It should be an exciting winter season for the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation's Junior Nordic ski team.
The SVSEF is hosting one of three Intermountain Division qualifying races for Junior Nationals Feb. 12-13. And the local Nordic ski team is organizing the U.S. Nordic Championships for the first time ever, also at Lake Creek on March 26-27.
Besides those major events, all signs point to healthy progress in a program that counts on starting kids early and gradually bringing them along.
The 14-member coaching staff is stable, knowledgeable and experienced. The number of skiers is growing, particularly in younger age groups.
The Development Team (ages 7-11) stationed at Lake Creek north of Ketchum and Quigley Canyon near Hailey has grown from 74 skiers to 87—accounting for most of the entire program's growth from 144 last year to 156 this year.
Rick Kapala, 24th-year head coach of the SVSEF Nordic program, said, "We have our largest team ever at Quigley Canyon. When we started it several years ago, we thought we might have 20 to 30 kids. Now it's 36. Our goal is to have 50 elementary school kids in the program at Quigley."
Dave Bingham is the Development Team head coach for the 17th year. He has a staff of five coaches including first-year coach Margii Driscoll, a SVSEF alumni. The Lake Creek squad of the Devo Team remains solid and has 51 skiers.
At the upper age levels, it's another winter of maintaining fitness, peaking at the right time and trying to stay healthy for the hard-working 14-to-20 year-olds in the higher echelons of the SVSEF team.
Many Competition Team skiers may log 500 hours of aerobic training over 12 months. Kapala said, "The bottom line is we have to keep training. It takes a while for all this hard work to express itself. It's a matter of having patience and making steady progress."
Kapala is as excited about his older Olympic Development Team racers as he is about elementary school students discovering the sport for the first time. The ODT squad of nine in 2010-11 includes local Olympian Morgan Arritola and local Mike Sinnott, one of North America's best men.
Newcomers are University of Colorado NCAA champion Matt Gelso, 22, of Truckee, Ca. and Dartmouth College All-American Katie Bono, 23. Returning are University of Colorado skiers Reid Pletcher and Alexa Turzian, who grew up with the SVSEF program.
ODT head coach Travis Jones is back to join Competition Team coaches Chris Mallory and Ashley McQueen to provide some of the best Nordic coaching in the entire U.S.
In the past few years Sun Valley has instituted the post-graduate ODT program to provide a training base and targeted financial support as a bridge between junior and national ski teams. Enhanced training opportunities, technical support and coaching are offered to the ODT racers through the SVSEF.
Head Prep Team coach Kelley Sinnott, who assists with the powerful Wood River High School girls' soccer team in the fall, is the leader of the 26-skier Prep Team (ages 11-14). It's an introductory team to the demands of racing and training.
All the older skiers, from 11-20, train out of the same Lake Creek facility. The work ethic seems to rub off pretty well.
Kapala said, "We're lucky because we've been able to have the back-to-back linkage you need between older and younger kids. They know what the standard is. The kids show up every day and learn what it takes to succeed and do well."
This year's older racers
A chief objective of Competition Team skiers is to qualify for the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) Junior Nationals, scheduled in 2011 for Minneapolis, Minn. in March.
That's a lot closer to Sun Valley than last March's Junior Nationals journey to the far reaches of Maine, at Presque Isle. In large part because of that lengthy cross-country trip, it took a while for SVSEF and Intermountain Division racers to get it going last March.
Once they did, the Intermountain Division led by SVSEF racers Annie Pokorny, Sloan Storey and Maggie Williams came on strong and finished third of 10 teams with 980 points, behind New England (1,660) and second-place (1,275).
Pokorny, officially racing for her hometown of Spokane, Wash. at Junior Nationals, won the J1 (ages 16-17) 10-kilometer mass start race at Presque Isle.
Storey won the second-place silver medal in the J2 (14-15) 5-kilometer freestyle race. Williams was fourth in the same race, then Storey and Williams teamed with Anika Miller of McCall for the silver medal in the J2 girls' relay.
Pokorny, 18, and first-year J1 Storey, 16, are back to anchor a potentially very strong SVSEF girls' squad. Williams, 15, won't be 16 until 2011 Junior Nationals are over—and this will be her third year as a J2. She could be a national champion. "Obviously we're psyched about Maggie," said Kapala.
They're joined by second-year J1s Emily Williams and Morgan Atkinson, and first-year J1 Maranda Stopol, 16.
Strong prospects in the wings are J2s Katie Feldman, Haley Montgomery, Elana King-Nakoaka and Sarah Williams. "Every day we see the J2s being pulled along by the J1s in practice," said Kapala.
Compared to the girls, the SVSEF has "a relatively young guys' team," Kapala said. Leaders include J1s Andrew Pfeiffer and Brandon Wade, and Older Junior racer Max Christman.
Young guns making headway are J1s Jackson Long, Ketchum Wilt and Gray Riedinger. They're making the tough jump from second-year J2s to first-year J1s—where the courses triple from 5k to 15k.
"Frankly many are still in the middle of growing which makes it tougher," said Kapala.
Male skiers across the Intermountain Division are generally younger this winter, since the division graduated a lot of good J1s, Kapala said. It leaves some openings for the SVSEF boys like 15-year-old Jake Adicoff in the J2 class.
"We have a lot of good, young athletes, many in their first year on the Competition Team, but they're smaller in stature," said Kapala. "People like J2s Andrew Graves, Drew Morse, Ty Reinemann, Stephen Pfeiffer and Calder Zarkos. That's a core of good athletes."
