TC Central win overall and girls HS Nordic ski title
Results
Mon, Feb 16, 2009 - By Maureen Schick
TC Central takes Overall and Girls HS Nordic Ski Title (Sunday, February 15, 2009)
Traverse City Central High School took the Girls State Title and combined with the Boys third place finish to win the Overall State Title in the Michigan High School State Finals in Nordic Skiing. The girls scored 196 points to defeat the 5-time defending Copper Country team who finished in 2nd with 157 points. Lake Michigan (Boyne City) finished third in the girls competition with 82 points.
On the boys side, Superiorland (Marquette) won first with 201 points by defeating the Copper Country who finished with 131 points. Third place went to Traverse City Central.
In the Overall Results, Traverse City Central had 301 points with the Copper Country (3-time defending champions) coming in second with 288 points. Superiorland finished in third place with 249 points.
The races were held at the Michigan Tech Nordic Ski Trails in Houghton.
Saturday's Pursuit
Zach Wagner of the Superiorland Ski Club (based in Marquette) took home the 2009 Michigan State High School Cross Country ski championship Saturday by 46 seconds. His Superiorland teammate Ellen Wiitala took the girls title in a sprint finish against Kaitlyn Patterson of Cadillac.
The race was a pursuit format, which means skiers compete in a classic-style race in the morning and a freestyle race in the afternoon. The start position for the afternoon race is based on the morning finish. So, a racer finishing 15 seconds behind the morning leader starts the afternoon race 15 seconds back.
In the boys contest, Wagner won the classic race in the morning while Kai Sharp, of the Copper Country Ski Tigers, was crowned freestyle champ in the afternoon. When totaling the time from both races, Wagner took the overall title, with Sharp second.
In the girls race, Patterson won the classic title, 10 seconds ahead of Ellen Wiitala of Superiorland. But Wiitala made up that time and more to take the afternoon freestyle race and the overall title (by four seconds).
After the first day, the Traverse City Trojans lead the overall team competition, with 203 points, with the Copper Country twenty points back in second and the Superiorland in third. Traverse City leads the girls team competition, as well, and Superiorland ranks first in the boys category. Team points will also be scored during the sprints and the team champions will be crowned Sunday afternoon.
Sunday's Sprint
The competition finished on Sunday with the Sprint races. After the qualifying round in which the top 16 skiers were chosen, skiers were seeded for the semi-finals and finals. Taking first place in the boys competition was Brendan Baic (Lake Michigan) followed by Zach Wagner (Superiorland) and Kai Sharp (Copper Country)
The girls winner was Ruth Oppliger (Copper Country) followed by teammates Julia Otwell and Maria Frick (TC Central).
See the individual results from each race (PDF).
| Overall Team Results | ||
| Points | Rank | |
| TC Central-Trojans | 306 | 1 |
| Copper Country A | 288 | 2 |
| Superiorland A | 249 |
3 |
| Lake Michigan | 164 | 4 |
| Team Gogebic | 97 | 5 |
| TC West-Titans | 72 | 6 |
| TC Central-Black | 56 |
7 |
| Copper Country B | 44 |
8 |
| Superiorland B | 18 |
9 |
| TC-St. Francis | 14 |
10 |
| TC Central- Gold | 10 |
11 |
| BOYS Team Results | |||||
| Classic | Freestyle | Sprint | Total | Rank | |
| Superiorland A | 75 | 61 | 65 | 201 | 1 |
| Copper Country A | 37 | 55 | 39 | 131 | 2 |
| TC Central-Trojans | 35 | 42 | 33 | 110 | 3 |
| Lake Michigan | 25 | 19 | 38 | 82 | 4 |
| Team Gogebic | 22 | 22 | 28 | 72 | 5 |
| TC West-Titans | 15 | 8 | 5 | 28 | 6 |
| Superiorland B | 7 | 4 | 7 | 18 | 7 |
| TC-St. Francis | 8 | 5 | 1 | 14 | 8 |
| TC Central- Gold | 1 | 4 | 1 | 6 | 9 |
| TC Central-Black | 0 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 10 |
| Copper Country B | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 11 |
| GIRLS Team Results | |||||
| Classic | Freestyle | Sprint | Total | Rank | |
| TC Central-Trojans | 62 | 64 | 70 | 196 | 1 |
| Copper Country A | 48 | 44 | 65 | 157 | 2 |
| Lake Michigan | 37 | 36 | 9 | 82 | 3 |
| TC Central-Black | 11 | 20 | 20 | 51 | 4 |
| Superiorland A | 22 | 25 | 1 | 48 | 5 |
| Copper Country B | 13 | 4 | 27 | 44 | 6 |
| TC West-Titans | 19 | 17 | 8 | 44 | 6 |
| Team Gogebic | 7 | 10 | 8 | 25 | 8 |
| TC Central- Gold | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 9 |
| TC-St. Francis | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| Superiorland B | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 |