HIGH ACHIEVERS: Ashbury, Louis-Riel, South Carleton reach podium at OFSAA alpine ski championships

By Martin Cleary

Impressive individual placings sparked strong team results and a significant medal haul for National Capital Secondary School Athletic Association student-athletes during the recent OFSAA alpine ski championships at Osler Bluff Ski Club in Collingwood.

That combination of results allowed skiers from Ashbury College, Louis-Riel high school and South Carleton High School to win a total of 14 medals in the high school and open categories – five gold, seven silver and two bronze.

If you break it down, the fastest skiers from the three schools collected six individual medals (one gold, four silver and one bronze) and combined with multiple results in the top-20s produced eight team medals (four gold, three silver and one bronze).

Ashbury led the way for the NCSSAA contingent with one gold and two silver individual medals and three gold, two silver and one bronze medals in the team category.

Louis-Riel sent a small team of four girls and one boy, but was the class of the girls’ open division. Rebelles’ skiers earned one medal of each colour. South Carleton found its strength in the high school boys’ class with a pair of silver medals.

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Ashbury’s Kaari Hall and Ella Beltran finished one-two and were a full second apart in the high school girls’ division slalom. Their results combined with Ally Noble’s 11th-place finish earned the Colts’ the slalom team gold medal for the second straight year.

In the giant slalom, Hall was second, while Noble took fifth and Beltran was seventh to allow Ashbury to defend its high school girls’ team title. Sophia Mrak of Ashbury was 10th, but only the placings of the top three skiers counted for each team.

Hall was a double silver individual medallist at the 2023 OFSAA alpine ski championships.

The Ashbury high school boys’ squad repeated as slalom team champions, but didn’t win any individual medals. Instead, their top three skiers finished in the top 13 – Waka Raina (fourth), Laurier Sullivan (fifth) and Greg Howe (13th). The Colts’ other two skiers missed receiving an official timed result as one didn’t finish and the other was disqualified.

In the high school boys’ giant slalom, Ashbury was third in the team standings with best results from Sullivan in 15th, Thomas Cuhaci in 18th and Finlay Toner in 20th.

Ashbury was a solid second in both the open boys’ team competitions.

Tommy Staples was ninth in the giant slalom and was followed by Marcus Kunstadt-Landon in 13th and Jackson Kunstadt-Landon in 19th. In the slalom, Marcus Kunstadt-Landon placed ninth, while Staples was 12th and Jackson Kunstadt-Landon finished 15th.

Recovered from a fractured leg bone earlier this year, Grade 10 Louis-Riel student-athlete Jordyn Rog won the silver medal in the open girls’ slalom and was the bronze medallist in the giant slalom. Teammate Alexandra Houle, who is in Grade 9, was fourth in the slalom. Rog had the second-best time in the second giant slalom run.

“She’s coming back from an injury, when she broke a bone in her leg a couple of weeks before the city championships,” Rebelles coach Ken Levesque said in a phone interview. “She worked hard to come back with physio and training. She’s one of the strongest skiers in the region.

“We’re very happy for her and her personal well being.”

The top-four results of Rog and Houle plus the 22nd-place finish of Danika McKinley allowed Louis-Riel to win the open girls’ team gold medal.

Riel’s team medal hopes faded in the opening-day giant slalom, when three of its four skiers didn’t finish the first run.

“We had some strong skiers, were positive and felt we could reach the podium,” Levesque added.

Levesque, who has retired as a teacher but returned to coach the alpine ski team for a 20th year, was as disappointed as the girls to have only one skier, Rog, finish the giant slalom. But everything changed during the next day’s slalom.

“I was very happy,” he said about the slalom medals. “The girls were demoralized after the giant slalom, but we tried to stay positive. The slalom can be hit or miss and not a lot of skiers were finishing. But the girls bounced back under tough conditions.”

South Carleton had its spotlight moment in the high school boys’ slalom class. For the second straight year, Nic Brien was the silver-medal winner and his result along with Cam Visser, 17th, and Ethan Campbell, 21st, gave the Richmond school the team silver medal behind Ashbury.