Kelsey
I was very excited to be coaching at EHS this year because I thought we might have the best all around team from top to bottom of any Mass team I've been involved with. I scooted over to Gunstock early so I could get around the course a couple times Friday afternoon to test rills and get a feel for the snow and the course. Of course, this involved multiple trips back and forth across the road with piles of stuff to set up the Mass wax area. What a pain! However, Gunstock had done a magnificent job with their snowmaking because even though there was no snow down at the Margate and only some in the woods up at the ski area, the trails were covered with feet of snow!!! Manmade, Weston type snow. CSU was going to do ok on this stuff!
Caitlin and Katie
Friday's race was a 5km individual start skate race on a 2.5k loop under mostly cloudy conditions. With a two loop course the coaches actually got to watch a lot of racing! The girls got things started as Mackenzie Hitchcock nailed down a top 10 finish for the Mass team, coming in 7th, followed by Olivia Meyerson in 19th, Nadja Kern in 22nd, Catherine Benson 43rd, Kaytie Innamorati 51st, Heather Fisher 71st, Meryl Cherner 74th, Kelsey Colpitts 84th, Katie Cosman 91st, Caitlin Guiney 104th and Ellen Goldberg in 107th. The snow was pretty soft and a lot of the girls struggled in this opening race. On the boys side, the Mass team fared quite a bit better, with Isaac Hoenig having an excellent race, coming in in 2nd place, 2 seconds behind Kalle Jahn, followed by Tommy Rummel in 8th and Andrew Reed in 10th, Chris Burnham 25th, Neil Garrison, recovering from a bad cold in 30th, Rion O'Grady continuing his excellent form from J2s in 31st, Erik Brote 68th, Nick Serbedzija 80th, Michael Chiauzzi 89th, and Ian Meyer 104th. 
Tommy Rummel
Saturday morning dawned mostly cloudy, but still no precipitation, much to our relief and off I went to set up shop at 7am and try to claim slightly more room for our wax area than we had the day before. I convinced the Maine team to move over a bit so we'd all be less crowded and then went out to ski the skate sprint course. It was very hard and icy and had one corner that was going to give racers a lot of trouble given the fast conditions. Once again, the girls led off with Mass skier Andrea Fischer, who had been really sick for a few days (she didn't ski on Friday) getting after it in a hurry, coming in 2nd in a tie with Shelby Aseltine from Maine, but well behind the winner Mary Kate Cirelli from Vermont. Mackenzie, skiing very consistently, was 8th, with Nadja moving up to 16th, followed closely by Olivia in 18th. The Mass girls were off to a much better start!!! Catherine Benson was 42nd, Kelsey moved way up to 58th, Kaytie Innamorati 88th, Ellen moved up to 97th, Meryl 103, Heather 104, Caitlin 105 and Katie Cosman 112. Several of the girls fell down somewhere due to the icy conditions and wave start format. For the boys, things softened up a bit to make the skiing quite a bit better, although now the last uphill was really soft and made for some tough skiing. With the order changing, but maintaining 3 top 10 finishes, Andrew Reed took charge for the Mass team finishing 3rd, followed by Isaac in 5th and Tommy in 7th. Chris Burnham popped an excellent sprint to come in 15th with Neil in 39th and Erik moving up to 47th, Michael having a stellar race in 57th, Rion, who had fallen, in 63rd, Nick 74th and Ian Meyer improving to 86th. One of the top Mass boys, Andrew Nesbitt, broke a pole which hurt our team scoring a lot, but for the 2nd race managed to stay ahead of the NH team. Our team goal for the weekend was to beat NH and the boys were ahead in both races! So far, so good.
Neil sprinting for home
After the lunchtime break, where, thanks to the efforts of Anne Burnham and other parents there was an excellent lunch table, complete with hot chocolate, so the kids (and coaches) could fuel up, we got ready for the mixed gender, mixed technique relay, always a highlight of EHS.
