The Hood River Valley Nordic team traveled to Bend over the weekend, where it found enough snow to continue the season’s OHSNO league race series. The race was originally scheduled for Mt. Hood, and was planned to be a “Pursuit” style race with both classic and skate legs, but the lack of snowpack and dire weather predictions forced a move to central Oregon, where the mountains have a bit more snow.
Due to the move, the event was changed to a 5K skate style race at Mt. Bachelor, with mass starts and some thrilling downhill in which racers were challenged to stay upright and avoid downed skiers blocking the course. HRV Nordic showed their skills by placing four boys and two girls on the podium. The result put the HRV boys at second in team scoring behind Summit and the HRV girls were third behind Summit and Bend.
Nils Engbersen came in third overall with a time of 14:27, to narrowly beat teammate Daniel Fischer, who finished fifth with a time of 14:33. A tick behind, in sixth, was Jesse Wiley, who put in a time of 14:34. Leif Bergstrom followed in eighth place with a time of 15:10, Muir Emmons had a strong 15th place finish (16:35), followed by Elkin Parker in 20th (16:54) and Luke Serra in 21st (17:10).
Proving the team’s great depth against the 60-man field were additional finishers Joey Slover, Jake Bromham, Alex Chadney, Conner Truax, Emmett Becker, Alec Mathews, and Mason McDowell.
On the girls side, in a 50-person field, HRV’s top racer was Valerie Fischer, who finished fourth overall in a time of 16:58. Daisy Dolan came in tenth (18:42) and was followed closely by Denali Emmons in 11th (18:50) and Lauren Robinson in 12th (19:08). Terri Hewitt, Hannah Hill, Ella Van Cott and Zoe Shepard rounded out the girls finishes.
“HRV has had minimal on-snow time lately, and we know Bend teams have been running that course all week long,” coach Joe Dolan commented. “It was a super technical and challenging course and the HRV team rocked it!”
The team hopes to be able to access snow at Mt. Hood Meadows in the next few weeks in order to prepare for their state meet Feb. 27-28 at Mt. Bachelor.
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