Queens of the Winter’s slopes: HRV girls win state championship

The combined girls’ and boys’ teams finished third behind the Bend Lava Bears and Sisters Outlaws by a mere six and a half seconds. The teams had a strong showing in Friday afternoon’s final events.

But the talk of the championship was the comeback made by the girls’ team on Friday.

On a slope called Winter, named for ‘The Winter’s Tale,’ all ski runs on Mt. Ashland are named with a Shakespearean theme. The slope consistency on a hill that the girls had not skied before until a Wednesday practice day. After Thursday’s Giant Slalom on Tempest, the Southridge High School coach set a 23-gate, swinging, wide-open course. It proved just for the liking of HRV senior Emily Teets as she negotiated the course in 48.57 seconds, nearly a second faster than Liz Connelly of Summit High School. Arlie Sparling, a newcomer to the Eagles ski team, had a time of 54.86 seconds, and Zoe Mortensen, with a 1:00.78 seconds, were the three counting times, putting HRV in 3rd place after the first run. The second course of the same hill came as the weather on the mountain moderated. After being unable to see more than two giant slalom gates ahead, the second course had great visibility for the runners and the hundreds of spectators lined the finish areas.

For Teets, the change in weather did not matter. Poor visibility on the first run, she had the fastest time, and with clearing conditions, she had the quickest time again. Her combined time was nearly two seconds faster than Alyanna Van Horn of South Medford who was skiing on her home mountain. Mortensen finished 21st on the second run with a time of 54.15, and Sparling finished 32nd at 56.15 seconds. HRV’s combined time of 5:24.59 left them in the same third place behind Bend.

Kaiya Doty of The Dalles finished 28th in the state after Thursday’s giant slalom skiing as an individual, as the team from The Dalles did not qualify for state. Her first run under extremely tough conditions placed her 40th.

The HRV boy’s team raced on the Winter run on Thursday in the same conditions that plagued the girls. All the boys’ teams had an advantage: they were competing in a slalom race with the gates much closer together and visibility not as much of a factor.

Lars Welch’s combined time of 1:06 seconds ended up 6.47 seconds behind Ivar Hokkanon. Jess Aubert finished 33rd and Davis Pruder finished 46th. After the two-run slalom, the Hood River boys team was in 7th place behind the Lake Oswego Lakers.

The weather and the events changed on Friday; the girls would compete in the slalom on Winter, and the boys would ski the longer giant slalom on Tempest. For the Eagle girls who had their sights on another state title the weather and the course proved to be to their liking.

The slalom course was again a 43-gate affair, straight down the fall line with only a few gates across the hill to slow their speed. Teets was attempting to defend the slalom crown she won last year at Mt. Hood Meadows, but unfortunately, it was not meant to be.

High school racing at its core is a team event, and even though Teets would end up eighth in the slalom, the team she led all season would rise with her. First, it was Zoe Mortensen, who would finish in 18th after the first run. Sparling would finish 20th close behind in, and Eliotte Walsh would finish 31st. Walsh would end up being the catalyst for the HRV girls’ comeback.

The starting order for the top thirty finishers in the first run is reversed in Oregon high school racing. For HRV, Sparling would be the tenth starter on the reset course, Mortensen the twelfth, and Teets the twenty-second. Sparling had a solid run to finish 11th. The drama and anxiety for the girls began when Mortensen fell and did not finish her second run. This meant that Teets would have to ski conservatively to ensure that HRV had two of the three counting times needed. Teets would end up 8th again but with a respectable and, more importantly, a counting time. This left Walsh and Kailee Klindt to ensure that HRV had that third time. Klindt was up to the challenge, but Walsh was the hero. Skiing from the 58th starting position, she ended up 26th, and her time provided the .23 second margin needed to move HRV from 3rd to first. The Eagle girls won the slalom and finished with a team time of 4:42.72, six seconds faster than Grant High School. More importantly, it made up the six-and-a-half second deficit behind first-day leader Bend and won the Halton-Pape Cup for the 12th time in its 56-year history.

On Friday, the boy’s giant slalom was held on ‘Tempest,’ a fairly long, steep slope near the starting gate, gradually changing over the 23 paneled gates to the finish. The first run was not as wide open as the course set on the same hill the day before. Welch had the 8th fastest time, and Beckett Eaton, another newcomer to the HRV ski team, had the 19th fastest time, 53.13 seconds. Pruder Davis, who finished 48th, 59.87, turned in the third counting time for the boys.

On Friday afternoon, Hood River Valley’s assistant ski coach Blaine Baker set the reset giant slalom. He opened the course up to make it faster for the second run and was to young Eaton’s liking as he finished 7th, 45.77 seconds, just ahead of the team leader Welch, 46.48 seconds. Davis again provided the third time by finishing 56th. Aubert fell on his first run and finished 68th on the second run. The fifth member of the team, Jaden Johnson, finished 78th combined. Welch’s giant slalom combined time put him 8th, Eaton was 13th, and Davis 45th.

When the combined slalom and giant slalom times were compiled, Welch ended up 6th in the state. Pruder was 30th and Johnson 43rd.

Rowan Shuman of Trout Lake was 15th after the first run in the giant slalom but fell the second run was his binding pre-released in the fourth paneled gate.

Lake Oswego boys won the Dartmouth Cup, the perpetual trophy given out to the winning boys’ ski team since 1936. Hood River Valley has had it in its possession 7 times since the school opened in the fall of 1970. The first time was in 1972.

The combined boys and girls team is awarded the Bill Healy Cup, and HRV has won it 10 times since it was commissioned in 1978.