March 20, 2023 at 8:46 a.m.
Team Review: RHS/NPHS Alpine skiing/snowboarding
Team Review: RHS/NPHS Alpine skiing/snowboarding
Overall, it ended up being a strong year for the Hodags, who took home the team conference titles in boys' skiing and boys' snowboarding and individual conference crowns in three of the conference's four divisions.
Here are five storylines from the recently completed season.
Tommie's triumph
The biggest story of the season for the Hodags was the return, and ultimate success at the WIARA state meet, of Northland Pines senior Tommie Jo Springer.
She was the runner-up at state as a freshman, and in the mix for the state title as a sophomore before a straddled gate knocked her out of contention. A knee injury kept Springer from skiing as a junior and, ironically, a setback in that knee's rehabilitation set the stage for this year.
Springer, who was out west training and racing in the U.S. Olympic Development circuit when the injury occurred, may have gone back out west this winter had she been at 100%. Instead, a setback with her knee helped her decide to stay home, where the slower, shorter runs of the high school circuit served as a rehab assignments of sorts.
Despite being less than 100%, health-wise, Springer returned to her dominant form in the Northern Conference, winning 14 of the 15 runs during the season en route to her third individual conference title.
She followed that up with a nearly flawless weekend at state, winning all three runs to become the program's first individual state skiing champion in Olson's decades-long time at the helm.
"I'm glad it happened," Olson said. "You never envision with an athlete that a big chunk of their career is going to missing or hampered or hurt by injury, but to come back from all of that is awesome. We're super pumped. A lot has happened since then. She's really worked hard and her and the family have just dedicated themselves to making this happen and it paid off."
Boys' skiers
All season the story for the Hodag boys' skiers was one of quantity over quality. Wausau had the two fastest skiers in the conference, in Landon Westphal and Adam Bautsch, but more often than not the Hodags had enough depth to make up the points.
That was true in three of the first four Northern Conference races of the season, where the Hodags held on to the No. 1 spot. It was especially true in the conference race at Christie Mountain where the Hodags had just enough depth, particularly in slalom, to earn the race win. That gave the team the luxury of needing to finish only second at the conference finale to lock up the overall title.
"That was the key, that one event and that day," coach Olson said. "That's kind of what separated us. It's not like Wausau did poorly, but we gave it to them a couple too many times."
Overall, senior Riley Zarm, thanks to three top-seven finishes, placed fifth in the final conference standings. Brandon Bacon was sixth, Ben Olson was seventh, Lukas Bishop was ninth and Jason Linn finished 10th.
Unfortunately the Hodags' depth could not hold up during the state meet, were bobbles out of the top two seeds forced the rest of the team to ski conservatively. Rhinelander finished ninth out of 10 teams in Division 2.
"When your ones and twos go down, you've got to radio up and say, 'next four, you've got to finish,' so their performances are going to be not typical," coach Olson said. "You kind of hold them back. The rest of the boys reacted well. After that we didn't have one issue. They hung on to good results for them and the team."
Bishop had the best individual performance for the team, taking 55th overall out of 157 skiers who attempted at least one run over the weekend
Girls' skiers
Even with Springer, the Hodag girls did not have enough depth to make it to state as a team this year, competing with four or five skiers much of the season.
The Hodag girls finished fourth out of five teams in the Northern Conference. Maddie Ewan was the team's best finisher outside of Springer in 17th. Callie Hoerchler has the best individual finish, placing 11th at Granite Peak, but had two many mishaps during the season, dropping her to 21st in the finals standings. Lydia Fritz was 21st and Kelsey Yunkers finished 27th.
Snowboarding
The Hodag boys won the Northern Conference title unopposed this year, placing four riders in the top six of the overall conference standings.
Senior Max Durkee swept the season on the way to defending his individual conference title. Northland Pines sophomore Owen Repenshek was third. Despite sustaining an injury in the conference finale, Isaiah Willoughby finished fifth and Trevyn Rappley was sixth.
The team couldn't match that success down at state, however. Willoughby's injury hurt the team's depth and some less-than-clean runs dropped Rhinelander to seventh out of 10 teams at state.
"We were hanging around seventh with some marred runs but, talent-wise, I think we should have been around fifth," Olson said.
On the girls' side Nicole Long won the conference title with an assist from freshman teammate Sydney Sarkauskas. Long was unable to attend the final race of the season but Sarkauskas edged Ashawbay's Laheaela Mika for the win at Ski Brule. That kept Mika from tying Long in the standings - as the conference figures in an athlete's best three races for individual awards. Mika would have won a tiebreaker for the conference title by virtue of competing in every race.
Long was back at state, scoring three top-15 runs to place 12th in the overall standings. Sarkauskus was 26th in a field of 40, with a best finish of 23rd in giant slalom.
"The girls had decent days," Olson said. "Sydney was super happy coming in as a freshman and Nicole had a decent slalom. She was out with COVID all of last week. I think the girls did pretty well."
What's next
The outlook for next year varies from squad to squad. Though the Hodag boys graduate Zarm, most of this year's team returns with the hopes of cleaning up performances and making a better run at state next year.
A similar story could be said on the snowboarding side. The team graduates Durkee, Rappley and brothers Reese and Brady Frisque, but has plenty of depth this year. Throw into the mix a healthy Willoughby and sophomore-to-be Soren Dumar, who Olson had high hopes for this year prior to sustaining an injury before the first race, and the borders figure to be ready to reload as well.
"We're returning 75% of the team. We're pretty excited about our years to come," Olson said.
Numbers, however, are not as good on the girls' side, and losing Springer off the top of the lineup will be a significant hit for the skiers. Meanwhile, the Hodag girls are still trying to build their numbers back to have a snowboarding team for the first time in several years.
"We're going to have to work hard on our girls' numbers and our snowboard, we're going to have to rebuild some there, but that's the part of love is developing the young ones," Olson said.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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