The Lakers are finally on the slopes as the first meetings of 2024 are underway at Crystal Mountain over the past week.
The Glen Lake cooperative ski team includes students from Lake Leelanau St. Mary and Leland high schools.
“It was cold weather but it made for good skiing with the snow,” Lake Leelanau St. Mary junior Elena Grant said. “For some of us, a lot of the local teams, it was our second day in Gates this season. So we were all kind of on the same level. It was a lot of fun and the courses were a lot of fun too.”
Even though this was the first time racing down the hill this season, Grant’s mentality doesn’t change.
“My personal mentality, I just use it as another practice, working on what I’ve been working on and going through those gates.”
The Laker ski team was able to start setting gates for practice Jan. 16 and 17 after the much needed snow. The lack of snow cut down an already short, six-to-seven week prep ski season to four weeks.
Regionals will be taking place at Crystal Mountain three weeks from Tuesday.
“We ran a little bit of both and stayed late and, as much practice as we could. Overall the kids all skied really well considering that we haven’t had much practicing gates,” Glen Lake ski coach John Kasben said.
Glen Lake’s boys were all really close and saw fast runs in the first races of the season.
“It’s gonna be exciting to watch them, kinda hammer that out over the next few weeks. And, um, they’re all skiing really? Well, we’re just trying to get things dialed in and, still, right now we’ve only had four practices in gates.”
In many ways these skiers are getting thrown into the fire.
First-time skiers Justin Thompson and Hawthorne Sutherland are performing strongly to start the season. The Lakers have five girls on the team and two of them have never raced before with Kendall McNitt and Lexi Alysworth.
“We’re just training really hard, taking advantage of all our time we have on the hill,” Kasben said. “We got a lot of the fundamentals taken care of and now we’re just fine tuning the racing.” Kasben said Willa Murray has been the team’s star.
At the first Lake Michigan Ski Conference (LMSC) race of the season Jan. 17, Onekama took home the first win, followed by Benzie, Caledonia, and Glen Lake. On the boys side, Onekama came in first with Glen Lake trailing close behind, followed by Caledonia, and Benzie.
The Lakers also competed at the Bryan Groenevelt Memorial Invitational on Monday. Glen Lake girls finished fifth with 144 points (GS 91, slalom 93), behind first-place GRC, Grayling, Clare, and Benzie. Laker boys finished fifth as well, behind Benzie, Onekama, Grayling, and firstplace winner Mt. Pleasant.
Boys Results(GS):(Name, first run, second run, total time) Colin Kasben 21.06, 21.3, 42.42; Justin Thompson 21.85 , 21.84, 43.69; Bryce Cundiff 23.99, 25.34, 49.33; Porter Martin 34.61, 31.93, 1:06.54;m Hawthorn Sutherland 1:12.52, 22.36, 1:34.88.
Slalom: Kasben 29.35, 34.79, 1:04.14; Sutherland 32.24, 33.56, 1:05.80; Justin Thompson 34.33, 32.19, 1:06.52; Cundiff 36.69, 38.04, 1:14.73; Thompson 34.35,42.72,1:17.07; Porter Martin 59.23, 58.63,1:57.86.
Girls results GS and slalom: Willa Murray 22.03, 22.50, 44.53; Jacqueline Hearne 24.50, 24.98, 49.48; Elena Grant 27.61, 28.30, 55.91; Kendall McNitt 29.27, 29.06, 58.33; Lexi Aylsworth 31.50, 31.00, 1:02.50.
Slalom: Murray 31.70, 31.55, 1:03.25; Hearne 37.71, 36.86, 1:14.57; Grant 43.06, 44.16 1:27.22; Aylsworth 49.40, 47.84, 1:37.24; McNitt 1:02.37, 47.04, 1:49.41.
