Muskies cross-country ski team hosts NORWOSSA at Rocky Inlet Trails

By Allan Bradbury
Staff Writer
abradbury@fortfrances.com

Last Wednesday the Fort Frances High School Muskies cross-country ski team hosted NORWOSSA qualifiers for NWOSSA.

Ilka Milne is the coach of the Muskies cross-country ski team. She says after not competing last year, the members who have stuck through this season are all new to the sport.

“We have mostly fairly new skiers,” Milne said. “They’ve either just got on skis this year, or they started skiing last year. But, to be fair, we didn’t compete last year. So I guess most of them have got somewhere between a few months and maybe like five months on skis, so they’re beginners and they’re doing really well.”

Five members of with the team skied for the Muskies last week and attended NWOSSA in Kenora yesterday (Tuesday).

Teams came from St. Thomas Aquinas and Beaver Brae in Kenora, Atikokan and Red Lake for the event last week. Dryden High School has had a team in the past but did not have one this year.

Milne says she was pleased with the performance of the team in the qualifiers.

Rather than racing at the same time in a conventional way skiers all start at a different time, staggered by intervals of 30 seconds to a minute. So they’re not always trying to catch the person in front of them and if they do they’ve really made up a lot of time.

Some members of the team had goals set out for themselves going into Tuesday’s event Milne says.

“Julia (Guertin) who placed fourth by just eight seconds in this race over eight kilometres is looking to see if she can improve her place. Her goal she stated to me is that she’d like to get third. She’s been consistently just a little bit behind the third place skier in the last couple races,” Milne said. “The senior boys competition is just us unless another senior boy shows up, so they’re just looking to improve their technique and see another trail. Carter (Payne) I think is expecting to do well because he’s been the faster of our two boys.”

Milne said she was thankful that the Rainy Lake Nordic Ski Club’s trails at Rocky Inlet were there for the event and for the team to use in training.

“Rocky Inlet’s a great resource, we use that on the weekends and then we ski around the school property during the week,” she said. “We’ve had a great snow base this year, where it hasn’t been so deep that it doesn’t get packed down well by the snowmobiles. So it’s been a good year in terms of weather and conditions.”

Nordic NorWOSSAA results

BibNameSchoolTimePlacePace/km
JUNIOR GIRLS – Two laps of Sumac – 5.6 km
94Kieran FauldsRLDHS0:21:2410:03:49
91Sadie WoodRlDHS0:21:3120:03:51
90Brooklynn DumontierRLDHS0:24:4230:04:25
95Aneira BreiterSTAHS0:35:0940:06:17
92Sabrin StottardSTAHS0:42:1550:07:33
93Faith RichardsFFHS0:48:1860:08:38
SENIOR BOYS – Two laps of White Pine 7.8 km
100Carter PayneFFHS0:40:5110:05:14
102Jackson MarchantFFHS0:43:0520:05:31
SENIOR GIRLS – Two laps of White Pine
111Kacie MotaRLDHS0:35:0010:04:29
109Karlyn RissanenNLS0:36:2720:04:40
113Molly HenleySTAHS0:38:1930:04:55
107Julia GuertinFFHS0:38:2740:04:56
108Elizabeth YoungNLS0:41:3050:05:19
105Kiri BreiterSTAHS0:43:4460:05:36
110Trinity RichardsFFHS0:49:5570:06:24

SCHOOL ABBREVIATIONS

BBS – Beaver Brae

FFHS – Fort Frances High School

RLDHS – Red Lake District High School

IHS – Ignace High School

GLC – Golden Learning Centre

NLS – Northern Lakes School (Atikokan)

STAHS – St Thomas Aquinas High School