MARS HILL, Maine — Many alpine ski meets have been cancelled throughout the winter due to snowstorms and extremely cold temperatures. This is the week that a couple are being made up, leading to a busy week for high school skiers in Aroostook County.
Meets are being held Wednesday, Jan. 30, at Fort Kent’s Lonesome Pine Trails, Thursday, Jan. 31, at Bigrock Ski Area in Mars Hill and Saturday, Feb. 2, back at Lonesome Pine Trails. Saturday’s is a regularly scheduled competition, while the other two are make-up meets from earlier this month.
A meet was held Saturday, Jan. 26, at the Mars Hill venue, with Caribou, Fort Kent, Presque Isle and Greenville having full teams, as well as individuals from other schools participating.
Fort Kent dominated with first-place team finishes in both the boys’ and girls’ morning and afternoon races.
In both the boys’ morning and afternoon events, Caribou placed second and Presque Isle was third. Central Aroostook, Greenville, Madawaska and Wisdom skiers competed, but their teams did not have enough racers to figure in the team results.
For the girls, the order of finish in the morning was Fort Kent, Presque Isle, Greenville and Caribou. In the afternoon, Caribou finished ahead of Greenville in the team scores.
Grayson McKenney of Central Aroostook placed fourth in the boys’ morning race with a time of 1 minute and 28.4 seconds for the two runs. Presque Isle’s Riley Roderick came in ninth in 1:32.55. P.J. Thornton of Caribou led his team by ending up 12th in 1:34.19.
Others in the top 20 from the region were Bryant Grass of CA (14th), Aiden Plante (15th) and Lucas Tompkins (16th), both of Caribou; Mitchell Grass of CA (18th) and Ghent Durepo of Caribou (20th).
Tiernan Barbosa of Caribou took sixth in the boys’ afternoon competition at 1:29.72. McKenney was in eighth place in 1:30.21. Presque Isle’s Kyle Caron was 10th in 1:31.34.
Also making it into the top 20 were PI’s Roderick (11th), Plante (14th), Grass (15th), Caribou’s Devin White (16th), Presque Isle’s Ryder Wight (17th) and Caribou’s Austin LaPlante (20th).
In the girls’ morning race, Sheridan Boucher of Presque Isle was eighth in 1:42.52 and teammate Eleanor St. Peter was 10th in 1:45.3. Caribou’s Maren Moir claimed the 11th spot in 1:48.46.
The top 20 for girls also consisted of Izzy Higgins of Presque Isle (12th), Macy Wakem of Caribou (13th), Grace Bemis of PI (15th) and Alexis Parker (19th) and Jessica Leavitt (20th), both of Caribou.
In the afternoon, Edie Shea of Caribou was third in 1:36.75. The Wildcats’ Higgins placed seventh in 1:38.66.
Boucher (13th), St. Peter (14th), Moir (15th), Wakem (17th) and Bemis (19th) also made the top 20.