February 9, 2023 at 9:19 a.m.
Hodag Nordic competes at state sprints
Hodag Nordic competes at state sprints
The Hodags fared well in the two-day event, placing one team in the top 10 in Saturday's classic sprint relays and advancing three skiers to the knockout rounds in Sunday's freestyle individual sprint.
"We took a solid group of both high school and middle school kids down to sprint race, many of whom have never done any sprinting whatsoever, and having to do it both in the team sprint format and the individual sprint format and swapping techniques on day, a lot of success, a lot of fun and a really well-run, quality event this year," coach Dave Slette said.
The tandem of sophomore Brynn Teter and freshman Kayla Skubal had the best performance on Saturday, finishing 10th out of 16 teams in the girls' varsity relays. The two alternated laps in the four-lap race around the 0.8-kilometer CXC Outdoor Center course. They finished sixth in their semifinal heat with a time of 12 minutes, 11.32 seconds, putting them into the B final. They finished second in that race (12:02.6) to place 10th overall.
"That was a pairing I was looking forward to watching and they didn't disappoint," coach Slette said. "Brynn and Kayla are both good classic skiers, had a good race, good skis, great effort on the tagging which is something they haven't done a lot of. It was smooth, executed really well. That was a great race from those two."
Freshman Olin Slette and senior Travis White made up Rhinelander's top pair on the boys' side. They finished eighth in their qualifier (10:37.6) and sixth in the B final (10:48.9) to take 18th overall. Junior Charlie Loomis and sophomore Iain Rumney were seventh in their heat (11:02.1) and 11th in the B final to place 23rd (11:20.1).
"I thought both groups of boys did fairly well, maybe not as well as they'd like, not getting into the A final, but it was a pretty tough field there," coach Slette noted.
Teter, Skubal and Olin Slette all made the knockout rounds for Sunday's freestyle sprint, clinching top-32 finish in the state.
Teter had the best performance, qualifying 24th overall (2:38.5). After taking last in her quarterfinal, she won her semifinal and placed sixth in the C final to place 22nd overall. Skubal qualified 31st (2:42.7), making it into the top 32 by roughly a second. She finished eighth in both her quarterfinal and semifinal runs before taking sixth in the D final for a 30th-place finish overall.
"Brynn performed very well. She (improved) two spots throughout the day for a finish of 22nd," coach Slette noted. "Kayla also snuck in there, besting some girls she's not been able to beat regularly in the distance races. I think that was a real positive for her."
Olin Slette barely snuck into the top 32, qualifying 32nd (2:12.6) to make the knockout rounds by 0.15 seconds. He finished sixth in his quarterfinal, seventh in his semifinal and fifth in the D final to take 29th overall.
White (2:14.5) missed the top 32 by less than two seconds after some issues in qualifying, but came back to win the consolation E Final to take 33rd overall on the day.
"Travis, I didn't see it happen, but apparently he felt like he was held up by another participant on course," coach Slette noted. "Travis was upset that it happened to him and he took it out in the final round, racing really one of the highlight individual sprint events on the day."
Violet Biolo and Olivia Gillen missed the knockout rounds on the girls' side. Biolo qualified 35th and finished 36th overall on the day. Gillen both qualified and finished in the 50th position. Charlie Loomis qualified 49th and finished 51st on the boys' side. Rumney qualified 77th and finished 78th.
Coach Slette said he was pleased with how his team fared in afternoon finals.
"It's a small mass start, basically, and what starts to dominate in an event like that is your ability to ski tactically," he said. You're in tight quarters and high speed. You're making some technical turns at speed. You're having to make some snap decision about where to place a pole, where to place a ski. It start getting real difficult.
"Almost all of them were able to drop spots on the day from the qualifiers going forward, and the ones that didn't generally lost about one spot. To me, that says a lot about how our skiers are skilled enough to handle tactics and handle themselves in tight quarters."
The Hodags return to the more traditional distance format this weekend as they close out the season at the WNSL State Distance Championships in Cable. Coach Slette said he hopes the team is able to build upon is sprint performances coming into this weekend.
"Now we take that confidence and we throw it back onto a course that we're quite familiar with at a location we're quite familiar with and I think it bodes well for us," he said. "Ever since the Hodag Challenge I feel like this team has been kind of gathering a little bit of momentum and a little bit of confidence and feeling like we can do a few things that we didn't think we could do before. We've got the skiers. We've got a good bit of drive and the confidence is now building. This is not a fluke. We can start to climb in the ranks here, both individually and as a team."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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