Race Reports

NW Cup Qualifier FIS/ U16

CMAC held a very successful qualifying event for our older racers. Thanks to the help from the many volunteers, we put on a high quality event! Now that we got some early season practice, all of our MM races should run smooth.

All of the top kids from the NW attended the event. The overall winners of the weekend were Katie Holm from CMAC and Tyler Larson from SPAC. Thanks to the new snowmaking system we had really good coverage, and combined with some rain, a refreeze, and good grooming, we had a surface that was very firm. It was great for ski racing and quite difficult. Many thanks to Crystal M.t for their effort with the grooming and early lift loads for our race crew and coaches.

Every racer that challenged the hill skied great. The No Bull event on lower Bull Run, also known as (lower Ferk) is one of the toughest and most demanding hills in the country. It is quite an accomplishment for a young skier and the parents should be very proud of their effort. CMAC racers scored many medals and earned points toward the regional championships. 

Race results: Friday SL: M W / Saturday GS: M W / Sunday GS: M W.

Please come and help us on our next race, and make it another success!

And we were fortunate at the No Bull to host a group of Technical Delegates (talk about a LOT of ski racing expertise!)

What a strong set of results from the CMAC team! Some of the highlights include Andrew Kulakovsky and Michael Guo started 99 and 100 and both made the flip on the first run.  On the girls side, And a whole host of boys scored well. Andrew 15^th,  Lewis 17,  Michael 18, Willi 19, Owen 21, Zach 22. All the boys scored some points toward the Champs. On the girls side, Evie Wright led the way with a  7^th in the final SL, 1^st for U16 girls, she is well on her way to first seed at U16 Champs, followed by Izzy in 10^th. Izzy led the girls Friday with an excellent GS race placing 5^th.  Read more and see the photos here. 

Challenging conditions for racing throughout the series, but the organizers worked hard to only lose one SG per gender.  The races were flipped around to accommodate the weather, but the athletes stayed focused and skied great in tough snow conditions. Ty Ellis, Tristan Thomson, Connor Budd and Tess Baldwin represented PNSA.  One highlight was Tess Baldwin podium in slalom- 3rd place!

Strong competition with international competitors in both genders, CMAC athletes got to test themselves against some high level college racers.  The women had Sarah Schleper to race against- a 4-time Olympian and World Cup winner!  Tristan Thomson, Connor Budd, Jack Koefoed, Emma Moore, Sierra Smith and Piper O’Kane attended a mix of the extended series while Ty Ellis wrapped up his season doing all 6 races. Tess Baldwin again had excellent performances - getting 4th to score her best yet result in GS.

CMAC  had the largest group of racers from PNSA qualify for the Western U16 Championships. Congrats to a great team of U16 racers.

1. Issabella Buck
   
2. Anna Gibbons
   
3. Katie Holm
   
4. Patsy Kerslake
   
5. Maddie Lafreniere
   
6. Aili Moore
   
7. Evie Wright
   
8. Duncan Walker
   
9. Lewis White  

Anna Gibbons 16th place first run SL as a first year U16 ,and Evie Wright 19^th overall SL, are just a glimpse of many great runs from our CMAC racers at Champs. The girls are not afraid to take a tight line!

Duncan Walker SG

This year CMAC had a significant break through performance from Katie Holm. Katie had three top performances at the Western U16 Champs and qualified for the U16 national championships. She went on to place 2^nd in the SG event and earned a silver medal. Congrats Katie, its an incredible performance and continues to show the potential success of our CMAC racers. Katie has shown a strong work ethic on and off the snow with an excellent physical training program, multiple off season ski camps, and an “always at training attitude”.  She has an incredible consistency of showing up for all training sessions, start to finish, everyday all season. The perseverance is paying off!

Katie Holm Silver Medal U16 National Championship SG

Overall we could not have asked for a better weekend at Mission Ridge for the Buddy Werner Championships. It was bright sunshine every day and perfect hard snow conditions.

The team skied very well across the board. As a group, we capitalized on the training runs Thursday for SG and by Friday everyone was skiing fast very fast. In SG we had 4 Girls in the top 11 and 5 Boys in the top 30 including the top 2 move ups! CMAC was true to its roots and did very well in the speed events. A special thanks to Scott Macartney for joining the U14s for the SG training and race days, it is always so great to have Scott at speed events!

GS and SL were both great events for most of the team with many top 10s and huge move ups. A special tip of the hat to Graham Barwick on getting 1^st in the Men’s SL. It is so great to see our athletes make it to the top of the podium, especially at a championship event. An absolutely fantastic race weekend at Mission Ridge was the perfect exclamation point to an amazing season!

What a fantastic finish to a fabulous season, and a strong finish at the Cascade Cup 2017 U12 Championships at Alpental. 

The coaches were so impressed with the way each and every one of you skied at the race. You have all learned the fundamentals very well and you showed it this last weekend. You make us very proud of your accomplishments.

We started things out with the dual slalom competition on Friday. What a fun and exciting event. We had some great match ups and some real exciting races. We ended up with Win Flaggart taking a second place in the event for the boys.

Saturday we moved to the slalom event with again some incredible skiing by our CMAC team. For the girls Quinn Dennehy finished third and Ava Schoening in seventh place. Samantha Wright won the move up award for the girls. On the boys side we had Win Flaggart with a fourth place finish, Sawyer Krohn in fifth and big Ben Albrecht finishing eighth.

Sunday was the GS. For the girls it was real exciting. There was a three way tie for third place with Sophie Porter and Quinn Dennehy being two of them and Ava Shoening taking a tenth. The boys were unbelievable. We had five boys finish in the top ten. Tanner Stines lead the way with a fourth place finish followed by Win Flaggart in fifth then Sawyer Krohn in sixth, Ben Albrecht in seventh and Peter Schoening finishing tenth. Again we were not denied on the move up award with Adam Kinney taking those honors.

For the team awards the CMAC boys took first place and in the team combined we tied with Team Alpental Snoqualmie for first place. 

The Sun Cup was again a highlight of the year for many of our CMAC racers. The DH track at Bachelor has lots of speed, jumps, rollers and is a great test of DH skills. This year Tristan LeCuyer led the group with some spectacular DH racing. Tyler Ellis just behind him in 5^th.   Emma Moore led the girls with a 10^th place finish.

Emma Moore and Tristan LeCuyer on the way to top 10 and top 5 Sun Cup DH finishes.

Tucking jumping and speed! DH is such a fun part of the ski racing experience.  The kids will hold these memories for a lifetime. There is nothing better than some good old DH stories. 

CMAC racers continue to make progress at Mission Ridge! From top of the list down to the up and coming youngsters. The top performance coming from Tess Baldwin winning the GS on Saturday, and coming from Cat 4, Simon Toribio and Billy Wagner both made the podium. We had lots of move ups and great performances from many racers, which shows some excellent progress within the team. Going into the final qualifiers at Sun Cup, CMAC is positioned to have a large group of kids qualify for the Junior Champs!

There were also many crashes, and dnf’s in the rough conditions, so for those that had a tough time last weekend, lets make up for it the next few weeks. The kids that have been mastering their skills are making breakthroughs, so lets get out there and make it happen!

While the racing was fun, Max took some down time with the girls when he broke out the Hammock at the start waiting for the second run. Smiles all around.