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It may have taken a year, but August Brown seems to be picking up where his brother, Anders, left off on the alpine ski hills.

The sophomore opened the 2018-19 season by sweeping first place on both the red and blue course at the Northwest Suburban Conference race on Tuesday, December 18.

Brown finished the blue course in 33.73 seconds, a half-second ahead of Blake Quall of Northwest Alpine and his teammate, Jamie Mower.

On the red course, when both Mower and Quall stumbled a bit, Brown stretched his lead with another first place finish. He finished the course in 37.12 seconds, giving him an overall time of 1:07.91, which was nearly two seconds faster than St. Francis’ Jack Wangensten, who came in second place with a time of 1:09.87.

Overall, Mike Frischmon backed up Brown’s finish with an eighth place finish of his own. He finished 10th on the blue course with a time of 37.13 seconds, and then jumped all the way to fourth with a similar run on the red course, 37.12 seconds. His combined total of 1:14.56 eanred him the top 10 finish.

Jack LeTourneau was just a quarter of a second behind him, finishing in ninth place with a time of 1:14.56. He was 11th on the blue course and sixth on the red course, where more of the top skiers had issues staying on edge.

Gavin Bodin had a nice debut for Chisago Lakes, finishing in 13th place with a 23rd place on the blue course and a ninth place on the red course. That gave Chisago Lakes four finishes in the top nine on the red course.

Mower, who finished third on the blue course, stumbled up on the red course, but was still able to finish. He came in 34th on the red and finished with a combined time of 1:18.48, good enough for 15th.

Will Hennen and Andrew Johnsen rounded out Chisago Lakes’ scoring by bothing placing in the top 20. Hennen came in 18th place while Johnsen was 20th.

Zach Hennen, Will Nelson and Sam Witucki also raced, but each had one good run, and one tough run. All three will contribute to the varsity score at different times this year.

As a team, the ‘Cats dominated the meet. Their bevy of top 20 finishes gave them 623 points, 36 ahead of second place Centennial. Despite the number of stumbles from CL, the fact that they were still able to win the meet comforatbly doesn’t bode well for the rest of the Northwest Suburban Conference this year.
“Some of the boys just crushed it to start the season,” Assistant Coach Su Leslie said. “It was a great day to start the season.”

Girls
On the girls side, they have some wonderful skiers, but after graduating five starters from last year, they are looking to replace some of that firepower.

They finished third in the NWSC meet, but a few falls cost them at least second, and they don’t quite have the depth to recover that the boys do.

Megan Cartier was the highlight for the girls, finishing in eighth place on the blue course, and third place on the red course for a combined time of 58.72 seconds, which earned her sixth place.

Megan Adams put together two solid runs for CL, finishing in 16th place overall with a time of 1:04.15. Elsa Dahl was the only other girl in the top 25, as she finished in 21st place with a time of 1:07.74. She had two consistent runs for CL, finishing in 25th on both runs.

Sophie Janzig finished in sixth place on the blue course, but then a major fall on the red course dropped her down to 72nd place on that run. The combined time left her just out of varsity scoring for CL.

Kaylee Peterson had another tough fall for CL too. After finishing in 15th place on the blue course, she had to retreat back up the mountain to hit a gate after a fall on the red course, causing her to finish the run in 2:21.15.

Other varsity skiers who contributed to the finish were Lauren Lundberg in 26th place, Annah Mellum in 38th, Ashlyn Anderson in 43rd and Hailey Rivard in 46th place.

The Wildcats’ 371 points was just 16 behind second place Andover, but they were quite a bit behind Centennial, who won the meet with 442 points.

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