Hodag Alpine skiers take second at Ashwabay

The Rhinelander/Northland Pines Alpine Ski team held on to its standings in the Northern Conference on Tuesday, but the end result may have taken a toll — especially for the girls’ squad — as the season enters the home stretch.

The Hodag girls held off Ashwabay by two points for the runner-up spot while the Hodags boys finished 26 markers ahead of Ashwabay for second in the penultimate Northern Conference race of the season at Mt. Ashwabay. 

While both teams sit in second in the Northern Conference standings heading into next Saturday’s finale at Ski Brule, the team potentially suffered some attrition on the girls’ side following hard crashes by Callie Hoerchler and Karlie Yunkers on Tuesday. 

Initially, Hoerchler’s injury appeared to be the more serious of the bunch, according to coach Rod Olson. He said the Rhinelander senior needed to be treated at a nearby hospital for an arm injury after crashing into the netting at the finish of the final race of the day, Super G. 

“Callie could not stop in time and she kind of bounced a little bit went through the finish area of fence,” he said. “We’re hoping that it’s just some horrible bruising, but that’s what happened there and that was tough and it caused a lot of coaches to get heated. We changed the course too because boys are much faster. It was a little political. We straightened it out a little for the boys so they didn’t have to run through with this buildup of powder.”

Coach Olson noted that soft snow created some berms which acted like mini-jumps on the course. 

“It was very, very soft, natural snow up there so it caused several safety concerns. They set the course is pretty cranky,” he said. “We had to make some adjustments throughout the day to make it safe. The course maintenance wasn’t kept up so there was a lot of big berms and it did cost us. 

Yunkers also crashed at the end of the Super G run and had a separate fall earlier in the day in giant slalom. 

“She’s pretty banged up. I think she’ll be feeling a little bit worse tomorrow but we’ll see. Hopefully it’s nothing that’s going to delay her,” he said. 

Northland Pines freshman Jessica Linn had the top run for the Hodags, placing in the top eight of all three runs to take sixth overall. Her best finish of the day was sixth in slalom. Callie Hoerchler ended up 10th on the day. Her best run was a sixth-place finish in giant slalom and she still finished 11th in Super G despite her crash at the end of the race. 

Lyndsey Hoerchler was 12th overall, followed by Eliana Conrad in 13th, Aila Bergman in 14th, Lucy Edy in 17th and Yunkers in 26th. 

“Jessica kind of finished her normal placements. Callie had a good day going. Lyndsey had kind of a good day too,” coach Olson said. “There were a couple little bit of hiccups here and there, but overall they did pretty good on GS and where kind of started to fall apart was with the how the course was set and then the heavy snow and managing that.” 

Ben Olson scored his best overall finish of the season on the boys’ side, taking second place overall. The Rhinelander junior finished in the top five of all three runs, highlighted by a second-place finish in giant slalom. Freshman Wyler Koput also had his best result of the season, taking sixth overall. That included a tie for second in Super G.

“Wyler had a really good day. He ran third seed and he had really good track and we’re super happy for him. You know that inspires an athlete the young age,” coach Olson said.

Jason Linn took 10th overall, highlighted by a sixth-place run in slalom. Holden Schmitz was 21st overall, Eli Repenshek was 22nd, Henry Schmitz finished 25th and Robert Guolee was 26th. 

The Hodags cleaned up in the snowboard competition, going 1-2-3 on the boys’ side while Northland Pines junior Sydney Sarkauskas dominated all three races for a clean sweep on the girls’ side. 

Junior Soren Dumar, sophomore Marshal Durkee and freshman Kamden Kostrova each won one of the races on Tuesday. Durkee took the giant slalom, and finished second in the two other races to claim the overall win by a point over Kostrova, who took the slalom, was second in boardercross and third in giant slalom. Dumar won boardercross and was second in giant slalom, but mishaps in both of his slalom runs dropped him to sixth in that race.

“Kamden had the best overall day. He was consistent in each run. Marshal took a race and Soren took a race. So they had a good a good day amongst themselves and good competition,” coach Olson said. “The boardercross was just an awesome course. They had a lot of fun doing that you know I think the borders are excited now we’re rolling with you know their portion of the season.”

Sarkauskas was the class of the field on the girls’ side, winning all three races by more than eight seconds. Her winning time in the boardercross would have been third-fastest in the boys’ division, and her times in the two other events would have placed in the top five.

“Sydney, she’s in a league of our own. So there’s not too much to say,” coach Olson said. “She did well. She raced the USASA race couple weeks and weekends ago in amongst the competitors that she raced against last year at state. She was in that around that fifth-place position again most of that weekend. Barring any issues at state that she can you know hopefully get top five again.”

Prior to the conference finale, the Hodags will travel down to Mt. La Crosse this coming Monday for a scrimmage ahead of the WIARA State Championships there in two weeks’ time. Formerly known as the Mt. La Crosse Cup, Olson said the event had been changed to an exhibition as teams from around the state will be able to make practice runs on courses similar to what will be set for the state meet. 

“It’ll give us a good feel of kind of where we sit. We will be able to see what everybody else is how they’re skiing or boarding,” Olson said.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].