March 22, 2021 at 8:33 a.m.
Team review: RHS/NPHS Alpine skiing
COVID, new home couldn't slow down Hodag skiers
Team review: RHS/NPHS Alpine skiing
"It was like snowmobile racing. There wasn't any going in and warming up. There was none of that. It was pretty adverse," coach said Rod Olson said following the team's race at Big Powderhorn Mountain Feb. 5.
Yet the squad seemed to take things in stride as it dominated the Northern Conference this season. Rhinelander/Northland Pines won the team conference titles in boys' and girls' skiing, along with boys' snowboarding and had the individual conference champion in all four disciplines.
There were podium finishes as the WIARA state championship too, highlighted by Kylee White's clean sweep on the way to the girls' snowboard championship.
Here are five storylines from the recently completed season.
Snowboarding
The highlight of the season was White's state championship in girls' snowboarding. While she didn't win every race in the Northern Conference season, White came into state as a solid contender and then laid waste to the rest of the field.
At state White avoided crashing until after the finish of a boardercross course at Mt. La Crosse where she had broken her arm two years prior, ending a promising sophomore campaign. She won that run, then came back to dominate giant slalom and super G to become Rhinelander's fifth individual state champion in girls' snowboarding.
"She did a lot of her own outside the season and within the season," Olson said. "She became a student of the sport. She went the extra mile and sacrificed. She's a really good kid. She worked hard over the summer and in the offseason. She did more training, dryland-type stuff this year, improved her strength. She did all those things and. It paid off for her."
On the boys' side in snowboarding, the Hodags were the only Northern Conference team with enough members to qualify for a team score this year. Senior Bailey Schwab won three of the five races to take the individual conference title.
Max Durkee was 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.
Unfortunately for the team, the success did not carry over to state, where it placed eight in the eight-team field. Schwab was in contention for a top-five finish overall at state until a crash in slalom. Durkee was Rhinelander's top finisher in 36th.
Boys' ski
Rhinelander/Northland Pines won all five conference races this season as it took the league title.
A pair of Northland Pines seniors, Ty Springer and Patrick Stemper led the way for the Hodags much of the season. Springer was the individual winner in all five conference races this year as he claimed his fourth and final season championship.
Stemper, despite being hampered by a knee injury late in the season, managed to finish third in the final conference standings. AJ Gillespie came on this year to finish seventh in the final conference standings. Lukas Bishop placed 21st for the season and Riley Zarm was 23rd.
The team could not quite parlay the success into a strong performance at state, taking 13th out of 20 teams in the field. Slalom played a role as Springer crashed out of any chances of a top-10 finish in the combined standings. He did reach the podium, however, with third-place runs in giant slalom and Super G in this final state meet.
"Ty's good," Olson said. "He laid down some heaters and did what he could do for himself and the team from there on out. Of course he was hoping for more, but it wasn't to be. He had a good attitude about it."
Stemper, despite battling a knee injury, ended up with the best finish on the weekend for the Hodags. He took 36th in slalom, 40th in giant slalom and 45th in Super G to finish 29th overall. Zarm was 72nd for the Hodag boys, Gillespie finished 79th, Bishop was 106th and Mason Durkee finished 108th in a field of 149 skiers.
Girls' ski
Slalom also caught out Ty Springer's younger sister, Tommie Jo, at state. A straddled gate eventually led to a disqualification that knocked to sophomore down to 76th in the final standings after finishing as the state runner-up last year.
The younger Springer did show off her elite-level speed, winning the Super G race at state by a whopping 1.66 seconds.
"You've got to be the best on that day, and manage that speed. She's too fast for the courses here. She's ready for a World Cup, upper-level FIS set, where it's a little bit steeper and a little more open," Olson said.
Tommie Jo Springer proved her coach correct in a postseason event, taking the downhill, Super G and overall titles at the Rocky/Central U16 Championships held earlier this month in Colorado.
Springer repeated at individual Northern Conference champion this year but, this time around, needed all five rounds to lock up the conference title. She missed the first race of the season while attending a developmental ski camp and a slip in slalom at Christie Mountain cost her an overall title in the second race of the year. Springer came back to sweep the final three events to lock up the individual crown.
Despite Springer missing the first race of the season, the Hodag girls were able to edge Wausau in a tiebreaker for the team championship.
McKenna Nash finished seventh in the individual overall season standings. Kathryn Borski was 12th overall. Lily Berger finished 24th in the final conference standings and Madeline Ewan was 28th.
New home
The Hodags had to adjust on the fly prior to the start of the season when Ski Brule in Iron River, Mich. has been the Hodags' home hill for the past couple of decades but announced back in October that, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it would not be making snow for the upcoming season.
The team did some training at Granite Peak in Wausau and some at Big Powderhorn Mountain, which served as the home venue for the Hodags when they hosted the fourth round of the Northern Conference season.
But there was no true home-hill advantage for the Hodags this season. Between late-arriving snow and more restrictive COVID-19 regulations in Michigan, the team had very little opportunity to train on its home hill.
"(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," Olson said.
What's next
The 2022 season will likely be a rebuilding one for the Hodags, overall. Tommie Jo Springer will be back to make another run at a state title, but overall, the team will be much younger than this year's squad.
The Hodags will graduate nine athletes who competed at this weekend's state meet, including Ty Springer, Stemper, Durkee, Borski and Berger in skiing. In snowboarding, Rhinelander will graduate White, Schwab, Sturzl and Joey Durkin.
"We're losing a core. Our performances and placements have definitely been good for the last 2-3 years with the team we had," Olson said. "We're gearing back into a rebuild mode here for a few years. We've got some strong junior high skiers coming."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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