Nordic rolls into season
Warm fall slows first practices
November 13, 2015
Senior Nordic captain Conrad Phelan sweats as he rolls through the fallen leaves around the trail, cruising on his roller skis during the unusual heat of a November day.
According to Phelan, despite the the warm weather of the fall, the team attempts to prepare for its first meet.
“Because of the lack of snow on the ground at this point, we rollerski (and) run a lot, with a good amount of core,” Phelan said.
Phelan said the many returning skiers will help the team throughout the season.
“We have a good amount of the varsity returning from last year, so we should start out pretty well,” Phelan said.
According to Phelan, this year’s team shrank in size compared to last year’s , but this may come with a silver lining, giving coaches and players more time to work with one another.
“We’re hoping for around 60 people to sign up — the more the better,” Phelan said.“But I expect at least 50, which will give more one-on-one time for newer skiers with coaches.”
According to Phelan, last year’s seniors were important to the team and left many spots vacant on the track. This year, he said, the team can step up to the task.
“The seniors last year were very strong skiers, and were pretty good leaders. It will definitely leave a gap to fill,”Phelan said. “We can probably succeed in filling those spots.”
Sophomore captain Caroline Green said younger athletes will have an opportunity to make varsity this year because many girls’ nordic team members graduated.
“We definitely lost a lot of skiers last year, so it would be great if we could build up the junior varsity team to prepare them for varsity,” Green said.
Green said although the season just started and there remain many spots to fill, the team aspires to win conference again this year.
“We are still trying to fill a lot of holes in the team that were left by the seniors but we can bounce back and maybe win conference again,” Green said.
Green said gauging skiers’ abilities at this point in the season can’t be done because no one has skied yet.
“It is very hard to predict how we will perform in the first meet at this point because nobody has been out on skis yet this year,” Green said.
The first meet takes place 3:45 p.m. Nov. 19 at the Carver Park reserve.
