FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wisconsin State High School Championship - Day 1

Day 1 was classic day of the Wisconsin High School State Meet. The meet is being held in Rhinelander at the Northwoods Ski Trails. With a somewhat abbreviated season due to some races being cancelled earlier in the season, there was a great deal of uncertainty as to how things would turn out. Well, for the most part anyway. Nicole Bathe of Verona easily moved out in front of the two-day pursuit competition beating the second place Delany FitzPatrick of Lakeland, by 42 seconds. Olivia Amber of Northwesten is in third at 1:10 behind the leader. Bathe is the defending State Champion and looks to be in good position to capture a second overall championship tomorrow morning.

With Bathe and Amber skiing as independents and not counting in the team standings, you have to look a bit deeper into the results to see where that shapes up. At the halfway point, the Lakeland girls lead the way with 16 points followed by Hayward at 27 and Peak Nordic with 30 points. These team points will be wiped out tomorrow as the team championship will be determined by the final pursuit standings. However, based on today’s results, these three teams will most likely be there tomorrow but the order may still change.

For the boys, the competition is very balanced with 8 teams represented in the top 10 individual standings. At the halfway point, Kyler Berg, Ashwaubenon is leading the standings by 37 seconds over second place, Chaz Perry of Peak Nordic. Ian Liphart is not to far back in 3rd at 42 seconds back of the leader. Not only are the top 10 very diverse in team affiliation, they are also closely bunched with those same 10 skiers all within a minute of the lead. This should make things interesting for both the individual and team competition.

Ashwaubenon leads the boys competition with 20 points and would seem to have a comfortable lead at this point. Standing in second is Hayward with 37 points, followed closely by Lakeland at 38 and Peak Nordic at 40. Needless to say, the three podium spots are up for grabs and it may come down to the wax techs with changing conditions that could affect the outcome.

Sunday’s race will follow the same course as the classic race and will begin at 9:00 AM with the HS boys going first.