April 11, 2018 at 12:56 p.m.
Quartet named most valuable for RHS Alpine
Skiers Springer, Imm; boarders Shrader, Schwab recognized
Quartet named most valuable for RHS Alpine
The Hodags celebrated a successful campaign in which they were the runner-up in the Northern Conference in both the boys' and girls' ski standings and had an athlete finish in the top two in the conference standings in three of the four divisions.
Those three athletes - Northland Pines freshman Ty Springer, and Rhinelander seniors McKenzie Imm and Kaiya Shrader - were named most valuable athletes on the team along with freshman boys' snowboarder Bailey Schwab.
Springer scored a win and four runner-up finishes in five conference races as he took the overall title in boys' downhill skiing and followed that performance with a 13th-place finish at the WIARA state meet in a field of 156 skiers.
Springer, ironically on a skiing trip, was unable to attend Sunday's banquet. Earlier in the season, coach Rod Olson said the youngster had skied beyond his years.
"He skied with a lot of composure. It was great experience for him," Olson said. "I thought he did exceptionally well. We're very pleased."
Imm finished as the runner-up in the Northern Conference girls' skiing overall standings and was the conference's best skier in the slalom and giant slalom disciplines. She went on to finish 19th at the state meet and Olson called her the team's leader on the snow.
"She knows tactics. She knows terrain. I could fully count on her to explain to her teammates what to do. She was in charge of the team when we were on the snow," he said.
Shrader was the runner-up in the Northern Conference girls' snowboard standings this season after winning the conference title a season ago. She won a team state championship as a freshman and placed in the top five at state as a sophomore.
"She'd win (MVP) if we had 80 people here," Olson said, referencing the fact that the Hodags had only two girls' snowboarders on the roster this year. "She's a clutch performer. She had a great career, four years of podium finishes ... I really think she needs a big round of applause not only for winning four letters, but for being alone. It's a tough thing to do without teammates."
Schwab, who was one of only two members of this year's RHS boys' snowboard team, placed eighth in the Northern Conference standings and 30th at state. Olson said Schwab showed great improvement throughout the season.
"He's a boarder on the guys' side who's very quiet but very fast and very calm," he said. "We look for him to be a real formidable competitor at the conference and state level in years to come."
The two other boarders on the team - freshmen Kylie White and Joey Sturzl - earned most improved honors for their disciplines. First-year sophomore Daniel Ritchie was the most improved boys' skier while senior Tori Roberts won most improved honors for the girls' ski team.
"For us, most improved and most valuable carry the same amount of weight but we realize without everybody we do not have a team," Olson said in regard to the awards. "You can't win with just one or two great people. How we placed this year took all six seeds and even the seventh seed to come up when we needed it. The varsity team we started running at the beginning of January is not the team we ran at the end of February. Things change and your first team is only as good as your second team. We had a lot of competing within each other and a lot of people grew."
The team also recognized its four captains - Imm, Shrader, Cayla Fritz and Breyden Luebke.
The Hodags were in position to claim both the Northern Conference boys' and girls' ski titles heading into the last race of the season Feb. 12 at Granite Peak Ski Area in Wausau, but a rough day on the slopes relegated the team to second place in both disciplines. The Rhinelander/Northland Pines girls lost the conference title by one point to Ashwabay.
"I'd rather be third than second - especially second by one point," Olson said at the banquet. "If we're going to be second, I want to get creamed instead of this one-point stuff. We're trying to identify next year and in years to come what we have to do. We start a lot of seasons off where we're first, first, first and then in that last meet of the season we taper off. The coaches and I have been talking and we may change some stuff up a little bit as far as quantity of practices at the beginning of the year versus the end of the year and perhaps not tapering like we do."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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