On Saturday, the spirited Sturgeon Bay Ski and Snowboard Team wrapped up another fine season at Ski Brule, located in the territory formerly known as Upper Wisconsin. The team's goals: post their best times of the season, generate the most cowbell at the finish line, and convince some impressionable TJ Walker middle schoolers to join the team next year. Largely, the day was a huge success! The Clipper parents contributed more cowbell than at any of the previous meets, the middle schoolers were surely impressed, and five of the seven competitors posted their best times of the season!
Junior Tori Alger set the pace for the Clippers, finishing 13th overall in the meet and posting the Clippers' best times in both the Slalom and Giant Slalom. Julia "Fancy Poles" Gregory had the best meet of her career, coming within one-tenth of a second of catching Tori in the Giant Slalom, while Freshmen Jordis Brilla and June VanLieshout continued their tradition of improving at basically the same rate and coming within seconds of each other's combined times overall. Look for Brilla and VanLieshout to continue to push each other throughout their storied alpine skiing careers!
On the guys side, Junior Ben Stephens suffered a yard sale fall in the Giant Slalom but still set the pace in the Slalom and Super G. Freshman Levi Ullman continued his quiet, consistent improvement and finished as the second fastest Clipper boy on the day, followed by Junior HA-vee-air Jzahn-DREEN.
For the season, Tori Alger posted the best finishes in three of the four meets, while Ben Stephens posted the best finish in the third meet of the season. The two Juniors consistently set the pace for the remainder of the Clipper skiers. Four of our Lady Clipper skiers pushed each other throughout the year and improved as a group with Jordis Brilla and June VanLieshout improving their times by 25%, first year Senior Lilly Cihlar improving by 23%, and Julia Gregory improving an impressive 21%. Like the world-class skier that he is, HA-vee-air Jzahn-DREEN, known on the Peninsula as Xavier Jandrin, was consistently good throughout the year and was the heart and soul of the 9 passenger van, while Freshman Levi Ullman improved incrementally in each and every race. Junior Maddie Propsom was only able to compete in one meet this year, but had a good showing in that race. Similarly, snowboarder Tristan Brilla was only able to compete in one meet this year, but posted a 2nd place conference finish at that meet. Freshman Yarrow Goettleman practiced with the team but suffered a season-ending injury on the basketball court and unfortunately could not compete in any conference meets. We look forward to having both Brilla and Goettleman back at full strength next year!
Congratulations to these fine Sturgeon Bay student-athletes for another great year on the slopes! As we always say, "School is important, but skiing is importanter." (We don't really say that Mr. Nerby...just a joke!)
