Results: Bullet Timing

More Photos: 2017 BKL Fest

Twenty-two MNC skiers skied in the New England Bill Koch Festival at Gould Academy in Bethel, Maine this past weekend. This year’s festival had a “Protect Our Winters” super-hero theme. The idea was that you could come, park your car for the weekend at your hotel and ski or walk to all the venue events on Bethels’ interconnected trail system. Unfortunately, with Saturday’s forecasted temps in the single digits and high winds, the event organizers made the wise choice to move the race venue from the open stadium & fields behind the Gould Field House to the more wooded & protected trails at Pine Hill, which is a short ski up the road. In addition, to limit cold exposure to skin, they shortened the races and had the older kids go first when it was coldest.

Saturday dawned on a cold morning as predicted for the skate relays. Skiers and parents bundled up for the cold. The day started with the girls’ 7/8 relays featuring Quincy Massey-Beirman tagging off to Camille Bolduc and Hattie Barker tagging off to Ava Thurston.

Here’s Massey-Beirman-Bolduc tag-off. Notice the matching leg tights! That’s Ava  in the background soon to be tagged by Hattie.

Quincy & Camille put on quite a big lead over everyone and finished first! Hattie and Ava did an awesome job too and finished fourth in a very fast field of skiers!

Next came the 7/8 boys in which Aiden Burt was paired with Frost Mountain’s Neil Guy and Jack Christner.

That’s Neil out front in the orange FMN suit just after the start.

Aiden skiing his team into first place!

MNC had seven 5/6 girls racing in the relay and they all proved themselves quite fast!
Virginia scrambled and tagged off to Esther in third place, not far behind the Ford Sayer team. Esther put the pedal to the metal and quickly passed Ford Sayer’s Sarah Gluek and the Cobb-Cuneo duo brought home second, finishing only about 1o seconds behind the EMBK team. Great work girls!

Greta Kilburn teamed up with Carly Trapeni and these 5/6 girls meant business (notice the focus in Carly’s face here). They pulled in an excellent sixth place in the competitive 5/6 field.

Finley Barker has worked hard on her skiing this year (look at that well balanced skate stride!). She anchored to Julia Thurston’s scramble leg and they finished eleventh. Mia Diller teamed up with Frost Mountains’ Marjorie Christner and Mad River’s Caroline Purcell. All skied well and finished in 19th. What an awesome group of 5/6 girls!

Next was the very competitive 5/6 boys race where we had the three-some of Taylor Carlson, Carl Priganc and Jordon Shullenburger. Taylor scrambled and here you see him tagging off to Carl and Jordon who skied like the wind and finished eleventh.

Pippa Diller teamed up with Frost Mountain’s Violet Anderson for the girls’ 3/4 race and pulled in a seventh. I think Pippa’s face paint certainly helped!

The boys’ 3/4 race went very well for MNC. Niko Cuneo tagged off to Brady Morgeau and Cole Shullenberger who came in one behind the other and clinched it for a first place podium finish! All the Festival medals were made of sustainable wood by Gould students- a nice touch!

The 1/2 relay was a mixed gender event and Kate Carlson and Ryley Migeau skied really well and finished third behind two all-boy teams. Although they were first for the girls, they weren’t too happy to be beaten by a couple of boy teams. You’ll get them next time girls!  Tessa Diller did well with her team-mate from Frost Mountain, June Yates-Rusch and ended up on the podium with a seventh place (that’s her on the far left). Great skiing girls!

Because of the cold, the parade and the awards were held inside at the end of the day. We all wore capes and paraded around the field house with the rest of the districts. The field house had an expo feel to it with District food tables set up, info tables, lots of people and of course, the kids playing basket ball in their socks. There was also an indoor skate park which was great fun in socks! After the parade and awards, it was on to dinner and a well-earned rest!

Sunday was the individual classic race. A glorious sun beamed down on a cold and breezy morning. Coaches & Wax Techs Rosemary, Tom Thurston, Eric Barker & Damien Bolduc were on site early, testing the klister and trying to figure which was fastest with the best kick! Because the temps were forecasted to rise considerably, we elected to set up the food tent at the race venue so we could have some hot food for everyone on-site.Thanks to Eric Barker, we used the MMU wax trailer to haul lots of gear and as a base for waxing. We parked it in a perfect spot- warmed by the sun, close to the race trail, easy to test skis and a little bit out of the hullabaloo of the start/finish area.

For the classic races, skiers were started in waves of six every minute.  MNC skiers skied well and proved once again that they are a force to be reckoned with!

The day started with the girls’ 7/8 race. Quincy, Ava & Camille have been skiing together and trading first place finishes for many years now and this year continued the saga. Today was Quincy’s day- she got Ava by half of a second! Camille finished in a strong fifth. Hattie Barker (MMU suit, above right), a seventh grader, skied very well and came in 27th. Camille and Quincy are graduating from BKL and will move on to Eastern Cups next year. Ava & Hattie have one more year in BKL. If these gals keep skiing together, they all are going to get faster and faster! Watch out world!

In the boys 7/8 race, eighth grader Aiden Burt double poled the entire 3.7 km course to a first place finish. He graduates from BKL this year as well and is pumped to move on to Eastern Cups next year!

As mentioned earlier, we had seven girls in the 5/6 race and they all skied really well!

Esther Cuneo used her upper body strength and double poled the 2.7km course to a first place finish!  Virginia Cobb had another stellar performance and beat out some of her New England rivals from Ford Sayer and Putney to finish fourth!

Carly Trapeni had her best race of the season with a fourteenth place! Finley Barker kicked and glided her way to a 28th. Greta Kilburn also had a great race and finished 19th!

Julia with her quick technique skied into 16th and Mia Diller rounded it out for the girls, coming in 39th.

In the boy’s 5/6 race, Taylor’s excellent classic technique put him in 21st and Carl’s strong double poling resulted in a 29th (below: Carl on the left, Taylor on the right).

Jordon Shullenberger, who only comes to practice about once per week because he’s usually playing soccer, finished 11th in the boys 5/6 race! What a performance!

After the morning races, it was back to the wax bench because things had warmed up considerably, calling for a change in the wax of the day for the younger kids. Eighth grade graduation and the lollipop race followed, giving us a nice break before the younger kids’ races.

In the 3/4 boys, race, Niko Cuneo decided to double pole it, put in a fantastic effort and came in second! Brady Morigeau skied really fast as well and finished fourth, one second out of third! Cole Shullenberger (above on the left), also had a great race and finished 15th! In the girl’s 3/4 race, Pippa Diller skied very well and finished 17th!
Bundled Relay partners!

Last but not least, was the 1/2 boys & girls race. Kate Carlson handily won the girls race with her relay buddy, Ryley, coming in fifth and Tessa Diller not far behind in tenth. Unfortunately, our team photographer had to leave and could not get photos of all the younger kids racing. If anyone has some good pics of these young skiers, please send them to me and I will add them to our Flikr album.

Kate after the classic race.

All in all, another great Festival for MNC! It’s impressive that most of our kids finished in the top 20 of their age groups! So many thanks to everyone who helped make the Festival fun and successful for the kids: Victoria Priganc for organizing the food, Dave Priganc who took all these pictures, Eric Barker, Tom Thurston & Damian Bolduc for helping with the wax, Heidi Hill and Brad Carlson who helped our kids in the relay tag zone, and all the coaches and parents who brought food, made sure kids were keeping warm, and got kids to the start on time. It certainly takes a village, or rather, a Club, to pull all this off! Driving home from the Festival, I felt exhausted but exhilarated and so proud of all our kids! They are totally awesome!