February 11, 2021 at 7:54 a.m.
RHS/NPHS skiers & boarders claim team, individual conference titles
RHS/NPHS skiers & boarders claim team, individual conference titles
The Hodag boys' ski team won its fifth straight race to lock up the team title while the Hodag girls finished second and beat out Wausau in a tiebreaker for the overall conference crown. Siblings Ty and Tommie Jo Springer repeated as individual conference champions in skiing. The Hodags also took the individual boarding crowns with Bailey Schwab and Kylee White.
While Ty Springer, and the RHS/NPHS boys, had the title secured going into the final race, everything was still very much in the balance for Tommie Jo Springer and the Hodag girls.
Tommie Jo Springer, who missed the first race of the season and had a slalom mishap in the second race, needed to win Tuesday to claim her second individual conference title. She did just that.
The younger of the Springer siblings started the day with the fastest Super G run of anyone - male or female - and then cruised to 2-plus second wins in both giant slalom and slalom to secure her third clean sweep of the season and the conference title by one placement point over Ashwabay's Davina Anderson. The conference factors the best three performances over five races to tally team and individual standings.
"She skied great," Hodag coach Rod Olson said. "The biggest thing there was that Tommie beat Ty in Super G by about a half second. That was a little battle between them. She skied a really good slalom and, technically, a really sound giant slalom as well."
The Hodag girls finished second to Wausau on the day but managed to squeak out the conference title based on a tiebreaker. Both Rhinelander and Wausau had two firsts and a second for their three best performances. Both also had a second as their fourth-best performance.
It came down to the results of the second race at Christie Mountain, where Rhinelander finished second and Wausau finished third, to determine the overall champion.
"Us hovering around having only one mishap a year and no more than that kind of helped," Olson said. "(Wausau) had a couple of meets where they had a home-hill advantage. This year we didn't really have one. We had only been on our race run two days because they were making snow right up until about four days of the race."
McKenna Nash crashed and did not finish in Super G on Tuesday, knocking her back to 20th on the day, but she still finished seventh in the individual overall season standings. Kathryn Borski was 14th on the day and 12th overall. Lily Berger finished 24th in the final conference standings and Madeline Ewan was 28th.
In boys' skiing, Ty Springer won slalom and giant slalom on Tuesday, and placed third in Super G to beat Wausau's Max Speichenger by a point for the day's overall victory. Springer notched his fifth overall win of the season as he claimed his fourth individual conference title.
The Hodags edged Rice Lake 101-128 despite a lower than average day. Patrick Stemper, skiing through a knee injury sustained in last Friday's race at Big Powderhorn Mt., struggled to an 11th place finish on the day which knocked him down to third in the final conference standings, losing out to Wausau's Landon Westphal in a tiebreaker for the runner-up spot.
"I bet you Patrick was skiing maybe 60%," Olson said. "That hurt us a little bit, but we still managed to come out on top as a team."
AJ Gillespie finished eighth on the day and was seventh in the final conference standings. Lukas Bishop placed 21st for the season and Riley Zarm was 23rd.
In snowboarding, Rhinelander's Bailey Schwab won two of three runs in boardercross on Tuesday, but finished third in the other and lost out for the victory on the day to Ashland's Timmy Grubisic based on overall time for the three runs. Schwab, however, had the conference championship secured based thanks to three overall wins on the season.
In the girls' division, Kylee White won all three runs of boardercross comfortably to claim her fourth overall win of the year and lock up the girls' individual conference championship.
"(Bailey) had to throw things sideways once, but he still did well," Olson said. "Kylee had a great boardercross run too. She was only like sixth tenths to a second off of the boys' times. I think, with her times, she would have finished third in the boys' division. She had a good day."
Rhinelander's Max Durkee was third on the day and fourth in the final boys' snowboarding standings. Joey Sturzl, Reese Frisque and Isiah Willoughby finished fifth, sixth and seventh, respectively, for the Hodags in the final individual standings.
State ahead
Based on the team's performances during the Northern Conference season, everyone is eligible for this weekend's WIARA state meet in La Crosse.
The team's skiers had a training session on Mt. La Crosse this past Sunday while the snowboarders will use today as a training day ahead of tomorrow's snowboarding competition.
The boarders will compete in slalom, giant slalom and boardercross tomorrow. Olson said while he expects to see some fast boarders from the southern part of the state, he likes his top competitors chances tomorrow. Schwab finished 13th at state a year ago while White placed fifth.
"Bailey and Kylee both have potential to be top 10, and maybe top 5 if they have some great runs," he said. "They're going to have to compete though. They're going to have to go for it and have everything in line. It's going to have to be their day."
Boys' skiing will take center stage on Sunday while girls' skiing will be held Monday. On the boys' side, the Hodags are looking for redemption after a rough run in giant slalom dropped the team back to 16th in a 22-team field.
For the Springer siblings, its another shot to perform well at state. Ty Springer finished seventh overall at state as a sophomore. He finished seventh in slalom and Super G last year in La Crosse, but a mishap in giant slalom dropped him to 60th in the final standings. Tommie Jo Springer was the state runner-up last year as a freshman.
"I think they can do really well. It's definitely in their control. If they have their average run. They're going to be in the top 5. Boys' GS always has a lot of attrition. If we can make it through that (we'll be OK)," Olson said.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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