Mount Greylock Skiers Start Season Strong
WOODFORD, Vt. -- The Mount Greylock cross country ski team did not let a little thing like a brown Christmas slow them down.
While some "flatlanders" may have missed the snow that came in November and was gone by mid December, the Mounties were going where the white stuff was and gearing up for the 2014-15 Nordic season.
And all that preparation paid off handsomely.
Mount Greylock's boys and girls showed they once again will be the team to beat this winter at Tuesday's season opener at the Prospect Mountain Cross-Country Ski Center.
The girls took four of the top five positions and six of the top 10. The boys posted the day's top three times and seven of the top 10 on the approximately 4.5-kilometer course.
"Prospect still has snow, so we've been able to take advantage of this, which is amazing," Mount Greylock's Will Nolan said. "They seem to still have snow when nobody else does. And then we also took a ski trip up to Rikert in [Ripton, Vt.], last weekend, which was a really good time on snow. There were beautiful conditions up there.
"So we've had to traveled a little bit, but we've gotten on snow, which is nice."
Nolan won the boys race in a time of 20 minutes, 45 seconds. He was followed across the finish line by teammates Matt Wiseman (21:19) and Jake Kobrin (21:48).
Northfield Mount Hermon's Estevan Velez (21:55) finished fourth before Mount Greylock's Thomas Schoolemmer, Joey Gais and John Driver.
The Mount Greylock boys, who are looking to repeat again as state champions later this winter, won in impressive fashion on Tuesday despite missing one of their potential scorers, Ian Culnane, who is recovering from an injury.
"We lost two in our top 10 from last year, I think, so we're looking pretty good," Nolan said.
The Mount Greylock girls are looking good, too, especially Grace Smith, who ran away with the girls individual title on Tuesday in a time of 24:57. Second place went to Mohawk Trail's Allison Lull in 26:37.
Mount Greylock's Sophie Gerry, Christina Butcher and Greta Savitsky were third, fourth and fifth, respectively.