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