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Wild Mountain Invitational
Anders Brown and Ellie Frischmon have been at the elite level for so long, it was hard to believe they were taking part in their last Wild Mountain Invitational on Friday, December 23.

The pair won their respective races with clean sweeps of the top spots on each run, and went out with a bang. Brown led the boys to a first place finish and Frischmon led the girls to a second place.

Boys
Brown had the top time on both the blue and the red course. He went 30.36 seconds on the blue course, just beating out Mankato West’s Jaidan Rollings, who finished in 30.81 seconds.

On the red course, he finished in 31.95 seconds, which topped Mankato East’s Jordan Risk, who finished in 32.21 seconds.

Other racers had strong performances for the boys, and they needed nearly every one to hold of Stillwater for the championship.

Ryan Mower came in seventh place with a time of 1:06.78, Jamie Mower was in 16th with a time of 1:08.88 and August Brown finished fourth for the Wildcats with a time of 1:110.54, coming in 24th place.

The four combined to score 580 points, edging Stillwater by six points. The Ponies scored 574 points for second place. Mounds View finished in third palce with 547 points.

Girls
Frischmon swept the girls half of the race by some interesting times. On the blue course, she finished in 33.05 seconds, a razor-thin win over Brainerd’s Alex Stone, who finished in 33.07 seconds.

But a tumble by Stone on the red course left Frischmon comfortably in first place in that portion of the competition. She finished in 34.98 seconds, with the second place time a 36.67 second run by Dana Bohks of Mankato West.

As a team, Frischmon was backed up by Hannah Janzig, who came in eight place with a combined time of 1:13.43, Hannah Stec in 10th place with 1:13.80 and Mikayla Granfors in 30th place with a time of 1:18.91.

They would be hard pressed to top what Mankato West did, however. The Scarlets won the meet with their top four skiers coming in secnd, third, fourth and sixth place. They scored 589 points to win. Chisago Lakes scored 555 in second place and Stillwater came in third place with a score of 540 points.

“It’s a big deal to win this meet as an individual, and we had two skiers do it,” Assistant Coach Su Leslie said. “There are 24 of the best teams from across the state represented, and for them to come out on top is a big accomplishment.”

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