Rhinelander/Pines ski teams head to state this weekend

The Rhinelander/Northland Pines boys and girls ski teams, along with the boys snowboarding team, stamped their ticket to the state meet at Mt. La Crosse Saturday-Monday, Feb. 14-16, after competing in the final conference meet of the season this past weekend. The boys ski team finished second in the Northern Conference, the girls team finished third, and the boys snowboard team led the pack of conference teams after the home meet at Ski Brule this past weekend in Iron River, Mich. 

The two ski teams finalized their conference position after taking first place in the meet itself, with the boys having 55 points, ahead of Wausau/D.C. Everest with 103 points. The Wausau schools took first place in the conference by two points. 

On the girls' side, Rhinelander/Pines won the meet by six points, holding 96 points to Wausau’s 102. The Wausau Co-op took first place in the conference with six points, winning four of the five meets this season. Ashwabay took second ahead of the Rhinelander/Pines team. 

Ski results 

Northland Pines and Rhinelander boys' athletes took four of the top five spots overall, led by Rhinelander senior Ben Olson in first and Northland Pines junior Eli Repenshek in third. Olson was the only sub-40-second time in the slalom race, as he finished with a time of 39.84. He also took first in the giant slalom with his race time of 31.28. He did finish second in his super giant run with a time of 29.52. Alber Hayek of the Wausau/D.C. Everest team snuck into first in that race with his time of 29.32. 

Repenshek grabbed his third-place position with a fourth-place finish in the slalom (41.52), third in the giant slalom (31.81) and fourth in the super giant (30.16). 

Rhinelander’s Holden Schmitz and Wyler Koput scattered top-10 finishes in all three runs to finish fourth and fifth overall. 

For the girls, it was Northland Pines sophomore Jessica Linn who paced the team with her third-place finish (19 points). She narrowly finished ahead of Washburn’s Emmi Roush (20 points) and Rhinelander teammates Lucy Eddy (22 points) and Aila Bergman (23 points). Linn had a five-place advantage on Roush in the slalom race, taking fifth with a time of 45.83 seconds. The Pines sophomore also finished eighth in the giant slalom and sixth in the super giant, with times of 35.94 and 32.93. 

Eddy and Bergman had similar combined finishing times to grab fifth and sixth overall. 

Snowboarding sweep 

It was a perfect season sweep for the team’s boys' snowboarding team, as the team finished with 62 team points at Ski Brule, edging out Wausau/D.C. Everest, who had 66 points. While Northland Pines varsity snowboarders Owen Sarkauskus and Sydney Sarkauskus did not compete in their respective divisions, it was Rhinelander athletes Soren Dumar, Marshall Durkee and Ayden Myers who finished first, second and fifth overall for the team. Dumar had a boarder cross best time of 41.39 out of his three runs, which was clear by nearly a second. He

ranked fourth in the slalom and back to first in the giant slalom race with a time of 27.54. That time was the best of the event by roughly a second and a half. For the season, Dumar was overall ranked first in all three of the events. 

Durkee finished second behind his teammate at Ski Brule, as he ranked second across the board in the three events. He had a time of 42.24 seconds in the boarder cross, 35.64 in the slalom and 29.04 in the giant slalom. 

Snowboarding events for the state meet will be on Saturday, starting with the opening ceremonies at 8 a.m. The ski competition will be a two-day event, with teams competing on Sunday and Monday.