Team review: RHS/NPHS Alpine Ski & Snowboard

During this month’s season-ending banquet, coach Rod Olson was quick to note that this year’s members of the Rhinelander/Northland Pines Alpine ski team may have been “the best group of humans that I’ve ever coached,” he also admitted the best part of the season may be that it’s over.

That had nothing to do with personnel and everything to do with the wacky and unusual snow conditions the Hodags — and everybody in the state — fought through in what qualified as a winter this year. 

A lack of snow reduced training sessions, condensed the racing season into only a few short weeks and made for tricky skiing conditions whenever the team got on the hill.

“This year has just been crazy. I think most of my happiness is that none of my athletes have a true injury coming out of this year,” Olson said following last month’s WIARA state meet. “I was just something. The coaches and officials did the best they could but it was really crazy conditions, fighting either ice or slush, or the combination of, all season.”

Despite that, and a relatively young team, the Hodags fared well this season, essentially qualifying all of its athletes — either as a team or individually — for the state championships in La Crosse. 

Here are five storylines from the recently completed season.

Out west

The training season began with promise as the team got on snow about as early as it ever has, thanks to some pre-planning and fundraising. 

The group had already arranged a November trip out to Winter Park, Colo. for three days of runs. 

“That was good. We had a lot of athletes definitely improve,” coach Olson said. “It was excellent for the team building and the team camaraderie. When you do something like that, each team has its pods or group of athletes that, for the exception of when they’re actually competing together, don’t chum together. This trip brought them a lot closer together, for sure.” 

Little did the team know at the time how beneficial that experience would be as warm temperatures and a lack of snow plagued area hills all winter long. That cut down on the number of training runs back home and jammed the Northern Conference season, which normally takes place over five weeks, into a 16-day sprint to get in five races between Jan. 22 and Feb. 6 — and that schedule would have been even more condensed had the race at Snow River not been pushed back until after the scheduled end of the conference season.

Boys’ skiing

The Hodags came in as defending Northern Conference champions in boys’ skiing, but lacked the depth they had a year prior with a couple of seniors graduated and another starter, Brody Kowieski, lost for the season due to injury. 

That, coupled with an influx of talent for the Wausau co-op, left the Hodags playing catch-up all year. Wausau won all five Northern Conference races. Rhinelander/Northland Pines took second in three of the five races and held off Ashwabay by a point for the runner-up spot in the standings.

Coach Olson said he saw the writing on the wall all the way back at the first race of the season.

“We’re going to get better and I want us to just perform better, but I think until we have some more development, we’re going to kind of sit in that second place,” he said. “If Wausau makes some mistakes, then we’re there, but they have a pretty deep team this year.”

Individually, Ben Olson and Jason Linn both placed in the top 10 in the final conference standings overall and in each individual event. Olson was third in Super G, fourth in giant slalom and seventh in slalom, taking fourth overall. Linn was eighth in Super G and slalom, and ninth in giant slalom as he took eighth in the final conference standings.

Senior Lukas Bishop was 12th in the standings, sophomore Holden Schmitz was 17th and freshman Eli Repenshek tied for 21st.

The Hodags came home fourth in Division 2 and 14th overall in the WIARA Ski and Snowboard Championships at Mt. La Crosse. Linn was the team’s top finisher in 37th, Bishop placed 54th, Schmitz wound up 84th, Repenshek finished 100th and Ben Olson finished 103rd overall after a couple of mishaps.

Girls’ skiing

Despite having last year’s individual state champ in Tommie Jo Springer, the Hodags girls did not place high enough as a team to qualify for state. That changed this year as Rhinelander/Northland Pines’ depth was good enough — despite not having any individual top-10 finishers in the conference — to take third in four of the five league races finish third in the final standings, claiming the conference’s final team state berth.

The Hodags were last in both D2 and overall at state, but coach Olson said the experience was well worth it, especially with a squad full of underclassmen.

“I think the benefit of them going and experiencing it really helped them,” he said. “Our training day, they actually skied better on our training day Friday that I’ve seen them ski all year. I think it was definitely educational for them and a great experience. They all had a blast.”

In conference play, senior Maddie Ewan led the way, taking 14th overall, followed by Northland Pines junior Eliana Conrad in 15th. Lyndsey Hoerchler was 17th, Aila Bergman finished 18th, Karlie Yunkers was 21st and Hayley Schiek was 25th. Yunkers was the only skier of that group to place in the top 100 at state, finishing 87th.

Additionally, Rhinelander’s girls won the inaugural Northern Conference Cup, which calculated results for skiers from each individual school as opposed to co-operative programs.

“That was awesome. We got a nice trophy,” coach Olson said. “We’ve got seven girls from the team that are returning. They’re all excited about it. We’ve got some kids interested in the sport. The girls program I’m real excited about the depth.”

Snowboarding

Neither the Hodag boys or girls had enough boarders to qualify for a team score this year. The Hodag boys would have if sophomore Soren Dumar hadn’t suffered a season-ending injury in training for the second year in a row.

Individually, it was a year of growing pains for the Hodag boys. Owen Repenshek battled through injury but still had a chance to win the Northern Conference title going into the final race, but a third-place finish at the season finale at Snow River dropped him to third in the final standings. Senior Isaiah Willoughby finished fourth while freshman Marshal Durkee was fifth. 

Coach Olson said it was a battle for consistency — especially for Repenshek and Durkee — as the tried to get acclimated to harder racing snowboards that are faster, but more difficult to control.

“Both Owen and Marshal are on straight boards and they’ve jumped into a whole different style of snowboarding,” coach Olson said. “There’s some growing there that we need to have some more work on, experience and comfort with. The board’s very fast.” 

Repenshek, despite hurting his ankle in a training crash at Mt. La Crosse on the eve of the state meet, still competed and finished 14th overall in a field of 61. Durkee finished 28th and Willoughby finished 28th.

On the girls’ side, sophomore Sydney Sarkauskas was the team’s lone boarder this year. She finished the Northern Conference season by winning the finale at Snow River and placed third in the final standings. She parlayed that into a 13th-place showing at the state meet.

“Sydney’s real consistent. We need to get to a point where she starts to take a little bit of risk. I think she’s ready for a carving board next year. That will be one big step,” coach Olson said.

What’s next

The Hodags will graduate only a handful of athletes — including Bishop, Ewan, Willoughby and Kelsey Yunkers. 

With the majority of the team returning and a number of athletes coming up from the middle school ranks, coach Olson said he’s eager for next year.

“These younger boys, that group of sophomores and a freshman and some eighth graders coming in, I think next year will be fun year as well,” he said.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].