Mounties' Boys, Girls Nordic Skiers Shine Under the Lights

CHARLEMONT, Mass. — With cross country skiing conditions unreliable at best this winter, the area's high school Nordic ski community was happy when Berkshire East stepped up to host Monday evening's meet.

 

Those high school skiers may be even happier to have had the "alpine" experience once they return to their more conventional venues.

 

"I don't think it can hurt us," Mount Greylock coach Hilary Greene said. "When practicing on an alpine hill, you're generally going up, so you have the long uphills covered. And then the corners and transitions — any trail will have.

 

"I think it does [help]. It's more extreme, and in some cases it's intimidating, but it helps the kids overcome that. So when they get on this beautiful trail where you can actually ski 5K, they're less intimidating and can just attack it more."

 

Greene's Mounties were plenty intimidating themselves on Monday night.

 

Led by Grace Smith in first, Mount Greylock's girls team took seven of the top 11 positions in its race.

 

But Mount Greylock's boys were even more dominant, taking the top six positions with individual champion Jake Foehl taking top honors, 14 seconds ahead of teammate Will Nolan and two minutes ahead of the first non-Mountie, Mohawk's Tyler Andrews.

 

Matt Wiseman, Jake Kobrin, Derek Wood and Caleb Raymond finished third through sixth, respectively, for Mount Greylock's boys.

 

"Some of the best competition is on our own team," Foehl said. "We've got a lot of guys who battled hard tonight. Unfortunately, Ian [Culnane] couldn't go tonight because he was sick, but Will, Ian and I were planning on sticking together throughout the whole race.

 

"And then behind us, we've got a whole group of skiers at the back end of our top eight who ski really well together and worked hard together this race. We knew that everybody is a good skier, and everyone had a chance to do well in this race."

 

Rounding out the top 10 behind Andrews were Amherst's Duncan Crowley, Lenox's Matas Rudzinskas and Wahconah's Curran Doyle.

 

Hoosac Valley placed two boys in the top 20: Jared Haley and Travis Ciempa.

 

On the girls side, Smith won for the third time in three outings this season, coming in 25 seconds ahead of second-place Allison Lull of Mohawk.

 

Lenox's Josie Marshall and Alice Huth cracked the top 10 in third and seventh, respectively, and Wahconah's Ellen Ross was fifth.

 

Other than that, it was a sea of Mount Greylock red with Sophie Gerry and Christina Butcher in fourth and sixth and a quartet of Mounties placing eighth through 11th: Ellie Williams, Zavi Sheldon, Abby Wiseman and Niku Darafshi.

 

Hoosac's Allison Racela was the Hurricanes' top finisher in 56th place.

 

Smith said the season — despite the conditions — is shaping up nicely for the Mounties.

 

"We're coming together as a team, not only with our training but really bonding as a team, too," she said. "I think we're all really happy about how we're doing."

 

And, like her coach, Smith was happy to have a chance to get out and ski on Monday — no matter the venue.

 

"It's definitely a bummer we don't have snow at the regular Nordic places, but, considering, this is awesome and fast skiing tonight," Smith said. "It makes for a fun race to race under the lights and everything.

 

"It's a little bit tougher to warm up [at night], but after you get warmed up and you're in the race, it's OK for the most part."