Isaac with Rion getting a good draft
For the last two years the Mass team had won the relay, but quite frankly I wasn't sure if we had the horsepower to pull it off again. Three years in a row would be very sweet indeed! Nadja led off in the classic scramble leg and skied very strongly to move into 2nd place behind Jenna Maddock. When there is a team event on the line, NEVER, count Nadja out! She handed off to Isaac, who very methodically moved up and passed the NH skier to take over 1st place by 10 sec or so in the 2nd classic leg. Isaac handed off to Mackenzie Hitchcock who also skied very well, lengthening their lead a bit by the time she handed over to anchor leg skier Andrew. Andrew put the hammer down and gapped 2nd and 3rd by over half a minute and brought the 1st Mass team home as winners for the 3rd year in a row!!! Sweet! I think the results are incorrect because by my count I'm sure they won by over 30 seconds, although the results show the gap only being 14 seconds and they show Andrew skiing with a much slower time than the next several skiers, but he increased the gap on his leg, so something is fishy there. However, no question about what place the team took! Other Mass teams finished 12, 19, 22, 28, 30, 34, 36, 40, 46, 47, 49. In addition, Mass finished the relay only 70 points down on Maine and ahead of NH. Things were starting to look very good for staying ahead of NH.
Andrew brings it home with no one else in site!
Sunday dawned with the dire forecast finally coming due....it was pouring out with a nice bit of slush thrown in. I headed up to the venue to set up the Mass team wax area with Ollie Burruss, arriving before the other teams and set up the CSU tent, benches, etc. and headed out to ski the course and test wax in our raincoats. It was pretty horrendous weather but with 1" of new ice pellets overnight and several feet of manmade snow under our boots, the skiing was actually very respectable! The Maine, NY and VT teams set up their waxing in the large tents that were for the kids, wimping out completely - what's with that, anyway?? I figured the kids needed all the dry space they could get and decided to stay out in the CSU tent. I had to go to a coaching meeting where the NH coach argued to cancel the event or at least shorten it from 7.5 km to 5 km. It was decided that a 5k mass start race would not work well with the timing and that the kids would stand around out in the rain less in a mass start event than if we switched to interval start and a shorter course. All the other coaches and I voted to keep the event as it was scheduled and so it went. But, it was nasty out there. I didn't even try to take pictures, so it must have been bad!
Olivia leads it out the relay
Katie Cosman #156 navigating the crowd as Sverre looks on
Due to the rain and wet snow, we ended up waxing with Rex OU (orange) and daps of Toko silver mixed in for added kick. Our kids had excellent skis and everyone was a true warrier, went out and skied their hardest in the lousy wind and rain. Isaac noted that he hardly noticed the rain once he started racing. Everyone stepped up beautifully with Nadja leading the way in 3rd place, followed by Mackenzie in 8th, Olivia in 16th, Catherine in 64th, Ellen moving way up to 71st, Heather 85, Katie Cosman 93, Kaytie Innamorati 94, Caitlin 97, Kelsey 98 and Meryl 106. The boys race was very exciting as Isaac took it out with a NH boy and slowly, inexorably pulled away to an insurmountable lead by the end of the 3rd lap, bringing home the top honors with Andrew Reed not far back in 4th, Andrew Nesbitt in 8th, Chris Burnham in 15th, Neil in 17th, Tommy 31, Rion 40, Erik 53, Nick skiing out of his mind in 60th, Ian Meyer 72 and Michael Chiauzzi, who suffered a broken pole, in 109th. The boys skied so well from top of the order to the end of the order that they beat both NH and Maine, while the Mass girls beat Maine and hung close enough to NH that in the total team score Mass came in 3rd for the first time in, like, forever! It was an awesome effort in the classic race, the race which only a few years ago we would have our worst result. YEAH MASS! HOOO YAA!
Nadja going all out in the relay
What a great way to go out on the season! To top things off, not only did Mass come in 3rd, but in the all around scoring Isaac finished 2nd to Kalle Jahn and Andrew Reed came in 3rd to put two CSU seniors on the podium! Tommy was 13th, Chris 16th, Neil 26th, Rion 38th, Erik 54, Nick 71, Michael 83 and Ian 92. For the girls, Mackenzie was 5th overall for Mass. Nadja was 10th, Olivia 18th, Catherine 48, Kelsey 86, Heather 91, Ellen 97, Katie 103, Meryl 106.
Erik in the relay
Ian
Heather
Nick hammers home
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