CVU alpine teams finish another remarkable season

This has been another remarkable year for the Champlain Valley Union alpine ski team.

For the second year in a row, the Redhawks had 12 skiers qualified to represent the state of Vermont in the Eastern High School championships — six men and six women. The competition involves teams from the states in the eastern United States.

With a total of 24 skiers on the state team, that means that half of the team were from CVU. This is the same number that CVU sent to the Easterns last year as part of the state team.

Vermont won the Eastern High School Championship on March 9 at Attitash Mountain in Bartlett, N.H. The event was supposed to be a two-day competition with giant slalom on Saturday and the slalom on Sunday, March 10, but a snowstorm blew in Saturday night forcing the cancelation of Sunday’s contest.

The Vermont men won Saturday’s giant slalom with Jake Strobeck taking second. The Vermont women took second. The results of Saturday’ skiing became the results for the Eastern High School championships with no results from the canceled Sunday slalom to contribute to the final result.

CVU also did quite well at the Vermont state championship on Monday and Tuesday, March 4-5, at Burke.

Kate Kogut took home third place in the giant slalom on Monday, the first day of state competition.

On Tuesday, Ella Lisle took first place in her final high school slalom competition. Rachel Bialowoz also ended up on the podium with a third-place finish, closely followed by Kate Kogut in fourth and Carly Strobeck in eighth.

With four women in the top 10 in the slalom, the Redhawks scored enough points to take the women’s state title.

The CVU men had four finishers in the top 10 in the giant slalom, with Jake Strobeck taking first place, followed by George Francisco in fourth, Ray Hagios in sixth and Sebastian Bronk in eighth.

But, a bit of bad luck struck the Redhawks men’s skiers in the slalom. With three of the team placing in the top five — Ray Hagios taking first, Jake Strobeck in fourth and George Francisco in fifth — there was a technical mistake made by officials.

Each team is only allowed to ski six competitors. The places of the top four finishers for each team are added together to arrive at the teams’ scores. Since since two of CVU’s men’s skiers didn’t finish and one was disqualified, the team didn’t have a fourth skier whose finishing place could be added to the other three skiers’ places.

Officials figured the resulting score incorrectly, so initially Rutland was awarded the men’s title on Tuesday. Eventually, the mistake was discovered and officials realized that actually the CVU alpine team was supposed to be the winner.

The Vermont Principal’s Association made the decision for CVU and Rutland to stand as boys co-champions.

In the end, the CVU alpine team officially won both the women’s and the combined overall title (the combination of the men’s and women’s scores), although it actually won all three — the men’s, women’s and combined state titles.

“At the end of the day, CVU alpine did ‘win’ both the men’s and women’s State Championship Alpine titles and the combined overall title,” said coach Steve Francisco. “CVU Alpine continues to be the team to beat.”