By Craig Brinkerhoff
Staff Writerr
The Westford Academy Nordic Ski Team ascended on the Notchview Preserve in Windsor, MA on Tuesday February 12th for the MIAA Nordic Ski State Championships. The boys set a school record, placing 4th out of 15. The girls tied the school record, tying 10th out of 15. There are usually 20 to 25 teams in the state, but only the top fifteen get to attend states.
“I knew we had probably the best team we’ve ever had, and I was very optimistic that we would break last year’s record of 9th. I was hoping for maybe 7th, so to finish 4th made me really excited,” said head coach Andrew Norander, in his 11th year of coaching.
MIAA expects a different level of competition at states. That is why the distance of a state championship race is longer than league races. The race on February 12th was seven kilometers, while most league races are around five kilometers. The course is also much hillier, and therefore more physically and technically demanding.
Scoring is done in a golf-like fashion. The skier to finish first receives one point, second gets two points, and so on. The scores of a team’s top four finishers are added together, and the team with the lowest score wins.
Sean Skahen, the boys’ top finisher, placed third in the state. The other top finishers for WA, who accumulated the points for scoring, were Trevor Owens (16th), August Posch (29th), and Nathan Benningson (47th). On the girls’ side, Allie Skahen (18th), Taylor Freud (31st), Leah Giacalone (47th), and Jessica Gallagher (90th) gathered the points for the 10th place finish.
“Our fourth best skier [Hannah Peternell] on the girls’ side sprained her ankle a couple of days before the race, so she couldn’t race,” says Norander. Freshman Julia Devlin, taking her place, finished well and helped the girls maintain that 10th position.
The team regularly trains and races on the Weston ski track, which is a golf course with snowmaking capabilities.
“We race at Weston, always facing all the other teams in our league, Mass Bay West. This includes AB, CC, LS, Wayland, Nashoba, and Winchester,” said Posch.
Besides Weston, there is a lack of Nordic ski areas with snowmaking. This makes the team extremely dependent on the weather.
“There really isn’t a normal season, because we are so weather dependent. The last two years, specifically we didn’t have a lot of snow. Typically the month of December we do dry land training, meeting three or four days a week, depending on the weather … when the weather is cold enough and Weston can make snow, we usually get a bus one or two days a week and go to Weston. Unfortunately Weston is about forty-five minutes away,” said Norander.
With no room inside to train on rainy days, the team heads to the staircases for climbs or core workouts. Norander has also been pushing roller skiing as a good cross training exercise when there is no snow.
With a good amount of Massachusetts ski programs combining Alpine and Nordic, Westford has the unique opportunity to recruit different kids for the two separate teams. Nordic skiing, as Norander points out, is usually not the first sport for these athletes. Most come from a running, soccer, field hockey, or lacrosse background.
Around five years ago, the team peaked with upwards of 70 students. At the time however, the overall atmosphere was very different, one of an intramural club activity rather than a varsity sport. Every year, Norander has attempted to raise the bar of the team, giving it the deserved recognition of a competitive varsity sport.
There are around forty or so kids on the team now, and the competitive atmosphere has certainly changed. Last year, the boys’ team set a school record, placing 9th.
Posch gives a good amount of this credit to the assistant coach, Erin Dubinski.
“She has really brought the team to the next level over the last few years with her energy and expertise,” said Posch.
That different atmosphere as the team develops into a state powerhouse is backed by the determined mindset of Norander.
“If you really want to be an elite cross country skier, you have to train twelve months out of the year,” he said
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