After the Jan. 8 giant slalom race, the good snow continued, and the Cavs headed to the slopes of Northstar for their first slalom race of the season, on Jan. 11.
The Cavs again took the leaderboard for men’s ski with all three skiers placing in the top five.
Freshman Ethan Hockridge placed first of 16 competitors with a time of 52.87 on his first race, and 50.97 on his second.
Coach Jason Kreps said Hockridge raced the best. Hockridge was coming off of a near disqualification after missing a gate in the race on Jan. 8 but still placed first in this race.
“You could tell he was out to do well,” Kreps said.
Freshman Luca Procida placed second with a first-run time of 53.07, only 0.37 behind Hockridge.
Junior Daniel Hernried came in close behind the two freshmen, placing fifth. He earned a time of 1:08 on both of his runs.
Senior skier Amelia Fineberg competed in her first race of the season for the girls, placing fifth.
“It went way better than I expected,” Fineberg said. “Slalom is usually pretty hard for me because the team usually doesn’t train gates.”
But Fineberg didn’t attribute her fifth-place ranking to skill.
“I think I partly placed well because the people that placed better than me last year have since graduated,” she said.
Senior snowboarder Aidan Galati placed seventh.
For the snowboarders, senior Aidan Galati finished seventh.
Senior snowboarder Max Schmitz, a new member, went into his first-ever race with a lot of confidence.
“I thought my first race was pretty solid,” he said. “I was maneuvering in and out of the gates really well. It felt natural.”
So Schmitz was surprised when he was told he’d been disqualified because he’d missed a gate.
“I got disqualified! What?” Schmitz said. “I thought I had done really well. The gatekeepers even told me to keep going.”
“It was good for Max to get the experience,” Kreps said.
Kreps again thought that the team as a whole did very well.
“We had good consistent runs,” he said.
The two freshmen dominated the leaderboard in this race, as well as in the Jan. 8 slalom.
Hockridge and Procida both race for the Northstar ski team, so they have experience in racing.
“Everyone took notice of them today,” Kreps said.
The Cavs’ next race is a giant slalom at Northstar on Friday, Jan. 22.
—By Jack Christian