SUN VALLEY SKI EDUCATION FOUNDATION JUNIOR NORDIC
Program director and head coach—Rick Kapala (24th year).
Olympic Development Team head coach—Travis Jones (3rd year).
Post-Grad head coach, waxing and tech services—Chris Mallory (6th year).
Competition team coaches—Ashley McQueen (5th year) and Chris Mallory.
J3/J4 Prep team coaches—Head coach Kelley Sinnott (6th year), Rob Landis (12th year), Ashley Wells (5th year) and Abbie Harris (1st year).
Development team coaches—Head coach Dave Bingham (17th year). Assistant coaches—Laurie Leman (20th year), Paddy McIlvoy (4th year), Svea Grover (4th year), Bob Coplin (1st year) and Margii Driscoll (1st year).
Olympic Development Team (9 skiers)—Women: Morgan Arritola, Katie Bono, Nicole DeYong and Alexa Turzian. Men: Mike Sinnott, Colin Rodgers, Simi Hamilton, Reid Pletcher and Matt Gelso.
Post-Grad Team (5 skiers)—Carrie Heagney, Scotty Phelan, William Spiller, Daniel Sundali and Torin Tucker.
Competition team racers (29 skiers)—Jake Adicoff, Morgan Atkinson, Max Christman, Kelsey Dickinson, Katie Feldman, Andrew Graves, Elana King-Nakaoka, Kaitlyn Landis, Brooke Lawrence, Zachary Lindahl, Jackson Long, Haley Montgomery, Andrew Morse, Nathan Nasvik, Andrew Pfeiffer, Stephen Pfeiffer, Annie Pokorny, Ty Reinemann, Gray Riedinger, Maranda Stopol, Sloan Storey, Nate Thomas, Montana Tucker, Brandon Wade, Emily Williams, Maggie Williams, Sarah Williams, Ketchum Wilt and Calder Zarkos. (Tuition $3,525 including wax and grooming fee, ages 14-18 high school OJ/J1/J2, year-round training, on-snow 5-6 days per week).
J3/J4 Prep team racers (26 skiers)—Cameron Bingham, Benjamin Brunelle, Tess Burchmore, Theo Castellano Wood, Victoria Castellano Wood, Sophia Coplin, Lukas DeWolfe, Thomas Gillespie, Grace Gorham, Danny Graves, Xavier Haemmerle, Galena Hansen, Logan Jones-Wilkins, Taylor Koth, Annika Landis, Keene Morawitz, Cooper Roquet, Carter Ros, Emily Siegel, Callum Stearns, Cheyanne Stopol, Alexa Szombathy, Jacob Truxal, Madison Watts, Zach Williams and Peter Wolter. (Tuition $1,335 including wax and grooming fee, ages 10-13 J3/J4 introductory program to racing and training, practices 3 days per week).
Lake Creek and Quigley Development team members:
Lake Creek (51 skiers)—Laine Allison, Payton Bacca, Abby Berman, Crosby Boe, Caelin Bradshaw, Devon Brown, Daisy Buxton, Eva Carlson, Kate Connelly, Sage Curtis, William DeWolfe, Maddy Dunn, George Englehardt, Will Englehardt, Allie Evans, Raine Filbert, Mary Claire Fisher, Lily Fitzgerald, Fallon Flaherty, Jackson Giles, Ellie Gorham, Jake Gorham, Buey Grossman, Ella Guy, Johnny Hagenbuch, Joe Hall, Lily Hogan, Jack Horowitz, Kate Horowitz, Ethan Hunt, Tully Jones-Wilkins, Adam Kind, Anhwei Kirk, Sascha Leidecker, Elle Mann, Eliza Marks, Lyla Maxwell, Sara Nakaoka, Jenna Nurge, Landon Nurge, Will Price, Shea Slanetz, Bennett Snyder, Charlie Snyder, Fletcher Stumph, Chloe Tanous, Jude Werth, Oliver Wiedemann, Jack Wocjik, Logan Wojcik and Ella Wolter.
Quigley Canyon (36 skiers)—Stella Barsotti, Lily Brunelle, Caroline Corker, Cash Dart, Maggie Deal, Zachary Deal, Luke Dean, Maren Feltman, Petra Glenn, Eva Grover, Dieter Haemmerle, Kye Harned, Kade Heitzman, Nils Huss, Sofia Kinney, Jorgen Lawrence, Maya Lutz, Azia Mathieu, Anders Nelson, Kai Nelson, Zachary Olenick, Sofia Peller, Faye Prekeges, Sebastian Radl-Jones, Brogan Ros, Milo Ryason, Beckler Schmidt, Alex Shafer, Eveline Svidgal, Elliot Sweek, Emily Thayer, Leah Thayer, Jessica Thomas, Dane Thompson, Sarah Truxal and Penelope Weekes. (Tuition for each program $505 including wax and grooming fee, grades 2-5, on-snow 3 days per week December through February).
Off they go at the start of the Dec. 12 Winterstart cross-country ski races at Galena Lodge 23 miles north of Ketchum. A good representation of Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation Nordic ski teamers joined the fun including, from left, Stephen Pfeiffer, 14, Andrew Graves, 15, and male 5k winner Jake Adicoff, 15. Paced by Pfeiffer, the trio also placed 1-2-3 for the J2 boys 5k race in Monday’s Christmas Classic at Lake Creek. Photo by Willy Cook
