Mammoth wins first-ever CNISSF ski & snowboard combined championship
For the first time in the Mammoth High School history, the Huskies can hang the crown jewel of California Nevada Interscholastic Ski and Snowboard Federation (CNISSF) snow sports competition to their wall of fame.
Mammoth Huskies came in first overall for California state, winning the CNISSF Ski and Snowboard Combined Championships. El Dorado High School came in second and Davis High School in third.
Twenty-three Mammoth High School athletes were named to the State Championship Team, including 10 snowboard athletes (Tyler Searles, Candice Berger, Sam Hein, Sabrina Wilson, Edwin Molina, Julia Cage, Tyler Wagner, Kenny Schreiber, Nathan Liuag, and Fleur Connolly) and 13 skiers (Hayden Mannetter, Tim Wolfe, Sierra Gilfoy, Lynn Regelbrugge, Chelsea Foulke, Kyra McKee, Torrey Patrie, Sabrina Clevenger, Griffin Covert, Everest Webber, Ryan Foulke, Russell Malm and Nathan Everson).
On Monday, March 3, Gilfoy, Foulke and McKee finished the slalom ski race as the three MHS point holders taking third, sixth and 11th place respectively. Three of Mammoth’s male slalom skiers, Mannetter, Covert, and Wolfe added more points to the overall total.
On Tuesday, MHS women turned in three impressive results in the grand slalom, with Gilfoy winning the race, Foulke taking third and Regelbrugge finishing in 11th. The three Husky men on the GS team dug deep and produced two top 15 results, with Covert taking ninth, and Mannetter 13th. Webber, the third man on the team, came in 23rd.
Gilfoy, Foulke, and Regelbrugge were named to the 2014 CNISSF Women’s Top Ten Combined All-State-Ski Team. Gilfoy also won State Champion titles for GS and Combined. Covert and Mannetter earned spots on the 2014 CNISSF Men’s Top Ten Combined All-State Ski Team.
The MHS women’s all-star results earned them the 2014 CNISSF Women’s Team Ski Championship, and the men placed fourth overall out of 32 schools, but the Combined Ski title that the Husky skiers won in 2013 eluded the team. Davis beat Mammoth by a mere 9 points in what one coach described as “a very tight, but disappointing race.”
But the even more prestigious title, the CNISSF Ski and Snowboard Combined Championship, was still within the grasp of the team.
On Wednesday, the competition turned to the snowboarders. Connolly put Mammoth on the map by taking first in the GS by over three seconds. Berger, Wilson and Cage backed her up with solid runs. On the men’s side, all four of Mammoth boarders, Hein, Wagner, Searles and Molina finished with the best result belonging to Hein in 21st place.
Again, it was Connolly who took charge going into the slalom on Thursday. After the first run she sat in second place, followed by Berger and Wilson, who both completed clean runs. Connolly came back to win the second run by .39. It wasn’t enough to take the win, but it was fast enough to keep her in second; a full three seconds over the third place finisher. The Mammoth ladies finished the race with the three required scores on the board.
The final event of the State Championships belonged to the men. Tyler Searles had a difficult first run and sat in 58th position going into the second run. At the end of the two runs Tyler Wagner, who placed 34th in the slalom, held on to seventh place and Samuel Hein moved up in the rankings to take 14th. Mammoth had one other racer, Liuag, but Liuag had to complete his second run with a competitive time. He didn’t disappoint, crossing the finish line in 29th place.
While many of the 31 schools in the overall championships were heavy in points for one or the other discipline, Mammoth had produced solid performances in both the ski and snowboard divisions.
At the awards ceremony on Thursday evening the MHS Women’s Snowboard Team won third place for the combined. Connolly walked away with first place on the 2014 Women’s Top Ten Combined All-State Snowboard Team and the championship Women’s GS title.
