BFA Nordic meets the Challenge at MMU Pursuit!

Our kids love the "Pursuit" format. The race was held at the Ethan Allen Firing Range. A pursuit race begins when all skiers--in this case 150 -- set out in mass start, and, at the end of 100m converge to four wide onto a 3.5k classical course . At the end of a 3.5K l classical loop the top forty skiers were directed to the left, where, with the clock running, they switched from classical to skating skis and skating poles, and raced a final 2.5 skate race. Anyone outside the top forty went directly to the finish line, their day over.

It is hard to stage a mass start in nordic skiers but it is the most exciting of all forms of racing. As you can imagine both the boy's and the girl's start was chaotic scramble and the racing that followed fierce. We were lucky enough to get off to great double-poling starts in both the men and women's races. Heather Holloway led our girls and Dustin Hayes our guys, with team members close behind. We had four girls make the top forty and six boys, impressive stuff for a school our size.

In the girl's race Heather tumbled, hurt her ankle and fell off the pace, but Megan Kane, Mattie Hayes, Larisa Marco, and Michelle Ambrisco brought us home fourth of twelve schools, just behind St Albans. This was a breakthrough race for sophomore Mattie Hayes. She came out aggressively, skied confidently and posted a gratifying 21st, more than taking up the slack for injured senior Shannon Kane.

In the Men's race Kyle Bochanski led our men's group into the changeover area, but lost time to Anders Newbury, our skiing cyclist, who never looked back in his best race of the year. Zach Bochanski overcame a broken pole at the end of the race to claim our third spot and improving sophomore Eric Newbury finished our scoring. Either of our other two boys was capable of scoring for us, but Dustin Hayes has yet to recover from the flu and fell back in the skate portion and Simon Mann-Gow broke a pole. Just missing the skate portion of the event was Brad Stanley who finished 42nd overall.

The race afforded us a chance to ski against strong D-II rivals U-32 and Woodstock. We have solid teams with a great deal of depth on both sides. On any given day we can compete with the best in D-II, but on the whole are currently a half-stride the best. We have a month left to do something about that. My feel is that these kids are going to make a run. What we lack in talent we make up for in heart. Our determination is second to none.