism required to complete a long course demonstrates just how well this team performed. It’s impressive.
What a day…. and one for the ages!
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