Mt. Blue’s Emma Charles, second from left, takes an early lead from the starting line on Wayneflete’s Julia Werner (3) and Camden Hills’ Allison Gill (4) during the Maranacook Waves Nordic ski race Saturday in Readfield. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal
The central Maine area often dominates championship season in skiing. This winter was no different.
Along the way to that dominance, however, there were some surprises.
Five teams captured state titles on the slopes or cross country trails as championships returned following a season without them due to the pandemic. Mt. Blue’s boys and girls Nordic teams won Class A championships. Mt. Blue’s girls Alpine team also won a Class A title, Maranacook’s girls Nordic team skied its way to a Class B championship, and Mt. Abram’s boys Nordic team was the best in Class C.
Mt. Blue’s Nordic sweep was the school’s third in six years, but the first since 2017, and the first for third-year coach Emmy Held.
“We train all together,” Held said. “What’s really neat is that the girls were almost as proud of the boys’ championship win as they were of their own, because they helped the boys get there as well. That’s the really special thing about a co-ed sport.”
Mt. Blue’s girls team was the definition of dominance. In Emma Charles and Brynne Robbins, the Cougars had the two best skiers in the state, and Nora McCourt and Bridget Reusch gave them four of the top five. The four had the best classical times across all three state meets.
“It wasn’t necessarily a surprise,” Held said, “but it was really wonderful to see them all out there, having the time of their lives and working together.”
Charles, who skis on the Eastern Cup and Junior Nationals scene, and Robbins gave the Cougars a special 1-2 punch at the top.
“For Emma, there’s so much focus on (national races) that it could be really hard to also manage racing with your team, but she puts a lot of effort into balancing all those things. She’s stayed really motivated,” Held said. “(Brynne’s) always been fearless on downhills. She just loves a chase.”
The Mt. Blue boys had fallen just short in the past two championship meets, finishing third in 2020 and second by two points in 2019. But this year, with Carson Zundel and Henri McCourt leading the way, the Cougars reached the pinnacle.
“It was really a special moment. … They were hungry for it, and they went and got it,” Held said. “They knew that if they wanted it, it would have to be really hard fought. … We had a lot of conversations throughout the season of ‘This is how it’s looking right now. If we want it, we’ve got to stay hungry, we’ve got to keep working for it.'”
Mt. Blue added more hardware when the girls Alpine team raced its way to a second straight Class A championship. Sadie McDonough was fifth in the giant slalom and fourth in the slalom to lead the Cougars, while Vivian Cormier and Katie Yeaton added top-10 results in the slalom and Khloe Dean and Yeaton did the same in the giant slalom.
Mt. Blue’s Josh Smith flies down the course Feb. 18 during the Class A State Championship slalom race at Black Mountain in Rumford. He finished second. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal
“We don’t have any stellar athletes that are going to go to … win for the state, but what we have is five or six girls that can consistently come in the top 20,” coach Mark Cyr said. “When it comes to state championships, that’s huge. If I can get five girls in the top 15, we’re in very, very good shape at the state meet.”
Cyr acknowledged that the state championships are a “blind shot” due to the unknown element with the southern teams. After the first day of giant slalom, however, with Mt. Blue holding a 31-point lead on Freeport/Brunswick, he figured the Cougars were in the clear.
“Slalom was our better event,” he said. “If we could come out ahead or very close in the GS on the first day, we knew the second day that we were going to improve.”
In Class B Nordic, the Maranacook girls didn’t find their title form until the end of the season — just in time for the championship meet.
“I don’t think winning the state championship for the girls was even on the radar screen, even a remote thought, until a couple of weeks before the state meet,” coach Steve DeAngelis said. “We had a rough year, to be honest. … The team didn’t really come together and start to peak until a week, two weeks before.”
At the Class B championships, however, the Black Bears got to work. Elsa Bergdahl was third in the classical, while Jenna Badeau (seventh) and Olympia Farrell (eighth) gave Maranacook two more in the top 10. After the freestyle pursuit race, Badeau and Farrell had climbed up a position, and with Lina Martinez Nocito turning in a 16th-place finish, the Black Bears had enough for a seven-point victory over Leavitt.
DeAngelis said the victory was one of toughness and resilience. Temperatures in the 60s made the classical race a slog through slush and standing water, while a return to cold weather for the next day made the freestyle trail a slick, icy track.
Olympia Farrell of Maranacook High School tucks Feb. 24 during the Nordic state championship pursuit ski meet at Black Mountain in Rumford. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal
In those challenging conditions, however, the Black Bears thrived.
“I give them a ton of credit for that,” DeAngelis said. “They handled the conditions better than anybody else, and that’s the key. They didn’t have their fastest races or their best races ever, but nobody had their best races ever under those conditions. … That was a lot of good mental toughness on their part.”
Mt. Abram’s boys skiing history had included eight state championships, but none since 1999, and none in Nordic alone. That changed this season, as the Roadrunners edged perennial power Fort Kent 767-763 for the title.
Alex Hemingway was the Class C state champion for Mt. Abram with a combined time of 29:42 between the classical and freestyle races, while Jeff Warnock (sixth), Cameron Walters (seventh) and Carter Butterfield (23rd) also made up the Roadrunners’ top four.
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