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The Chisago Lakes girls alpine ski team had been building towards section all year, and it paid off for them when they finished in second place in the Section 7 meet and punched their ticket to the state tournament to return to Giants Ridge this week.

The girls finished comfortably in second place with 325 points, behind the very tough Duluth East’s 356 points and well ahead of Anoka’s 294 point total.

In sections, six skiers take part in the race and the top four times are used for placing, so there isn’t a ton of room for error, and the ‘Cats nailed all of their runs.
Sophie Janzig, a senior, led them with a third place finish. She finished the red course in 40.55 seconds and the blue course in 40.87 seconds. Her blazing fast time of 1:21:42 was among the best in the meet. She was only behind a tandem of Greyhound skiers, one of which is a top competitor in the whole state.

The Dahl sisters then stepped up in a big way for the Wildcats, securing 16th, 20th and 28th place to round out the Wildcat scoring. Maren Dahl finished in 16th with a time of 1:26.11, Anna Dahl came in 20th with a time of 1:27.10 and Elsa Dahl came in 28th with a time of 1:31.13.

The four girls came with clean, fast runs at the perfect time for CL.

Kaylee Peterson and Lauryn Lundberg were the other Chisago Lakes’ skiers, and they helped push their teammates and put down nice times as well. Peterson came in 42nd place and Lundberg in 51st. The meet featured just under 100 skiers.

For the boys, Will Hennen again headlined their race. He finished in eighth place and just qualified for the state meet as an individual. He finished his first run in 41.52 seconds and then backed that up with a 40.64 second run for an encore. His combined time was 1:22.16.

Martin Cyr finished 45th for the boys, Orval Cyr came in 48th place, Jake Helgason came in 63rd and Ethen Johnson finished 83rd.

Because of the unfortunate timing of the alpine ski state tournament, results of sections and state are a week behind. The state meet was on Wednesday, February 16 at Giants Ridge after the Press went to print. For full results from the girls and Hennen, see next week’s Chisago County Press.

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