Hodag Alpine competes at Ski Brule

The Rhinelander/Northland Pines Alpine ski and snowboard team hosted the fourth race of the Northern Conference season Saturday at Ski Brule in Iron River, Mich.

The Hodags finished second in boys’ skiing and third in girls’ skiing on the day. 

In boys’ skiing, the rest of the Northern Conference had a tough time keeping up with Wausau United, which took four of the top five positions to win the meet going away. The co-op of Wausau East, Wausau West and D.C. Everest claimed its fourth win of the season and all but locked up the conference title entering today’s finale at Snow River in Bessemer, Mich.. 

The only skier who had pace to keep with Wausau was Rhinelander’s Ben Olson. He turned in top-four runs in all three events, including a runner-up showing in Super G, as he finished third overall on the day. 

Jason Linn had a pair of sixth-place runs for the Hodags, but a 12th-pace run in Super G dropped him to eighth on the day. Holden Schmitz finished 11th, Eli Repenshek was 12th and Robert Guolee finished 19th. Lukas Bishop did not finish the Super G run to start the day and then scratched out of the final two races, placing 25th overall.

On the girls’ side, the Hodags again had a clump of skiers just outside the top 10, led by Eliana Conrad in 11th place on the day. Maddie Ewan finished 12th and Aila Bergman finished 14th. Karlie Yunkers was 19th, Hayley Schiek finished 21st and Kelsey Yunkers took 23rd.

Snowboarders competed in three runs of boardercross on Saturday, with Northland Pines junior Owen Repenshek scoring a clean sweep. He won all three runs by more than a second and a half over Sturgeon Bay’s Tristan Brilla. Marshal Durkee was third for Rhinelander and Isaiah Willoughby finished fifth. Sydney Sarkauskas placed third in all three runs to finish third in girls’ snowboarding.

Hodag coach Rod Olson could not be reached for comment prior to deadline for today’s edition.

Entering the conference finale, the Rhinelander/Northland Pines boys sit second in the team standings, two points ahead of Ashwabay while the Hodag girls sit in third place. 

Individually, Ben Olson provisionally sits in second place in the boys’ ski standings, which factor in a skier’s best three performances over the course of the five-race season. Wausau’s TJ Sondelski, who won his fourth race on Saturday, has already clinched the overall conference title. Sam Derner, an independent skier from Edgar, has missed the last two races but has a chance to vault into second overall after finishing runner-up in the first two races of the year. Linn sits seventh and Bishop is eighth in the boys’ standings. 

In snowboarding, Owen Repenshek and Willoughby sit tied for third in the standings, though Repenshek controls his own destiny in the conference title race if he can lock up his third win of the season today. Durkee sits fifth in the boys’ snowboard standings while Sarkauskas is third in the girls’ standings. 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].