Hodag Nordic competes at WinMan

The Hodag Nordic high school club ski team competed in its first official race of the season last Saturday, taking part in the WinMan Early Bird at the WinMan trails in Winchester. The Hodag girls were third out of three qualifying teams while the Hodag boys were fourth out of four teams.

“A little bit up and down, which is typical in almost all of our races, but especially (for) a first race and some skiers really did a bang-up job today,” coach John Gillen said. “They really put in all effort and did well as a team.”

The Hodags’ three girls skiers finished right together in Saturday’s roughly 5.7-kilometer freestyle time trial. Junior Kayla Skubal paced the pack, taking 10th out of 15 skiers with a time of 20 minutes, 20 seconds. Kali Skubal, Kayla’s younger sister, was 11th (21:35) and Mya Gillen finished 12th (22:31).

The Hodag boys were led by senior Iain Rumney, who came home 11th in a field of 20, finishing in 17:29. Freshman Aaron Calhoun was 16th (18:09) and sophomore Jonathan Calhoun finished 17th (18:12). 

Saturday’s races featured predominantly teams from the northern half of the state. Lakeland took the boys’ team title with 10 points while Wausau had eight points to claim the girls’ title. Iola and CANski were also in the field. 

Wausau’s Nick Johnkoski (14:31) claimed the top spot in the boys’ race while Wausau’s Margaret Bennett (17:09) claimed the girls’ race. Rhinelander High School senior Brynn Teter, skiing independently of the Hodag club, finished fourth (18:13).

For the Hodags, just racing in December was a novelty — as it’s the first time that’s happened since 2022. The team was supposed to take part in the Lakeland Invite on Dec. 17, but that was postponed to Jan. 7 due to a lack of snow. 

“It felt awesome. Yes. It’s so nice to have a race in December and on a good course and with good conditions. It was really nice today,” coach Gillen said.

The make-up of the Lakeland Invite is the Hodags’ next race, followed by the Snekkevik Ski Race in Wausau Jan. 11. Both of those races will depend on how the trails survive this weekend’s forecasted warm-up and how much, if any, new snow falls between now and the first full week of January.

“Hopefully we’ll be racing again as a team on the seventh,” Gillen said. “We got a couple of practices lined up here through the holidays, so hopefully the kids can continue to work on their skills and hold things together as we go into the first of the year.”