Huskies Thrive in CCSA Birkie Classic Races Saturday
CABLE, Wis. – The Michigan Tech Huskies returned to the trails today, racing in the Birkie Start CCSA series. The women contested in a 5K individual start classic race and the men competed in a 10K individual start classic race.
The Nordic Ski team had three women finish in the top 40 and seven men finish in the top 20. Freshman, Mitch DeLong, was the team's top skiier on the day, placing 5th overall.
In a pool of 156 women competitors, Tech's three women filed into the top 40. Freshman Sarah Goble lead the women's pack, wrapping the race up as 16th in the field overall and 10th in the college standings. Goble crossed the line with a time of 16:08.2 followed by teammate Amanda Kautzer, who finished 23rd overall, and 12th college with a competitive time of 16:13.3. Erin Lipp tailed behind in 37th, and 13th college with a time of 16:42.2.
"The women's race was very close in overall finishing times, with a five second swing in finishing time in either direction, earning or losing you 10 places on the results list," said Michigan Tech Nordic Ski Coach Tom Smith. "The course profile made it truly a race to three kilometers as the last two kilometers was fast and winding downhill into the finish."
Seven Tech men broke the top 20 overall in today's classic race and three Huskies made the top 10 for CCSA.
"In the men's race the snow conditions got tricky and it made for a very tough day of racing as we really had to choose whether we wanted fast skis that may be a little slick on the kick wax, or slower skis that may kick better but would have been too tough to compete for the top positions on the podium," said Smith.
"We took a risk and went for faster skis that some of our student-athletes were able to have strong performances with but it also made for a tough day for others day due to these tricky conditions."
Mitch DeLong was the Huskies' leader, finishing 5th overall. DeLong hit the line at 27:58.8. Reid Goble followed just seconds behind to earn 7th place with a time of 28:13.8. MTU's Olav Vestol (9th, 28:40.7), Gaspard Cuenot (12th, 28:59.2), Patrick Acton (15th, 29:08.5), Aiden Truettner (16th, 29:23.2) and Tom Bye (17th, 29:23.3) all had solid performances in the field of 155 skiiers.
"We have high expectations for ourselves as a team because we know that on any race day we can and should be competing for podium spots on both the women's and men's teams," Smith said. "Today was not quite what we had hoped for coming in to the day as far as results go, but we strongly believe that one day of racing won't make or break our student-athletes and team's qualification for NCAA Championships. We are eagerly looking forward to tomorrow's mass start skate races."
The Huskies will be back in action tomorrow, Sunday Jan. 20 to partake in the freestyle events at the Birkie.