Reflecting on his performance at State for Nordic, junior Danny Walsh said the races were difficult because of the amount of competition.

“It went okay, I didn’t do as well as I was hoping, but it was all around a solid race,” Walsh said. “Every second basically, someone else places, so it’s just sort of being a little bit slow-ish and just feeling like you’re a lot slower than you normally go because it’s also packed.”

According to senior Maggie Klein, fans were beneficial in supporting Walsh during his races at State.

“I really wanted to go support Danny, because he made it to State and we’re friends. He’s worked really hard all season and I just thought it was super important that the team was able to support him,” Klein said. “I know how hard he’s worked all season and it’s cool to have people cheering for you.”

Walsh said he was both excited and nervous beforehand, but happy once the race was over.

“I was pretty nervous before and I was pretty relieved after to be honest, just because it was pretty hard and I was excited before too,” Walsh said.

Klein said Walsh was impressive in that he went to State as a junior and worked hard.

“I think he did really well,” Klein said. “And since he’s a junior, I think it was a really good first showing. He met the goals that he wanted and he performed as well as he could.”

According to Walsh, he is proud of how far the entire team came to making it to State.

“The whole season, the team was actually pretty close to going to State. And then next year, I think we may have a good shot at it again,” Walsh said. “We, as a team, obviously came a little short at the end, but yeah, I’m really proud of our team.”

According to Klein, State was a great experience to see the best Nordic skiers in Minnesota.

“It was super cool to see so many people in the Nordic community coming out to watch,” Klein said. “And it was super cool to see the best racers go out and it’s how fast they were all skiing and how good they all were. It was a really cool environment just to see the best Nordic (skiers).”

Klein said she was proud of how Walsh performed and could see the work he put in.

“I felt super nervous for Danny. I just knew how bad he wanted it and so I felt I was super nervous the whole time. As he was racing, I felt super excited because I could see he was having a good race,” Klein siad. “He was putting his best out there and watching him finish the race was just super exciting because you to see all the hard work pays off for the season.”

According to Walsh, he will be doing track and field and continuing to ski while there is still snow on the ground, which will hopefully help him next season.

“Training for next year. I am definitely glad I qualified for State this year so senior year it’s not going to all be new,” Walsh said. “Just this next year, skiing while there’s still snow and once the snow melts I do track and field which helps a lot.”