Eastern High School Championships

The Massachusetts team and CSU skiers soared to new heights this weekend at the Eastern High School Championships, held up in Rumford, Maine.  Rumford actually had snow, which is more than could be said for US Nationals, held in the same location back in January and with lots of March sunshine and some good klister waxing, if I do say so myself, Massachusetts came home in second place!!  Graham Taylor, team leader and the man who started EHS back in the mid 1980s, said it was the best Mass finish since 1991. 

The weekend started on Friday with a skate race on a one loop course.  It was 65F when I arrived in Rumford earlier in the day and while probably not that warm by the time the  races were held at 3 and 4pm, nevertheless the courses were very soft and mushy and not easy to skate on.  The Mass team didn't fair too well in the opening race, finishing 4th on the day, but several CSUers still had some excellent performances with Chris Burnham in 9th, Eli Hoenig in 10th, Tommy Rummel 20 and Neil Garrison 21 on the boy's side and Corey Stock in 3rd place, Olivia Meyerson in 9th, Nadja Kern 13 and Zoe Snow 24.  That night the waxing crew went to work to rewax and reflouro multitudes of skate skis and to get the relay classic skis ready.  Sleep?  Who needs it!

Saturday morning dawned with light snow falling on a rock hard track.  Rob and I were happy we weren't klister waxing for the sprint, which was a skate race this year.  Things softened up a bit by the time the race started.  The sprint course was not too hard, with a long flat section, one big hill and then downhill and flat to the finish.  The J2 course last weekend at Gunstock is a much harder sprint course.  Hamish McEwen roared back from a subpar performance on Friday to snag first place in the sprint by over 1 second, followed by Eli in 3rd, Tommy in 10th, Neil in 15th, Chris Burnham in 24th and Rion O'Grady in 29th.  In fact, the Mass boys did so well that they were 1st in the sprint race!!  On the girl's side the race went almost as well with Corey Stock taking a commanding win by almost 6 seconds!!   Zoe Snow finished 8th, Olivia Meyerson 11th, Nadja Kern 22nd and Hannah Smith 34th. 

After a few hours to rest midday while the wax team dialed in the kick wax for the relay in the ever sunnier conditions the relay teams were ready to rock.  On the first classic leg was Hamish McEwen who's job was to get out and establish a position near the front.  We were all a bit worried as Maine's Tom Rabone took off and gapped the field quite handily by 50 seconds.  Was the goal of winning for the 4th year gone on leg one?  It sure looked that way.  Hamish handed off to Olivia Meyerson in a group with 2 Vermont girls and behind Maine's big lead.  Olivia hung tough as the Vermont girls pulled.  Slowly the gap to the Maine girl in first was cut down and by the end of the leg Olivia and the Vermont girls were about 8 seconds back  Eli now took over and stalked the Vermont skier after they dumped Maine, who just couldn't hang with the tough pace.  The gap closed and as they came down the hill to the stadium it was clear that Eli was going to have a shot at handing off in first.  We couldn't see the exchange from the wax area but moments later Corey Stock came charging under the bridge with what was already an insurmountable lead!  Corey then proceeded to lengthen the lead for the rest of the leg and for the 4th year in a row the Mass team come home in first, with a decisive 53 second lead over Vermont.  While the battle at the front was exciting, Mass teams 2, 3 and 4 were also battling well and with the best relay results I can remember finished in 4th, 6th and 16th.  In fact, Mass's first 3 teams were home before any other state's 2nd team finished.  Quite a show indeed!

In the evening everyone headed off to the banquet, which seemed more of a snack.  Rob and I stopped at Sam's on the way back to wax skis to get a sandwich.  We hoped that the kids gots seconds because if they didn't they were going to be hungry.  

Sunday dawned with a bright sky and cold temps that promised to rise rapidly.  As Rob and I started fiddling with klister combos with additional wax testing by Jim Stock, Liz Kantack, and Bob Burnham, we were informed that the start would be delayed by 1 hour since the groomer had broken down.  This would allow the temps to creep up by the time the girl's race would start to dangerously slushy territory.  An additional 15 minute delay for the boys caused more consternation as we had started applying our klister stew of Viola., Multiviola and Silver to the boys skis.  It better work!  Well, not to worry.  As the race started and the boys rocketed down the first fast downhill, it was obvious that Eli's skis were FAST and he climbed the first hill just fine.  This would be fun to watch.  The boys disappeared from sight and when they reappeared Eli was stalking Tom Rabone once again.  As they came down the final hill Eli's skis seemed fast again and it would come down to a double pole battle.  Now, if you've ever seen Eli double pole you'd know who to put your money on and sure enough, Eli gained a 0.7 sec victory by the line.  Following Eli were a number of other excellent CSU performances including Hamish McEwen in 9th, Rion in 14th, Neil in 21st, Chris Burnham in 24th, Ian Meyer in 27th and Chris Koziel in 39th.

By the time the girls race started I was a bit nervous that the same wax job might be too slick for the rapidly warming track.   However, watching Corey Stock motor up the first hill alleviated my worries.  Corey skied with Heidi Halvorsen and Mary Kate Cirelli, both of Vermont.  Corey's plan was to push over the top of High School Hill on lap two and see if she could drop the Vermonters.  The plan worked well and Corey completely dropped both competitors and had a clear lead all the way to the line.  CSU now had both top podium spots for the day!!  Several other CSUers skied well with Ms. Consistency, Olivia Meyerson coming home 9th, Nadja Kern in 11th, Zoe Snow in 13th, Hannah Smith in 21st, Olivia Cannon in 36th and Rebecca Smith 41st. 

The classic race put Team Massachusetts decisively into 2nd place and gave both Eli and Corey the all-around top spot on the podium with Olivia 5th, Zoe 10th and Nadja 11th for girls and Neil 14th, Chris 15th and Hamish 18th.

An excellent weekend of ski racing to close out the season, for sure!

Knock, knock, knocking on Vermont's door.........