February 19, 2020 – Slinger, WI – The Hartford and Slinger High School snowboard season has wrapped up with an excellent finish. All members on the girls team and six of the student athletes on the boys team competed in the toughest race yet at Mt. LaCrosse.
The state qualifying boys included Brady Jackson, Conor Schmitt, Gabe Kebbekus, Zak Raskin, Isaac DeWalt, Ethan Smith, and Brayden Wiedmeyer. All of the girls team qualified as well and the team was able to come home with some pretty amazing accomplishments.
Friday was met with some frustration and hard training from the racers to prepare them for the race the next day. The coaches were strategic with the courses and amount of time they required the racers to prepare.
The courses on Saturday were challenging. Marisa Reyes took second in boardercross, following Kallie Weyer in 11th and Ava Stortz in 15th and the girls took second overall.
For the boys boardercross Cole Rummel of West Bend took first along with Ethan Benedict in ninth and Brian Pomeroy in 15th. Ethan Smith and Brady Jackson took the 12th and 13th spots and Isaac DeWalt finished 17th.
Giant slalom was the next event. Reyes took an unfortunate fall during her race. That left Kallie Weyer scoring highest for Slinger in 12th place and Sophia Parkinson of Hartford taking 14th.
Ava Stortz had a nice finish in 17th. For the boys, Rummel again took fourth, Smith from Slinger took fifth. DeWalt finished 14th and Pomeroy in 15th. An honorable mention to Conor Schmitt, taking 22nd, beating all but one boy on the Slinger team that event.
Last but not least was Slalom. Reyes took ninth place and Weyer finished 15th. Rummel took fourth, Smith was seventh, Pomeroy 12th, and Jackson 14th. Benedict and DeWalt were close with Benedict taking 18th and DeWalt was 19th.
For the event team results, the Hartford and Slinger ladies took second in boardercross and third in giant slalom and slalom. That is a huge accomplishment for them. For the boys, they took fourth in all events.
Congratulations to the West Bend snowboard team for taking first place overall in boardercross. Overall results were third place for girls and fourth place for the boys.
Thank you to all the parents for the constant support this season, the racers really could not do it without you.
For my personal update, I had my ACL Reconstruction and Meniscus repair surgery. I was super nervous but excited to be on the road to recovery. I have been mentally struggling the past few weeks leading up to the surgery. My physical therapy before surgery made such a large impact on me, sometimes it felt like nothing went wrong in the first place.
That thought hurt me more than helped me, because I thought that I was okay to race again. When surgery was over, it was a huge weight taken off of my shoulders.
I felt like I was able to push out of that starting gate and tear up that recovery course. I am currently 5 days post-op in a 6-9 month recovery and 4 weeks no weight bearing.
I have a goal of playing soccer with my club again in the fall, and being back to full strength next ski and snowboard season. I would like to thank everyone for all the prayers sent and the love. Both of my ski and snowboard teams have really cheered me up and are helping me through each step of this process.
