Rabbit, Rabbit...

It is hard to believe that we are finishing up February and entering the final full month of the season.  With March comes "March Madness."  Not just the NCAA Basketball Championships, but the madness that is ski racing in March.  Athletes will be traveling all over New England with hopes of finishing the season with some solid results.  Over the course of the last week and a half, we have been continuing with a couple of different progressions.  In SL, we pushed the girls hard in short section training courses.  Each course was unique in vertical distance, rhythm  length, and terrain.  In most of the sections, the girls were to go as hard as they could to continue getting comfortable going fast and many of them made great changes in their skiing over the 4 day block.  In GS, we have continued to push the technical free skiing with drills and training on moderate terrain.  We were also able to get in two very productive days of SG training before the snow came in mid-day Wednesday.

The girls headed to Proctor Academy to race two FIS Open SL's on February 21st (night race) and 22nd.  Many of the girls had some of their fastest FIS moments, posting great individual runs!  Some saw success over the 4 individual runs and the overall.  The coaching staff was very pleased with the way the girls performed in a high level racing environment.

FIS Open Night SL at Proctor, February 21st

Kelsey Chenoweth - 1st

Alita Rogers - 3rd, 2nd for U18's

Elly Bengtsson - 21st

Emma Sahn - 25th

Denali Balser - 28th

Linley Shaw - 29th

Sophie Leiter - 45th

Sarah Rowse - 54th

Overall Podium - Kelsey 1st, Alita 2nd

FIS Open SL at Proctor, February 22nd

Alita Rogers - 1st

Emma Sahn - 14th

Linley Shaw - 17th (5th second run!)

Elly Bengtsson - 30th

Sophie Leiter - 32nd

Caroline Armbruster - 41st

Molly Danzig - 43rd

Denali Balser - 46th

Sarah Rowse - 47th

Overall Podium - Alita 1st

Sandra Schoepke traveled to Killington for the first weekend of U16 State Championships, competing in 2SL's.  They raced the girls on the challenging trail, Highline.  With soft conditions, it made for two difficult days of racing.  Sandra skied well on day 1 but had some issues and had to hike.  On the 2nd day, she executed her plan well and finished 2nd overall.  She races this weekend at Sugarbush in the final weekend of U16 State Championships with 2GS's.

For dryland Thursday, we were invited to go sledding on Inspiration and off the side of it.  There is quite the natural jump and we all got in a nice core workout from all of the laughing!  We finished off the night with two races down Inspiration.  In race one, it was a "sled"away victory for Kelsey, followed by Denali and Lucy in 2nd, and Sarah rounding out the podium in 3rd.  In race two, Sarah teamed up with Neza for the victory, and we had a tie for 2nd between Kelsey and the team of Harrison, Katharine, and Topher (YES!)  The prize giving ceremony has not yet taken place so photos are not available.

This weekend, majority of the girls will be headed to Bromley for a VARA Open SL to see if they can be crowned the 2013 "World's Best Skier."

Kelsey and Alita will be headed to Mammoth on Sunday for the 2013 U18 National Championships where they will compete in DH, SG, GS, SL, and Parallel SL from March 4th through the 12th.  GOOD LUCK GIRLS!

Below are some pictures from free skiing this week...

Court deep in thought...contemplating her next run.