Hodag Nordic competes at state sprints

The Hodag Nordic ski team competed this past weekend in its first state championship race of the season. It could be their only, if Mother Nature does not cooperate soon.

The Hodags were in Brillion this past Saturday and Sunday for the WNSL State Sprint Championships, contested on the man-made snow of the Ariens Nordic Center. 

No team scores were kept in an event that featured freestyle sprint relay races on Saturday and individual classic sprints on Sunday. 

The Hodag girls had the best results on the weekend, qualifying their lone varsity relay team for the semifinals and having two skiers finish among the top 32 in the individual sprints.

“These skiers are committed, holy cow. It was two long days of skiing. Some of us got there Friday and pre-skied the course,” coach Andrew Seaman said. “The course conditions changed drastically from the morning, when everybody had their first race, to when they had their next races. We were really lucky to have coach Mark (Lehman), who’s an expert with that klister. We needed it for Sunday.”

Sunday’s individual races featured one lap of qualifying on a roughly 0.8-kilometer course followed by placement races based on qualifying times.

    Rhinelander’s Lucy Eddy competes in the WNSL State Sprint championship in Brillion Saturday, Feb. 3. Eddy was Rhinelander’s top finisher in the individual competition, placing 26th in the girls’ division. (Submitted photo)
  

The top 32 after qualifying had a chance to race into the bracket-style knockout rounds and compete for the state championship. The Hodags put two in the top 32 as freshman Lucy Eddy qualified 29th (2 minute, 38.6 seconds) and junior Brynn Teter qualified 30th (2:38.7). Sophomore Kayla Skubal qualified 33rd (2:40.5), missing the cut by 0.34 seconds. 

Eddy finished seventh in her quarterfinal and eighth in her semifinal while Teter was sixth in both her quarterfinal and semifinal runs. Both ended up in the D final for position 25-32 overall as a result. Eddy took second in that race to finish 26th overall, while Teter was fifth to take 29th overall.

For Eddy it was her first race back in the lineup since sustaining a shoulder injury in the season-opening Seeley Hills Classic in Cable Jan. 13. 

“What a pleasant surprise. Lucy is athletic, so I kind of knew, even though she missed some races, she would do well, but I think she surprised everybody, even herself,” Seaman said. “Really proud of Brynn and Lucy for finishing strong. They had races at 9 o’clock in the morning and again at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. It was a long day for them, but they stuck with it. Kayla was right there on the outside (of the top 32). It would have been exciting if she was in there too.”

Kayla Skubal finished fourth in the E final to place 36th overall. Mya Gillen finished 53rd and Kali Skubal was 57th.

Neither of the Hodag boys made the top split. Senior Charlie Loomis missed the cut by roughly seven seconds (2:14.3). He qualified 52nd and finished 54th on the day. Iain Rumney qualified 64th and finished 67th.

“Charlie and Iain both had really strong races … They placed into the one-round finals and they had strong races in their last ones,” Seaman said. “It would have been awesome to see them fighting for a top 32 spots. Their times were very fast, but there were some other very fast boys’ skiers there. There was some stiff competition.”

Rumney and Loomis ended up with a tough draw in their heat race in Saturday’s relay sprint. They took ninth in their heat and missed transferring to the semifinals by one position. Their time of 14:04.98 for the four-lap race was faster than at least one other pair that qualified through a different semifinal.

On the girls’ side, Teter and Kayla Skubal teamed up to finish sixth in their heat, earning a spot in the B finals. They placed fourth there to take 16th overall. Teter and Rumney overcame an equipment issue to take fifth in their heat in the mixed relay, but scratched out of the B final and were credited with 12th overall.

On the JV side, Gillen and Kali Skubal finished fourth overall. Eddy finished fifth, skiing with a competitor from another team. 

“We didn’t get much practice with those relays, because we haven’t had much snow the last couple of weeks, but I thought that, because all those skiers know each other so well and they’ve done these relays before it was no problem before,” Seaman said of the relays.

The Hodags left Brillion with the remainder of their season up in the air. The WNSL and race organizers at the Birkie Trailhead in Cable made the joint decision to postpone the state distance races that were scheduled to be held this weekend. A WNSL coaches meeting on Monday to discuss the fate of the race was also postponed while the league gathers more information about its options.

A plan discussed during last weekend’s event would involve moving the state distance races back to the weekend of March 2-3 in Cable, weather and snow conditions permitting. 

It would not be the first time the league has held a March state championship, should the WNSL go that route. The 2021 state distance race was also pushed back to March after an Arctic cold snap made conditions unsafe to race during the originally scheduled weekend. 

It’s unclear what would happen in regard to crowning individual and team state champions should the state distance race get canceled. The WNSL is in its second year of combining results from its state sprint and distance races to determine its overall champions.

“We’re optimistic. Everyone wants to try to make it happen. That was the feeling at the coaches’ meeting. We’ve got to figure out what the Birkie is going to do,” Seaman said. “We’ll see if that next race happens and we can combine those individual results with the distance results.”

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].