WUHS Girls Claim District Alpine Skiing Crown

By David Miles, Sports Correspondent

The Woodstock Union High School girls claimed the Southern Vermont District Alpine Skiing crown Wednesday afternoon, while the boys team finished second behind Burr & Burton. The meet was here on the Wasps’ home hill at Suicide Six.

“The weather was something we might expect from a Saturday in May rather than Feb. 28,” said Coach Fred Dieffenbach. He was pleased with how well his charges fared in the extremely difficult skiing conditions.

Grace Vollers was the champion in the GS for the girls (1:00.68), just ahead of teammate Kelly Gebhardt (1:01.33). Gebhardt added a third place finish in the Slalom (1:30.87) to lead the home team in that discipline.

Also scoring in both events for the girls were Chloe Noble (8^th in the slalom and 10^th in the GS) and Alice Sperber (7^th in the GS and 9^th in the slalom). That gave the Wasps four top ten finishes in the GS.

Maggie Parker helped WUHS go one better in the slalom by coming home in 9^th place.

Woodstock edged Rutland by two points in the slalom and outdistanced the Raiders by 11 in the GS to ease to a total of 44 points, ahead of the Raiders; 57. Burr & Burton was just one point back in third.

The Bulldog boys did some of their best skiing of the year to best Woodstock by ten points in their competition. Rutland actually won the boys GS, but was far back in the slalom to finish third overall, with Thetford, MSJ and Oxbow rounding out the competition.

Kyle Weirether was his usual steady self for Woodstock. The senior finished second in the slalom (1:21.84) behind B & B’s Blake Green who scorched down the hill five seconds faster, and fourth in the GS with a time of 58.61.

Elliot Shoemaker also finished inside the top ten in both events. He took 6^th in the slalom (1:25.61) and 9^th in the GS (1:01.04).

Aaron Wilson took 5^th place in the slalom while Peter Borden claimed 6^th in the GS. Borden also rounded out the team scoring for the home team in the slalom with his 14^th place finish, while Riley Quicker did the same with a 16^th place result (1 place and .1 of a second ahead of teammate Clay Lynch) in the GS.

The turnaround to the state championships is a quick one as they are slated for Monday and Tuesday, March 5-6 at Burke Mountain.