Cruising through February

February 19th...just about 6 weeks remaining for the season.  We are entering the final push and craziness that is ski racing in March!  We finished up the last of the qualifiers for U18 Nationals and Eastern Junior FIS Finals this past week at Sunapee.  As our loyal bloggers know, the girls have been putting quite a bit of time into free skiing and training GS, trying to be productive with the difficult weather we have faced.  The girls all had moments during the two day GS series that they can take away as positive moments.  They all received a great compliment from one of the other coaches on the hill.  As the first run went on, this coach told me, "As girls would come down and I would think, 'yes, this girl is getting it, that is good skiing!' and I would look down at my start list and nearly every time I would see MMSC next to her name.  Your girls are doing great things!"  What a fantastic compliment for all of our girls to receive, especially at an event we have been working hard to change.  While it is still a work in progress...progress is certainly being made, way to go!

FIS Devo GS at Sunapee, February 14th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 7th

Courtney Hayden - 20th (won the 2nd run!)

Emma Sahn - 38th

Sophie Leiter 46th

Elly Bengtsson - 54th

Linley Shaw - 60th

Neza Stefanic - 72nd

Caroline Armbruster - 75th

Molly Danzig - 80th

Sarah Rowse - 88th

Denali Balser - 90th

FIS Devo GS at Sunapee, February 15th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 9th

Alita Rogers - 27th

Emma Sahn - 33rd

Sophie Leiter - 39th

Elly Bengtsson - 41st

Linley Shaw - 49th

Caroline Armbruster - 68th

Neza Stefanic - 75th

Molly Danzig - 77th

Sarah Rowse - 78th

After completion of the second GS, USSA East announced the Women's U18 Regional Team for U18 National's, naming the top 15 girls in the rankings to the team.  Kelsey ended up the 2nd ranked U18 in the Eastern Region and Alita was named as the first alternate for her ranking of 16th.  Qualifying from MMSC on the boys side are Griffin Brown and Ryan Collopy.  They will all represent the Eastern Region and MMSC/MMWA at Mammoth Mountain, CA next month.

U18 Eastern Regional Team

We have had an entertaining last few days of training SL on Main Street.  The snow has been absolutely perfect and we have been training a variety of shorter courses with different distances, different terrain, and different lengths.  The girls have done a fantastic job getting comfortable stepping on the gas in SL and going fast whilebeing very productive in some brutally cold temps and high winds!  They will be racing two FIS Open SL's this coming Thursday and Friday with a night SL followed by a day SL.  Sandra will be heading to Killington this weekend to race in the first of two weekends of U16 State Championships.  Good luck to all!

Lucy trying to stay warm...

I will end this blog with something for your viewing pleasure.  A few of the girls took sometime on one of our free skiing days to be a bit creative with their skiing and I must say I am quite impressed with the outcome!  I was going to embed the video but I think they would appreciate the increased views if I just post the link...enjoy!  Just a heads up, there is some VERY mild bad language in the song.

MMWA Ladies Music Video

More powder - less training!

Well, the weather has certainly been causing some training issues but it has been creating ample opportunities to free ski on some great snow!  This past week we were able to get in 3 days of GS progression starting with free skiing/drills on Tuesday, training on Exhibition Hill on Wednesday, training on SL Hill Thursday, followed by some great powder skiing Friday/Saturday, and finished the week with a full day of GS training on Main Street.  The girls are heading to Sunapee for two FIS Devo GS on February 14th and 15th...yes, a Valentine's Day race!  That means two things, 1) They will have to be each others Valentine's and 2) Some seriously discounted candy at stores on the way home!

While we were skiing powder, Kelsey and Elly were up at Sugarloaf for Speed Week.  The girls raced in 2SG's and 2DH's and both had some great results.  Kelsey dropped the hammer on the women's field winning both DH's by nearly 1 second each and Elly got her feet wet racing in her first ever DH's!  One of Kelsey's DH wins was in the long time running Rand Stowell DH.  She joined many big names on the trophy, one of those big names being Lucy's mom Eva!

FIS Eastern Cup SG at Sugarloaf, February 4th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 11th

Elly Bengtsson - 18th

FIS Eastern Cup SG at Sugarloaf, February 5th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 9th

Elly Bengtsson - 21st

FIS Eastern Cup DH at Sugarloaf, February 7th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 1st

Elly Bengtsson - 15th

FIS Eastern Cup DH at Sugarloaf, February 7th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 1st

Elly Bengtsson - 9th

On Sunday, we sent a group of girls to race in an Eastern Cup SL at Middlebury with a stacked, collegiate field.  The penalty for the race was 13, that is a serious field!  They all had some great moments although we had a couple of DNF's for Lucy Merriam and Denali Balser.

