By Bruce Karnick

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Tuesday March Second’s air temperature at six in the morning was 25 degrees, not long before the Raider Boys left Hastings to get to Hyland Lake Park Reserve in Bloomington. When the boys arrived, the snow temp was still below freezing but that was rapidly changing. Thankfully Hyland has a three-foot-thick bed of man-made snow on their Nordic course, but how would that snow hold up? Not well. By the time the boys participated in the first race of the morning, the 10:30 classic race, the 38-degree air temp and the bright sun started to cause issues. By noon, the temp had hit 42 and in the sunny areas, the ground had become very soft, wet and sticky.

The issues with the warm up cause troubles for racers. One section in the sun can be very soft, when that occurs in a corner, poles can penetrate deeper than a skier expects, causing the poles to get stuck, skiers to fall and snap poles and lose precious time, or get hurt. In the shady areas, the surface can ice over causing other issues for skiers.

Senior Linnea Urban explained the challenge of the warmth.

“Yeah, you know, the parts where the sun hits were really, really slow but then there’s a back section in the woods where it was really, really fast so it was really hard to gauge like, oh is this spot gonna be slow is it going to be fast and that makes it really challenging, because if you hit the snow wrong you could, you know, get off balance and then things go downhill very quickly.”

Hastings skiers managed to escape ‘things going downhill’ throughout the day despite the continued warming. By the time the girls took to the course, the top layer of snow had warmed to over 40 degrees with an air temp of 45.

The section rules were setup as follows. Two teams from each section will qualify for the state meet. Six individuals not on a qualifying team will advance to state. Prior Lake and Eagan dominated the top of the leaderboard and because of that, they are the two teams to go to state. Hastings boys as a team finished fifth overall.

For comparison purposes, Magnus O’Connor finished first overall with a combined time of 20:03.4. Removing all Prior Lake and Eagan skier from the individual qualification left six other spots for individuals to qualify. Hasting’s top boy’s finisher was Sam Rabaey in 15th overall with a combined time of 23:16.0, good enough to earn him the fifth individual state qualifying spot. Freshman Josiah Trost finished 17th overall and was bumped from a state appearance by the 16th place finisher Patrick Grunklee of ISD 196. Trost missed state by 36 seconds.

The girls may have been given the short end of the stick for temperatures for skiing, but fans were loving it. Section Champion Linnea Urban was hoping to join Rabaey on his trip to state, knowing her biggest competitor is Grete Engels from Lakeville.

Engels grabbed a commanding lead in the Classic Ski winning with a time of 15:47.5. Of the two race styles, Classic is Urban’s slower style and she finished third with a time of 16:26.6. The second race of the afternoon, the Skate, is where Urban shines.

“Remind me to relax when you see me,” she chuckled before the race.

Of course, that reminder happened as she skated on by. Urban was cruising in the skate race, fighting to make up a deficit that was larger than she wanted. As she rounded the final corner, you could almost see the relief in her eyes, but she knew she had to push another minute more. Urban crossed the finish line with a time of 13:52.2, winning the skate portion, but would her time be fast enough?

The difficult piece of this race setup is, racers leave at different times, so there is no true head-to-head pursuit. Racers don’t know where their competitors are on the course until the math is done. Engels ended up finishing fourth in the skate with a time of 14.34.5. You can do the math if you want, surely the suspense is eating away at you. Did Urban win by a large enough margin to take first over all?

That took a lot of patience on the part of coaches, fans and racers. The overall section champion was determined by a mere 1.8 seconds.

Congratulations goes to… two amazing young ladies for an amazing performance. OKAY, OKAY. No more teasing, no more delays… Grete Engels edged Linnea Urban for the section championship by 1.8 seconds. But in the defeat, Urban was still very proud of returning to state.

“It feels really good this year. The race today was very, very challenging. Yeah, I just looking back on my freshman year when I missed it by one spot it was something that I really struggled with and made me want to race even harder. So, I think that this year I just liked the assurance that like, I’m confident in myself, I won conference, I can do this, and skate has always been my best race so to come this far and you know senior year, last section, last race with the entire team is really special, so, really glad I got to do it, and I’m excited for state,” Urban said.

After the final race, Head Coach John Dewall expressed his pride in his teams. “After our performance of our teams. I’m particularly excited in the boy’s side for Sam Rabaey going to state. It’s super cool after you know since seventh grade for the team. It was just awesome to have a kid for that many years finally culminating and going to the state meet, real proud of him. Linnea Urban, just a stellar performance you know especially after the classic to come back and being that amazing in the skate race just hammering it down and just blown it away so looking forward to both those two kids in the state meet and it’ll be fun next week.”

The state meet is going to be a challenge for the MSHSL to pull off this year with the later ending of the season. The plan as of press day was to hold it at Giants Ridge in Biwabik March 11th for the girls and March 12th for the boys. The problem that they face in Biwabik is Giant’s Ridge does not have man-made snow on their Nordic ski trails and the temps have been spring like. If the course is not usable, the plan may be to shift to Duluth at Spirit Mountain where they do have man-made snow on their trails. The warmth is likely to play a factor regardless of the location.

Sam Rabaey is headed to State! Sam joined the Nordic Ski team in seventh grade and through hard work has earn a trip to the State Meet as a Senior. Photo by Bruce Karnick

Linnea Urban left every ounce of energy she had on the course during the Classic ski, stopping a few times between the finish and the Raiders camp. Here, her mom Julie helps her up after a touching mother/daughter moment. Urban is headed to State as one of the top Nordic Skiers in Minnesota. Photo by Bruce Karnick