It’s been a tough winter for Nordic skiers. Warm temperatures in December brought virtually no snow and when snow finally arrived here it was soon covered with ice. Because of this, the Boothbay Region High School Nordic team has had little opportunity to get their skiing legs under them. Now that January is here, colder temperatures have every skier’s hopes up for improved conditions.

So far this ski season, the BRHS Nordic ski team has had only one opportunity to practice classic skiing; their second opportunity came this week in competition. 

“Unfortunately, we have not had the snow depth to practice any classic skiing at home and we have only had one practice session (at Sugarloaf over vacation) with the technique so far this year,” Coach Scott said.

The Nordic team has been regularly working out on dry land but without snow, they have had to wait for races to hone their skills. It’s a situation akin to a basketball team only getting time on the court during games.

Despite the difficulties, Coach Nick Scott said the team is doing remarkably well. On Saturday, the Seahawks joined 17 other teams and hundreds of high school skiers who converged on Fryeburg on Saturday, Jan 10 for the annual Leavitt Hornet Classic ski race (moved from its usual location in Turner due to lack of snow).  

Kyler Carty led the Seahawk scorers, finishing 56th at 18:19, followed by Joey Paolillo (67th, 19:01), Zach Vise (70th, 19:09) and Liam Conlin (90th, 20:25). David Machon finished 106th at 21:33 and Ray Perry 113th at 21:48.

Gould Academy easily won the meet; BRHS finished twelfth overall. 

“All in all, I think the team did very well in the race and we took advantage of the time on well groomed trails to work on technique development,” Scott said, “Kyler Carty had another great race placing first for the team, but Joey Paolillo had a really good day. While most of the team skied faster at Tuesday's skate race (at Black Mountain), he skied faster on Saturday than he did at Tuesday's race by about 40 seconds. Liam Conlin also raced considerably faster on Saturday than in his previous outing.”

Angela Machon was again the sole female competitor for BRHS; she finished 114th at 27:24.

The Seahawks were scheduled to compete at Maranacook this weekend, but there is insufficient snow for the event. The location of this week’s competition is yet to be set.

For more race photos, click here.