FIS Eastern Cup SL at Middlebury, February 10th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 22nd, 1st for U18's

Alita Rogers - 26th, 3rd for U18's

Courtney Hayden - 42nd

Kelsey and Alita on the U18 Podium at Middlebury

Sandra Schoepke raced SL at Sugarbush on Sunday in her final NVC race of the season.  She had a solid performance with a 3rd place second run and finished 4th overall.  She also finished as the 4th ranked girl in the NVC this season!

Lastly, we had another exciting gym competition.  This week we set up a circuit which consisted of sit-ups, body weight squats, hurdles, jump rope, more hurdles, and push-ups.  The girls were split up into 4 teams of 3, and they treated the circuit as a relay and a two run race.  The combined time results are...

1st - C4's (Chubby Cheesy Chunky Chispa's) Molly, Lucy, Linley - 5 minutes 15.9 seconds

2nd - FAATT (Fun Activities All The Time) Neza, Denali, Sandra - 5 minutes 25.1 seconds

3rd - Ba Na Na Naa - Alita, Courtney, Sophie - 5 minutes 27 seconds

4th - Brunette Betches - Emma, Sarah, Caroline - 5 minutes 58.7 second

Circuit Podium...classic Denali.

Good luck to the girls at Sunapee this week and we will have a handful of girls heading to Waterville to race two USSA SL's on February 16th and 17th.  Til next time...

Training? No thanks, we're all set.

We had a bit of a tough week as far as training goes...we had temps in the 40's and 50's, rain, wind, pretty much everything that makes training not possible and not safe.  We managed to stay productive with some sessions in the gym, extra study time for midterms, as well as a chance to get some extra rest before heading into the final two months of the season.  We were able to get on snow Tuesday for a free skiing morning and then we were not on snow again until Friday for some SL training in preparation for two VT Cup SL's at Bromley and Pico.  We took a group of 12 girls down to battle it out with the Southern VT teams and we came away with some great results.  Overall, each girl had some positive moments to take away from the weekend...even if it was grabbing the bullet in a delay in SL!

USSA VT Cup SL at Bromley, February 2nd

Alita Rogers - 1st

Denali Balser - 2nd

Emma Sahn - 4th, 3rd for U18's

Linley Shaw - 7th

Lucy Merriam - 10th

Neza Stefanic - 12th

Molly Danzig - 18th

Sarah Reilly - 19th

Caroline Armbruster - 24th

Sarah Rowse - 28th

Courtney Hayden - 33rd, sweetest tuck in a SL

Alita and Emma on the U18 Podium

Alita and Denali on the Overall Podium

Bromley is a tiring hill...

USSA VT Cup SL at Pico, February 3rd

Alita Rogers - 1st

Lucy Merriam - 5th, 1st for U21's

Sophie Leiter - 12th

Sarah Reilly - 13th

Caroline Armbruster - 18th

Sarah Rowse - 19th

Denali Balser - 22nd, 3rd for U21's

Courtney Hayden - 27th

Molly Danzig - 37th

Alita on the U18 Podium

Lucy and Denali on the U21 Podium

Also on Sunday, Sandra and Katelyn had their 3rd NVC race of the season with a GS at Stowe.  Unfortunately, Katelyn took quite the digger in the first run and sustained a couple of different injuries but it has not yet been confirmed what they are, we are hoping for the best and a speedy recovery!  Sandra was a solid 4th on the first run and then was a DNF second run.

Kelsey and Elly made the trek up to Sugarloaf for FIS Eastern Cup Speed Week where they will be competing in two SG's and 2 DH's.  For the rest of the athletes we will be attempting to get in a solid block of GS over the next week in preparation for the FIS Devo GS series at Sunapee February 14th and 15th.  We will be heading in a few different directions this weekend however as some athletes will be headed to the VT State Championship SL at Pico on Saturday and an Eastern Cup SL at Middlebury on Sunday.

Beautiful day for free skiing and you can see Main Street lit up in the background!

One final note, congratulations to Lucy Merriam for earning the honor of Salutatorian at People Academy!  Way to go Lucy!