While the temperature may have been a warm thirteen degrees above freezing, the FHC ski team slalomed down the hill at Cannonsburg to once again show that they are top competitors. The boys placed first with 34 points, and the girls placed second to Grand Haven with 31 points. Led by senior Matthew Taylor and sophomore Chloe Cox, the team worked together to overcome the abnormal skiing conditions and earn themselves good placement with the postseason around the corner. Head coach Sara Sutton comments on how well the team prevailed through the conditions at hand.
“It is crummy when you’re trying to build a team with new skiers,” Sutton said. “And having to put them in bad conditions really makes for difficult skiing. Even well seasoned skiers experienced worse lines than usual.”
The boys’ side snaked down the right side of the hill for a first place overall finish with 34 total points. The guys were led by Taylor who sped down the slope twice in just 1:06.51, giving himself a fourth-place overall finish. Taylor mentions how well he skied.
“I felt like I did pretty well,” Taylor said. “I subdued to the conditions a little bit but overall, I think I did pretty well.”
Senior Brett Comiskey and senior Nicholas Notarnicola followed closely behind Taylor in scoring, securing seventh and ninth. Comiskey attained an overall time of 1:07.15 and Notarnicola finished just behind with a time of 1:08.00. Up to this point the Rangers were neck and neck with Grand Haven. However, one skier remained to score for both teams. Sophomore Colton Comiskey sped down the hill just fast enough to score a 14th overall finish in 1:11.32 and tie the score up with Grand Haven. With 34 points each, both schools were to rely on their fifth skier. While Grand Haven had been strong up to this point, FHC proved that they were the deeper team on the slopes. Grant McLean proved to be the tiebreaker, having beat out the next skier for Grand Haven by two places and a 15th place finish in 1:11.52. Taylor is proud of the way his squad performed, and comments on their optimistic future.
“I think today was a good indicator of where we should place people in the run order,” Taylor said. “It is always good to have another race under our belt so when we get to regionals we will be more prepared.”
While the guys were skiing great, the girls’ side was doing some domination of their own. The lady Rangers placed second with a total of 31 points, falling only to an amazing Grand Haven team. Sophomores Addy Quinn and Chloe Cox continue to show their dominant nature, placing third and fourth overall for the Rangers. Quinn made it through the finish in 1:03.85 and Cox right behind her at 1:04.54. Cox noted the strength of the team going into the race and how it played out.
“Everybody came out with a good positive attitude,” Cox said. “And wanting to get as much time on snow as possible. Everybody did great and executed what we discussed and it turned out good.”
Behind Cox and Quinn was senior Olivia Oorbeck who sped down the slope in 1:07.77 for an eleventh place finish and senior Kiera Kemppainen placed 13th overall in 1:08.21 to cap off the scoring for FHC. Cox comments on how the conditions affect the team’s performance.
“There were a bunch of dirt patches,” Cox said. “So you had to be careful in skiing to avoid them, and the edges were hard to control, which meant we had to be mindful while going down the hill.”
Even though the weather and not ideal snow may have slowed other teams down, the Rangers proved to be resilient once again. As an added bonus, FHC is looking exceptionally strong heading into the postseason, with regionals at Caberfae on the clock. The Rangers have high hopes of state qualifying because of their tremendous efforts off of the race at Cannonsburg. Coach Sutton explains how piggy-backing off this result will propel them into postseason success.
“To qualify for the state meet we must race well at regionals,” Sutton said. “Meets like this get us towards regionals and help us get in the mentality for competitive racing.”
