Ski meets are often at the mercy of mother nature and this year has been a bit of a struggle for the Raiders. They finally had their first meet of the season and when the snow settled, the boys finished second behind Stillwater and the girls finished fourth. The meet was the Welch Village Invitational which is normally held a little later in the season.
The top placing girls were Kate Nowak in third, Alexa Loritz in 12th, Claire Caturia in 27th who was followed closely by Addison Maniak in 30th. Claire Montgomery, Maddie Herdt and seventh grade rookie Marly Schield rounded out the Raiders who scored points for the team. The girls will face some tough competition this season with several races against state title contenders from Hill Murray and the Minneapolis Schools.
The boys were led by Seniors Gavin Molitor and Finn Caturia who finished third and fourth respectively. James McNamera finished in sixth place, Axton Bauer was 11th, James Samii finished 28th, Weston Chandler was 36th and Jadon Mike was 53rd to round out the scoring.
Hastings also fielded a team of middle school athletes who managed a very respectable seventh place finish with strong skiing from Max Bauer, Henry Naber, Leighton Stoffel, Lenox Bauer, Tor Ronning, Sawyer Chandler, and rookie Mark Gerdes all scoring points for the team.
The team has a tough challenge this Tuesday at Welch facing their MEC rivals as the bulk of their races will take place over the next few weeks. Next up, the team will travel to Wild Mountain to take on Hill-Murray on Jan 13 at 4:30 p.m. After that, they head to Giants Ridge in Biwabik on Sat. Jan. 18 for an all-day invitational. They return to Wild Mountain on Jan. 20 for a noon meet against St. Thomas Academy.