Ski Report, Sports

Middle School Skiers Show Their Stuff at PA Relays

courtesy photo
Alex Lawson with her first win (10 skate race) in the SuperTour back in Dec. 2022 in Sun Valley, Idaho
. Fellow Craftsbury GRPer Margie Freed on the left and Hailey Swirbul (Alaska) in the middle.

MORRISVILLE – After a series of decent snowfalls, People’s Academy hosted two-person mixed gender relays around their fields and nearby woods. Twenty-six middle school teams took off in a mix of speed and controlled chaos where each racer skied two legs. Genevieve Graves and Luke Slesar (Stowe) had the fastest time of the day in 21:12. Hazen’s Ava Stratman teamed up with Tillie Lange (Sutton) to place third in 23:16. Stig Link and Aemelia Terrone (Craftsbury) finished fifth, James Kehler and Amalia Pratt (Bishop Marshall) eighth, Oryon Hart and Maeda Urie (Craftsbury/Albany) ninth, and Jenner Brooks and Ada Allan (Craftsbury) 12th. Kehler is from Greensboro. In the varsity race, Harwood’s Julie Thurston and Atticus Ellis came in first where each person skied three legs. Montpelier and Lamoille teams came in second and third. Craftsbury’s Alan Moody and Sadie Skorstad were 10th.

Circosta and Young Win at Eastern Cup Ski Races

photo by Eric Hanson
Alex Lawson (West Burke) in 2016 was racing at U.S. Junior Nationals for the Northeast team in Cable,
Wis.

WATERVILLE, Me. – In the third of four weekends of regional Eastern Cup ski racing, Amelia Circosta from Greensboro and the Craftsbury Ski Club (CSC) won both Under 16 (U16) classic and skate 5 km races. Both races were moved to Sunday due to the frigid temperatures on Friday and Saturday. The Eastern Cup series will decide which skiers will represent the Northeast team at U.S. Junior Nationals in Fairbanks, Alaska, adding up the top four of eight races from the winter season.

Charlie Kehler, also from Greensboro, had a strong weekend placing fourth and fifth in the two 5 km U16 races. Kehler was in the lead pack with five to six other skiers and they all finished within 5-10 seconds of each other.

photo by Eric Hanson
Craftsbury and Albany middle school skiers are (left to right) Aemelia Terrone, Ada Allan, Maeda Urie, Stig Link, Jenner Brooks, and Oryon Hart.

CSC skier Anika Leahy had an eighth and 11th for the weekend, while Ruth Krebs had two 10th place finishes. In the 7.5 km mass start men’s classic race, former CSC skier, Jack Young (Jay, Vt./Colby College) edged out several Colby teammates for the win in 19:30. Leo Circosta (CSC) finished a very strong 20th place and was the sixth overall U18 skier in the morning classic race. Circosta was the 15th U18 skier in the afternoon 7.5 km skate race. Krebs moved up to 40th in the skate race.

On the women’s side, former Craftsbury Green Racing Project (GRP) skier and World Cup veteran, Caitlin Patterson, showed that retirement does not slow her down by winning both 7.5 km classic and skate races. Current GRPer Michaela Keller-Miller had a fourth and fifth. Maggie McGee (Hyde Park/Colby College) had a super fast classic race finishing sixth.

photo by Eric Hanson
Ada Allan (Craftsbury) is shown in her second-ever middle school race skiing next to Hannah Larsen (Harwood).

Craftsbury Green Racing Project’s Alex Lawson Skis the World Cup

Alex Lawson, originally from West Burke, won a few state high school titles at St. Johnsbury and then attended Middlebury College and skied her way to All-American status. She continued to train with the crew at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center throughout this time. After a win and many top fives on the domestic SuperTour circuit earlier this season, the U.S. Ski Team brought her up to the big league recently. In her debut in Les Rousses, France, Lawson had a 35th and 39th in the 10 km skate and 20 km classic races, respectively. This past weekend in Toblach, Italy, Lawson skied to 40th in the 10 km skate race while three of her teammates were in the top 10 (Jessie Diggins 2, Rosie Brennan 5, and Julia Kern 10). She then helped USA team II to a seventh place finish in the women’s relay. In comments to FasterSkier, Alex Lawson said, “The biggest thing I took into and out of Toblach is to be confident in myself! [The World Cup] is a different scene, field, and venue but it is still a ski race and something that I have spent years training for.” Dreams can come true.

photo by Eric Hanson
Maeda Urie (Albany) powers up the hill.

Three GRP athletes were named the U.S. Biathlon World Championship team in Oberhof, Germany including Jake Brown, Kelsey Dickinson, and Tara Garaghty-Moats. This will be Brown’s fourth World Championship; he had a 12th place finish in the 2021 championships. For Dickinson and Garaghty-Moats, this will be their first time shooting and skiing at a world championship event. GRP biathletes Jacquelyn Garso, Luke Brown, and Margie Freed are skiing in the IBU circuit (level below World Cup) currently. Brown placed 33rd in the 12.5 km pursuit hitting 15/20 in Lenzerheide, Austria. In the 7.5 km sprint, Garaghty-Moats was 28th, Freed 76th and Garso 82.

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