Ray Dressely medals at Mt Hood, Kalina Dimitrova places 15th

Cy Oberholtzer, Ray Dressely and Kalina Dimitrova

Ray Dressely, a junior at Cook County High School, followed up on his fourth-place finish at the Minnesota State High School ski meet with a fifth-place finish in the slalom event at the Western US High School Championships held at Mt Hood, Oregon, on March 10 and 11th.

Cy Oberholtzer, also a junior at CCHS, was in the top ten after the first run, but an error on the second run disqualified him. Cy was one of many skiers who didn’t complete two clean runs.

After finishing 20th at the state ski meet a month ago, Kalina Dimitrova, also a junior, placed 15th in the girls’ slalom competition at Mt. Hood. Kalina was injured for much of the year and has steadily improved since her recovery.

Teams from Minnesota, Wyoming, Nevada, Colorado, California, and Oregon were represented at the meet. The race was sanctioned by the US Ski and Snowboard Association, and this was Minnesota’s first time competing in this race.

Overall, Team Minnesota placed second in the boys and girls team competition.

Ray Dressely

Racers competed in Slalom on Friday and Giant Slalom on Saturday. Cook County racers only competed in Slalom. Awards were given to the top five finishers in both disciplines, and team awards were given based on combined Slalom & Giant Slalom finishes. Minnesota teams (both boys and girls) finished #2 in boys, girls, and combined genders. Team results were consistent across the board, with Oregon taking third, Minnesota taking second, and Colorado taking first. Melissa Dressely, Ray’s mom, said, “Needless to say, Minnesota surprised everyone by being one of the top finishers! Despite our robust Alpine program, Minnesota is not necessarily known as such a fierce Alpine competitor because we aren’t known as a “mountain state,” so we were proud to show them what we can do!”

We are so proud of our Cook County athletes that competed in the Slalom competition! It was a challenging course due to the powder conditions (which we are not used to) and the extreme length of the course. We are used to race times in the 20-30 second range. This course saw race times in the 50-60 plus second range. It was an actual test of their strength, skill, and endurance. Results are based on the combined times of two runs.

Kalina at the starting gate Mt. Hood

Now that his ski season is complete, Ray Dressely will have surgery on a torn labrum in his left shoulder, an injury from football. He had surgery on his right labrum last year. Because of the surgery, the three sports star will miss baseball this year. However, he hopes to return and play football if his shoulder recovers for his senior year or gear up earlier for what could be an epic senior ski season.