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On January 29, the Cook County/Silver Bay Alpine Team (CC/SB) had their first race of the season. The boys and girls of the Hibbing Alpine Team, Virginia Area Alpine Ski Team, and CC/SB faced off at Giant’s Ridge. They each raced two slalom courses down Innsbrook and Helsinki.
Leading off girls’ varsity, freshman Genevive Silence powered through each course, taking 1st place, finishing 0.27 seconds ahead. Sophia Blanck overcame a bump on her first run for 6th place, but brought it back in the second run for 2nd place, resulting in 3rd place overall. Kalina Dimitrova over-swung a gate on a trouble spot dropping her to 15th on the first run, but crushed the second course for 4th place, finishing 12th overall. AnnaBelle Silence, in her first high school race, skied solidly through the gates finishing 14th out of a field of 21. Allie Duclos found that trouble spot on the course and made a spectacular crash losing both skis and poles. Even after a determined run back to the missed gates, it resulted in a disqualification.
The boy’s team took 1st place in the competition. Ray Dressely kicked off the varsity boys, crushing his first and second runs for a 2nd place finish. Cy Oberholtzer had an aggressive performance on both runs, making it onto the podium with the bronze medal. Ben Obinger had a strong showing of 3rd place on his first run, but dropped to 6th on the second, finishing overall in 4th place. Elijah Blanck held a steady pace through both courses for a 6th place overall finish. Finn Taylor made two intense runs through the gates making it into the top 10 in 7th place. Ruben Youngdahl held up the middle of the pack, crushing the gates to a 12th place finish. Andrew Hallberg flawlessly whisked his way through both slalom courses to finish a respectable 16th out of the field of 21 racers.
Cook County/Silver Bay had three JV boys participating in a field of 12. Goshi Dimitrov made a crowd-pleasing recovery from a rough patch near the finish on the first run, and finished 4.29 seconds ahead on the second run, bringing him the gold medal. Cody Lange skied a tight course, aggressively finishing 1.55 seconds ahead for the bronze. Noah Smith, in his first-ever ski race, brought his A-game against his seasoned competitors for a 12th place finish.
Head Coach John Oberholtzer said, “With a young team of one junior, one sophomore, and mostly freshmen and younger, we have a very impressive group of athletes. It is amazing to see how they have progressed, and it will be fun to watch this team over the next few years to see how far they can go! Our State Championship is coming up on March 10. The boys have a good chance at making it, as well as some individuals from both boys and girls. We’ll see what happens over the next three races.”
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