The New Paltz High School (NPHS) Nordic ski team swept the competition at the Section 9 championships for the third year in a row and competed at the state skiing championships.
Held at Gore Mountain on Feb. 14, NPHS walked away from the Section 9 Nordic Ski Championships with four medals for the boys and five for the girls.
Beckett Evans took the overall boys title in the 7.5K skate race with teammates Matei Jirka, Henry Wheeler and Sam Hollman following right behind him. For the NPHS girls on the team, Dylan Freidman, Hannah Ettinger, Roxy DeNey-Bhagat, Clio Miller and Rory Gerber all brought home medals.
Evans, who finished in 19 minutes and 51 seconds, is a senior on the team who’s worked hard in the on and offseason for the win. Nordic Ski Coordinator and coach, Ann Gregory said, “He spends time in the summer roller skiing… He’s a cross-country runner and he’s a track runner, so his general fitness is good and that helps tremendously. The fitter you are, the better you are and his technique is pretty good.”
Jirka won gold at last year’s sectionals in eighth grade. “He’s a really good classic [ski] person because he started out at three or four years old,” Coach Gregory said of Jirka. “The skating is new to him, but you could see that classic style that he’s been doing forever just carried him.”
The New York State Public High School Athletic Association Skiing Championships took place on Feb. 26-27 with the Nordic division held at Mount VanHoevenberg in Lake Placid.
The Section 9 representatives were determined by the regional championships and overall season performance. From NPHS, those who competed in the 7.5K skate race were Jirka, Wheeler and Hollman for the boys and Freidman, Ettinger, DeNey-Bhagat and Gerber for the girls. They each placed 35, 39, 44, 28, 40, 44 and 47, respectively.
In the 3×2.5K classic style relay, Evans, Wheeler and Jirka represented New Paltz boys. Freidman, Ettinger and DeNey-Bhagat represented the girls. For the Section 9 teams, Graham Driskoll of Wallkill Senior High School, Giovanni Gutierrez of New Paltz High School and Hollman competed for the boys. Gerber was joined by Wallkill’s Andie Psilopoulos and Katrina Brand for the girls.
The New Paltz and Section 9 boys teams came in 15 and 16, respectively. The girls of Section 9 and New Paltz placed 14 and 15.
Both Evans and Psilopoulos won sportsmanship awards at state.
The other schools and sections that competed at state have a more consistent snowfall to practice with resulting in bigger wins. “I think that’s the disadvantage,” Coach Gregory said of skiing in the Hudson Valley. “We’ve been lucky. We get to go to Rocking Horse Ranch when there’s just not enough snow here. Minnewaska, the trails up there that are groomed hold snow much longer. Not perfect, but enough to get us up there and get on some snow.”