Traverse City Record-Eagle

Archive: Saturday

January 5, 2013

Shannon Weaver leads Traverse City Central to ski win

TC West skis to a fourth-place team finish

FROM STAFF REPORTS ----

MARQUETTE — Good start for Shannon Weaver.

The Traverse City Central senior swept the slalom and giant slalom Friday to the lead the girls to a season-opening win in the Marquette Invitational.

Weaver won the slalom with a combined time of 1:28 and the giant slalom in 59.96.

"Shannon really skied well," Central coach Jerry Stanek said. "The courses were tough and the conditions weren't optimal, but she did everything right."

Team scores were not immediately available for the girls. Traverse City West came in fourth.

Central's Madison Ostergren placed second in the giant slalom (1:00.69), Cassidy Klein sixth (1:02.56) and Molly Whiting 10th (1:04.7).

In the slalom, Devon Dotterrer and Paige Pfannenstiel tied for 10th (1:38.63) with Whiting 14th (1:41.50).

"I feel good about the girls team," Stanek said. "We made some mistakes, but overall I think we're going to be pretty strong if we ski as a team."

West's Monica Hessler finished second in the slalom (1:30.77) and fifth in the giant slalom (1:02.40).

Kitt Hornbogen took ninth in the slalom (1:38.5), Claire Podges 13th (1:41.3) and Devan Gorton 24th (1:49.6).

In giant slalom, Hornbogen finished 17th (1:05.6), Gorton 18th (1:07.3) and Podges 22nd (1:07.7).

"We only started five girls today, three were freshmen, and I thought all five did a solid job," West coach Ed Johnson said. "It gives us something to build off."

Petoskey won the boys meet with 47.7 points. Central finished third with 90.5 and West fourth with 154.5.

Kalvis Hornburg led the Trojans, placing fourth in giant slalom (59.17) and fifth in slalom (1:25.40).

Central placed four in the top 12 of giant slalom. In addition to Hornburg, John Whiting came in seventh (1:00.31), Kurt Frick eighth (1:00.68) and Dirk Phelps 11th (1:01.25).

In slalom, Phelps placed 15th (1:29.77), Frick 17th (1:30.59) and Jacob Gerstner 23rd (1:35.77).

"We're going to be competitive," Stanek said. "We have a couple freshmen that are going to be players. It's early, we haven't had a lot of snow time, so we'll improve."

Finley Clark paced West. He was seventh in the slalom (1:26.06) and 10th in the giant slalom (1:01.08). Matt Lowe finished 14th in slalom (1:28.68), Austin Skibowski 21st (1:34.7) and Alex Podges 22nd (1:35.3).

In giant slalom, Skibowski placed 24th (1:04), Podges 27th (1:04.9) and Lowe 29th (1:05.8).

"We were missing two guys," Johnson said, "but for a first race it went fine."

Central and West will compete in the Petoskey-Harbor Sprongs Invitational at Boyne Highlands on Monday.

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