The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Three local skiers qualify for Junior Nationals
By Than Acuff
The Crested Butte Nordic Team (CBNT) wrapped up their season of Junior National Qualifiers (JNQ) in Aspen Saturday and Sunday, February 21-22 and Sophia Bender, Tazzy Pozner and Micah Hansen all sealed their spots at Junior Nationals in Cable, Wisconsin March 9-14.
Ten CBNT skiers made the trip to Aspen and the weekend kicked off with the skate sprint event. Typically, the sprint format starts with time trials with only the top 30 advancing to the knockout stages. With less than 30 skiers in each age group all CBNT athletes got to ski in the knockout rounds for a taste of going shoulder-to-shoulder with opponents for 1.1 kilometers.
U16 CBNT skier Tazzy Pozner had the top result of the team as she charged her way through all of the knockout stages to reach the final and win the sprint event, her first JNQ win of her race career.
“She skied so well the whole day,” says coach Gordon Gianniny.
U16 teammates Ali Johnson and Dari Spedden finished their day in 18th and 19th respectively while Brie Bender placed 19th in the u18/u20 class and Sophia Bender made it all the way to the u18/u20 semifinals before getting knocked out.
“She’s totally got all of the cards to play to make it to the final,” says Gianniny. “She just needs to learn how to play them.”
Robert Spencer has had a tough season health-wise leaving him close to making the cut for Junior Nationals in the u16 age class heading into the final JNQ of the season, so the pressure was on. Spencer answered the call reaching the semifinals before getting knocked out to finish eighth overall keeping him in the mix for a Junior National spot with one more race to go.
“It was his best race of the season so far,” says Gianniny.
His u16 teammates Micah Hansen placed 13th, Riley Thomson finished in 15th while Noah Lockman got his first taste of sprint heats and placed 24th.
Sunday the skiers lined up for a mass start Classic race with the u16s racing a 7.5-kilometer course and the u18/u20s skiing a 10-kilometer course.
“It’s the longest race of the season,” says Gianniny. “We had the nicest classic conditions of the season, and the course had lots of big climbs and descents and fast corners.”
Sophia put together her best distance race of the season to finish ninth on Sunday with Brie finishing 18th place. Jayden Beyer took 21st among the u18/u20 boys and then the CBNT u16 skiers took to the course. Pozner was noticeably tired from her stellar effort in the sprints the day before but still skied to a 10th place finish while Johnson placed 18th and Spedden 19th.
Spencer came into Sunday in 12th in the overall standings with the top 12 getting the nod for Junior Nationals and laid everything out on the course to place 10th in the race yet still came up just shy of qualifying in the season overall standings.
“He ended up one spot out of Junior Nationals,” says Gianniny. “I think if he had been healthy all season we would have been in there, but it gives him something to chase next year.”
Hansen finished Sunday in 11th place to close out the season 10th overall for his spot at Junior Nationals while Thomson placed 17th in his last race and Lockman 22nd.
Sophia, Pozner and Hansen will now head to Wisconsin for Junior Nationals, the second time for both Sophia and Pozner and Hansen’s first trip to the big show. They will race four times throughout the week in a variety of disciplines.
“Sophia is psyched for the classic sprint race and for her and Tazzy it’s about trying to improve on their results from last year,” says Gianniny. “We just want Micah to enjoy the experience and get the hang of things at Junior Nationals.”
As for the rest of the team they are headed into their spring seasons of activities be it high school track or, in the case of Spencer, mountain bike racing. Johnson has one more Nordic race and will be making the trip to New Hampshire to compete in a u16 event in mid-March.
