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On the road with Mammoth Mountain Ski Team |
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Friday, 08 February 2008 |
By Susan Morning
Mammoth Times Staff
 Sierra Rutherford, Justin Wallasch and Hannah Everson (left to right) placed in the top 15 for the J5s.JIMMY MORNING PHOTOS
January 2-4, 2008
Two members of the Mammoth Mountain Ski Team, Bryce Eller and Noah Duff, spent their New Year holiday in Jackson Hole, Wyo. at the 2008 Western Region Topolino Shootout. They were chosen to compete at the shootout based their 2006-07 J3 Junior Olympic results from all three events at Mammoth Mountain. The pair went against other elite J3s from the western states for two spots to Topolino, Italy. In the end it was Foreste Peterson, Squaw Valley Ski Team, Far West and Scott Snow, Independence Racing Team, PNSA who were the overall top male and female athlete from the GS and SL time trial combined and will travel to Topolino.
January 7-10
MMST FIS racers, Gerritt Wormhoudt, Rose Martin, Emily James, Lauren Eller and Valerie Porges were also on the road at the beginning of the year. The five athletes traveled to Snowbird and Park City, Utah for the Western Region FIS Tech Series. The men’s portion of the series was cut short by one day due to bad weather, while all four of the women’s events took place. As a group, the Mammoth racers found the conditions extremely difficult and there were quite a few DNFs, but Valerie Porges stayed strong and fought her way to 13th place on the final day.
January 19-21, 2008
The Western Region Junior Olympics will be held March 21-24 at Bogus Basin, Idaho, and the only way to get an invitation to the event is to qualify through the Junior Olympic Qualifier races. The first round, the J3 J.O. Qualifier Slalom, was held Jan. 19-21 at Sugar Bowl. The competition was intense, as every J3 in the Far West is looking for one of the spots on the FW team. In the girls' races, Foreste Peterson, SVST, dominated the three days with her teammate Lena Andrews was right on the heels 3-2-2. MMST made a strong showing with the results of Noah Duff, who was on the front page all three days taking 15th, 7th and 4th, Lillie Pieper taking a 4th and 6th place, and Madeline Riffel placing 13th and 14th. On the boys’ side, Mammoth’s Bryce Eller looked completely unbeatable winning the first two days, but a DSQ took him out on the first run of the third day. Sal Monforte, SVST, took a pair of seconds behind Eller and then a third day win. Eller was joined in the top 15 by several other MMST athletes, including Grant Higerd, who had 13th and 8th place finishes, Tyler Wallasch with a 15th on the first day and Cody Wheat who was 11th on the second day and then placed 4th on the final day. The next round of qualifiers, the Super G, will be at Mammoth Mountain, Feb. 9-11.
January 24-27, 2008
A weeklong storm didn’t stop Northstar from holding the FIS ENL Super G and GS, Jan. 24-27. In the Super G, Squaw Valley Ski Team’s Nick Daniels, Keith Moffat and Sean Higgins controlled the podium on the first day, while Moffat, Daniels and Bryce Bennett took the top three spots on the second day. Mammoth’s Gerritt Wormhoudt broke in to the top 15 with an 11th place finish the first day and a 7th place the second day. MMST women Kaylee Cortopassi and Emily James were 4th and 5th the first day. In the second race Cortopassi, Geordie Lonza and James went 4th, 5th and 6th. In the GS, it was a University of Nevada sweep with teammates Cameron Barnes, Shane Collins and Scott Hume going 1-2-3. The next day, Collins took the win, followed by UNR teammate Hume in second. Wormhoudt finished 19th in the first GS, but moved up to take 12th on the final day of racing. But it was Lonza who was Mammoth shining star in the GS, taking the gold both days, James was 8th and 14th, and Cortopassi was 14th and 12th. Thirteen other MMST FIS racers were invited and competed in the series including, Randy Malm, Dylan Brooks, Teddy Augustine, Brandon Rottenbacher, Kyle Pieper, Shane McKee, Rose Martin, Lauren Eller, Kasey Morning, Marta Stevanovic, Valerie Porges, Carissa Allen, and Kiko Sweeney.
January 26-27, 2008
The J4s and J5s were at Diamond Peak for two days of slalom races on Jan. 26-27. On the first day the MMST J4 boys packed the result list taking five of the top fifteen spots. The racers, Tyler Wormhoudt, Tanner White, Eduardo Venezian, Lucas Underkoffler and Sebastian Echeverua, were 6th, 7th, 9th, 11th and 15th. Echeverua and Venezian, along with Ignacio Vilos, Ivan Arze, and Sebastian Montenegro, are Chilean racers who were training at Mammoth with their coach Jose Santiago, a former MMST coach. Natalie Riffel was the lone MMST J4 girl to medal, taking 14th. For the J5s Hannah Everson and Sierra Rutherford took 11th and 15th, while Justin Wallasch placed 13th for the J5 men. A hard-hitting storm quickly reduced the Diamond Peak two-day event to a single slalom race. For the MMST athletes and their families the drive home was as challenging as the race itself. A few days later, Far West announced that MMST’s Tyler Wormhoudt is one of 17 J4 athletes who are qualified to attend the J4 Festival Qualifier at Mammoth Feb. 23-24.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 14 February 2008 )
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