The alpine team's proud tradition of returning with BC Championship banners continued last week when the boys' and girls' ski squads teamed up to win the Combined Banner. Here is the full report from Coach Ramsden:
The Alpine team sent all 4 teams to the Provincials this year for the first time in school history. The teams traveled all the way to the BC - Alberta Border to compete against the best in the Province at Panorama Mountain Resort. The competition started with a bang when Sam Fuller won the first run by 3.5 seconds! He continued his dominance to add another second to his lead in second run. His expertise was very valuable as he shared course reports and tips with fellow athletes. Stuart Cooper, Kevin Huang and Nicholas Daal put down some solid, confident runs to keep the Boys team in the mix after the first day of racing.
The girls had some stiff competition from the Invermere home team as well as our rivals York House. Jamie Border cracked the top 5 after two fast runs while Saylor Sprenger, Liz Mathisen and Olivia Tiller continued to close the gap on the York House and Invermere teams in their second runs.
The next day it was our snowboarders turn to take to the slopes and they delivered some personal best results. Isla Cormack led the team with the best girls result in 30th. Carolyn Yu, Remy Li and Devina Briggs Hammoud gained valuable experience competing in Provincials for the first time. With such a young team we know that our girls' snowboard team has a bright future.
Our boys had experience from competing last year and were keen to best their results from last year. Veteran, Olivier Bruson placed 23rd with James Lustig close behind in 31st and Jason Yu in 35th.
The final day of competition had ski and snowboard athletes compete in a one run Terrain GS. After strong results from all participating teams last year, all of the athletes were looking forward to the competition. Once again, Sam Fuller placed first with Jamie Border earning a podium spot on the girls side with a third place. Saylor Sprenger placed 6th, Olivia Tiller 12th and Liz Mathisen came 18th. Cassidy Foley and Ruby Mantel skied strong and confident runs in their first time competing in the Terrain GS. To place 4 girls in the top was very impressive and earned the Girls second place in the Team Division.
The boys also stepped up to the challenge of the Terrain GS and put forth some lightning quick runs. Stuart Cooper placed 15th followed closely behind by Nicholas Daal in 23rd, Kevin Huang in 25th and Archie Robertshaw in 31st. Toby Li battled difficult course conditions to move up through the field to 66th. With these results, the boys earned third place in the Boys team division. Since our girls and boys ski teams were so strong, their combined total points catapulted them to the top of the combined standings and earned them the Boys and Girls Skiing Provincial Banner!
Boys Snowboarding saw Olivier Bruson crack the top 10, with a 10th place finish, which has been a goal of his for the past few seasons. Kevin Meng and James Lustig put together clean runs which was an impressive feat after over 200 racers had gone down the course. On the girls side, Isla, Devina, Carolyn and Remy raced with passion and grit to place within the top 40.
Congratulations to all of the athletes for their strong performances! The coaching staff couldn’t be prouder!
The entire alpine team together at the BC Championships.
The girls' snowboard team.