LCHS Girls Nordic Team Excel at State Meet!
The Lake County High School Girls Nordic team placed 3rd at the Colorado High School State Championships this past Thursday and Friday in Steamboat Springs. Since the only two schools to best Lake County were the private schools Vail Mountain School (VMS) and Colorado Rocky Mountain School (CRMS), Lake County claimed the honor of being the fastest public school Nordic team in the state.
“I’m so proud of the team. They worked hard all summer, fall, and winter, and the podium finish proves how that hard work pays off,” coach Karl Remsen said after the meet.
Thursday was an individual start skate race at the Steamboat Springs Touring Center. Harper Powell had her best skate race ever and placed 10th. Caroline and Ariel Benney placed within a few tenths of a second of one another in 13th and 14th respectively. Whitney White was close behind in 18th and was the fastest 4th skier of any team. Molly Lenhard had a great finish to place 39th and Jackie Williams was right behind her in 42nd place.
As a team, the girls scored 146 points to place 3rd behind VMS and CRMS. They just squeaked by Battle Mountain, who had 143 points and Summit who had 142 points.
Friday was a mass start classic race. Caroline led the team from the gun, just missing a top ten in a sprint finish and placing 11th. Ariel followed her sister across the line and placed 14th for the second day in a row. Whitney White secured the 3rd place finish for the girls by placing 16th.
“It was awesome to watch the girls all come by so close together and up front,” noted assistant coach Andrew Coffin afterwards. “It was just a blur of purple coming by me at the three kilometer mark.”
Harper had a tough start to the race as another girl stepped on her pole, ripping it off her hand. She was stuck and then had to go back to retrieve it, so fifteen seconds into the race she was in last place by twenty meters. Harper described what went through her head afterwards, “I just kept calm and knew that there was plenty of time to make up ground.” Make up ground she did, passing nearly 50 skiers over the five kilometers to place 17th.
Molly and Jackie improved on their finishes from the day before, with Molly placing 33rd and Jackie taking 40th. Freshman Abby Holm also competed in the classic competition. She entered the day seeded 60th but outskied many girls ranked ahead of her to place 44th.
VMS once again was the fastest team, followed by CRMS and then Lake County who scored 145 points. Unlike the day before, the Panthers had a safe distance between them and 4th (Summit with 138 points).
Coach Remsen summed up the races from the Panthers by saying, “What a great performance by the girls. We had four skiers in the top 20 on both days, something only 1st place VMS did as well. We would have placed 3rd even if you remove one of our top four because of our depth.”
The team will miss seniors Harper and Whitney next year, but the other five state qualifiers will be back again in 2018 to once again compete for a podium finish as a team.