Saturday morning - our fearless wax team (Leslie, Nathan, Rachel Zafren, and John Eldredge) set out for Quarry Road in Waterville. Cold and sunny, frozen transformed snow, and fast firm tracks. Rachel and I did a couple quick rounds of klister testing and started narrowing down our options. All three teams had agreed to share testing info - one of the many things I love about being part of Maine skiing is that we're all ready to work together and help each other. Before long we all had settled on a starting point of Rex purple klister, and we set about prepping the women's skis. After a few adjustments, everyone was at the start line. We had our hands full waxing the men's skis, so I wasn't able to catch the start, but minutes later the racers headed back through the stadium midway through their first lap. The crowd seemed pretty fired up, so I ran over to see what was happening. Turns out that Renae had made a big break right from the gun, and she was leading by several seconds after less than 2k. Gabby was right behind in a chase pack - before long she had broken away and bridged the gap to ski with Renae. The rest of our women were a bit further back (I later found out that we'd had a couple falls), but they were looking strong. I kept running between the wax trailer and the stadium, and every time I checked in Gabby and Renae had increased their lead. Meanwhile, Lily had moved into the top 10, with Triana close behind. After a series of nervous back-and-forths, I realized that no one was going to catch our girls! Gabby eventually pulled ahead of Renae to take the win, while Lily moved up to 7th and Triana won a sprint finish to claim 9th - four skiers on the All-State team!
Luckily for our men, Leslie and John had kept on trucking with ski prep throughout all this excitement, and the men's skis were done in time for some fine-tuning before the start. A lead pack quickly formed: Elliot, Sean, and Christian, along with two Mules and one Bobcat. After the first lap, Elliot looked around and decided it was time to break things up. He picked up the pace a bit, expecting at least one or two people to follow, but suddenly he was all alone in front. Like Gabby and Renae, he just kept piling it on and skied to a dominating win! Meanwhile, Sean was doggedly following Colby's Zane Fields, breaking away from the rest of the chase group to finish 3rd. Christian battled the remaining chasers before pulling away for 4th. Cirque gave us our fourth All-State finisher with a strong and steady effort to finish 8th - so great to see him breaking through this season.
When it was all over, the Cup was ours! It's been a long road - years and years of Bowdoin skiers working hard without ever quite making it over the top. This is huge for us, and I hope all of our alumni are feeling proud. Thanks to Rachel and John for fantastic waxing support - no way we could have gotten competitive skis on everyone's feet without their help. Thanks also to the parents - amazing as always - and a great crew of Bowdoin students who drove up to cheer us on! Can't wait to see what the rest of the season has in store for us!
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