After a road trip involving 17 high school students for six days, coach Sarah Grill was all pride in her team.
“It was awesome,” said Grill, after returning from the trip to Whistler for the Provincial Ski and Board Championships.
Grill went down for the races with the Fort St. James Ski and Snowboard Team members who qualified for the provincials after the zones on Tabor Mountain. She spent three days at the top near the gates, getting the racers off and cheering them on.
“They rocked it,” she said.
The team made the trip with six girl skiers, five boy skiers and five girl snowboarders, and one other volunteer coach to help out.
All of the team did well, with the girl’s snowboard team finishing third overall, a ranking determined by combining the team members’ times.
Each boarder raced a giant slalom (GS) course as well as a banked slalom terrain course - similar to a boarder-cross course, but raced individually by time rather than in groups.
Sarah King, well known for her competitive skills on her motocross bike in the summer, came out as the top finisher amongst the girls.
King finished fourth overall in both the GS and the terrain course, out of 53 total female snowboard racers.
Amongst the female skiers, Kaitlan Goodwin was the top competitor, ranking in the top half of the 98 female ski racers.
Some of the individual runs each day were also really impressive, Gabriella Willick placed 19th out of the 89 racers in the terrain course one day.
“They’re super competitive kids,” said Grill.
Liam Willick was the top finishing male skier, ending up in the top third of the 99 male racers competing at the championships.
The male ski team placed seventh overall, beating out Smithers, another competitive team from the north which made it to the provincial championships.
The course was really professional, and was set up and organized by the events group at Whistler Mountain, which does most of the ski and board races at the mountain, giving them some really high-level expertise and a lot of experience.
“They really know what they’re doing there,” said Grill, calling the group a “well-oiled machine.”
Grill said snow conditions were also really good, with some snow overnight on Monday, so after racing, skiers had a chance to experience and enjoy the terrain on Whistler.
Some of the racers had never been to Whistler, so it was nice they had time to explore another hill and try out some different terrain as well according to Grill.
The return from the provincials marked the end of the season for the team this year, but Grill does hope to get them working on some fundraising for next year over the remainder of the year, instead of scrambling to fundraise after zones, since Fort St. James almost always sends at least some of their team to provincials.
It was thanks to some generous last-minute sponsors from the community the team could afford to send so many of the team to Whistler for the championships at a reasonable price, which not all parents can afford, especially given some parents had two kids in the group.