Nordic senior captain Annie Van Pilsum-Johnson said she and her teammates train daily while waiting for the advent snow signaling the season to kick into gear.

“We practice every day and then once snow comes, we’ll sometimes have Saturday practices as well,” Van Pilsum-Johnson said. “We’ll be doing these running and roller ski workouts until it snows. Once it snows we’ll do similar work-outs just on actual skis and teach JV skiers how to ski.”

Head coach Doug Peterson said since the area has yet to see snow, the Nordic team must practice with what they have.

“Right now all we can really do is run and roller ski,” Peterson said. “We’ve done pretty well in the past at from dry land training. It’s nice because we can cover a lot of the technical things that we can’t do right away on snow.”

Peterson said overall the Nordic team, including the newcomers, possesses a lot of potential.

“75 percent of them haven’t skied before, so unlike other sports, we’re doing the base level instruction,” Peterson said. “But it is a pretty good group. We have some strong skiers at the top, and there is a lot of room for improvement overall.”

Junior Emmet Foner said he hopes for a victory for the entire group and not just individuals.

“I hope that we can make it to State as a team and not only have people go personally,” Foner said.

Peterson said while success seems to be a habit for the team, he would like to reach additional goals.

“We’ve had a skier go to State every year for the past seventeen years, but I’d like to win the conference, either with the boys or the girls,” Peterson said. “We have a little work to do in order to do that, but we do have three months.”

Foner said team bonding will help younger skiers stay interested in Nordic and continue skiing.

“I want us to be more like a family this year,” Foner said. “Having older people on the team connect with younger people would help them keep skiing and would strengthen our team.”

Nordic’s first meet is 3:45 Dec 7 at Hyland Park, weather permitting.