George Harrison placed ninth, Lucy Booth tacked on 12th place honors and The Dalles rattled off six top-25 two-run times at their final regular-season race on Feb. 22 atop Mount Hood Meadows on the Middlefork giant slalom course.
Harrison had the eighth-best opening-run time at 53.38 seconds and followed that with a 54.04 to net his final mark of 1:47.42, finishing just 12.27 seconds behind Franklin’s Nils Streedain (1:35.15).
Booth, TD’s top female skier, had a first attempt of 55.21 and then notched a 54.52 for a two-run rally of 1:49.73 and 12th place out of 79 participants.
“George finished his high school career with great racing. I’m going to miss him. He really stepped up and would have qualified for the state race easily had he not had a few mistakes at the beginning of the season,” TD head coach Dane Klindt said. “Lucy was the same. Had she gotten points in the two races that she was disqualified in, both her and George would be at state. It was bittersweet, because they showed the league what they had and did well at most of their races.”
Also for the boys, Grey Roetcisoender posted a 1:56.84 for 21st place in the standings, and right behind him in 22nd place was Cooper Klindt, who secured 22nd place after his junior varsity time of 1:57.21.
Bucky Wilkonson ended up 40th in the 58 skiers with his varsity mark of 2:20.87, and Paul Kelly was disqualified in his first attempt and then claimed the 39th-best time of 1:08.30 on his second try.
Sandy placed first in the boys standings with its 5:17.901, Hood River valley (5:20.955) grabbed second place and Franklin ended up third (5:26.010) in the seven-team order of finish.
The Dalles totaled 6:01.613 to pick up sixth place.
Aidan Gonzales-Haynie enjoyed Hood River Valley’s best finish of fourth place (1:42.87), and teammates Parker Dey (1:48.93) and Hugh Dalbey (1:49.14) were 11th and 12th, respectively.
Staked by the top-10 outputs by Sarah Davies, Julia Olsen, Marisa Riggert and Alessandra Ferrari, the Hood River Valley girls scored first place as a team (5:10.588).
St. Mary’s Academy (5:20.668), Grant (5:21.086), The Dalles (5:48.691) and Sandy (5:50.401) made up the rest of the girls standings.
Backing up Booth individually for the Riverhawks was Hannah Biehn, who put up marks of 59.03 and 59.16 for her 1:58.19 to take 21st place, and Ashley Quisenberry churned out final times of 1:00.00 and 1:00.74 to take 25th place.
Ella Smith backed up her 33rd place rush in 2:06.65, as she started with a 1:02.60 and had a 1:04.05 on her final run.
“We ended the year on a high note. All the athletes skied great,” coach Klindt said.
Madison Swanson, of CHSW, toppled the girls field in first place with a 1:39.98, inching ahead of Grant’s Zoe Coughlin-Glasser (1:40.20).
Davies hit for third place to lead HRV (1:40.25), Olsen rallied to sixth (1:45.10), Riggert placed seventh (1:45.20) and Ferrari topped out in ninth place (1:46.82).
HRV’s Gonzales-Haynie and Dey were slalom state qualifiers and Hugh Dalbey cleared as the boys’ lone giant slalom participant.
State action concluded Saturday in Ashland.
Coach Klindt is looking forward to the 2020-2021 campaign, when he has a full roster of varsity skiers to choose from, as eighth graders Cooper Klindt and Henry Perez will start their freshman years, and the trio of Kelly, Wilkonson and Peyton Beeks all had a successful first seasons under their belt.
“We have a lot of potential on the boys side,” coach Klindt said. “Cooper and Henry will be solid, and Paul, Bucky and Peyton have become solid skiers, and next year they are going to add consistency to the team. None of those boys had skied much prior to this season and if you saw them today, you wouldn’t believe they only have one year of experience.”
Coach Klindt feels that Booth has what it takes to be a consistent top-5 skier one day, and the rest of the returning girls show a good amount of star potential.
“Lucy is going to be a name to keep an eye on next year, and Ashley, Ella and Fiona (Dunlop) are all really solid and hard workers,” coach Klindt said. “I expect them in the top-15, minimum, next season, and they will be something to deal with in this league. Hannah became a true ski racer midway through the season. She was impressive. I don’t know what happened with her, but everything she has been working on just started to click. She was a totally different skier in the beginning compared to what she has become at the end of the season.”
Commented
Sorry, there are no recent results for popular commented articles.