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SSCV Nordic team opens season at Rocky Mountain Nordic Junior National Qualifier in Steamboat Springs

Will Bentley opened the season with a pair of U18 wins at the Rocky Mountain Nordic Junior National Qualifier last month in Steamboat Springs.
Ryan Sederquist/Vail Daily

The Ski and Snowboard Club Vail cross-country ski teams opened the 2024-25 season earlier last month at the Rocky Mountain Nordic Junior National Qualifier in Steamboat Springs. The club sent 16 skiers to the two-day event, which was held at the Howelsen rodeo grounds and featured a 5-kilometer individual start classic on Dec. 20 and a 5 and 7.5-kilometer mass start skate race on Dec. 21.

Head coach Lenka Sterling was pleased with the squad’s general preparation coming into the rust-buster, but had some mixed feelings walking away from it.

“My takeaway from it was, stay calm — to me and them,” she said after the first of four Rocky Mountain Nordic race weekends, all of which are used to qualify for the Junior National Championships at Soldier Hollow in March. “It’s only December.”



There certainly were bright spots for current and former SSCV athletes. University of Alaska Anchorage skier Corbin Carpenter and SSCV alumna Rose Horning — now a freshman at the University of Vermont — were the overall winners on day 1. Carpenter completed the 5-kilometer course in 12 minutes, 5.55 seconds while Horning finished in 14:42.5, three seconds ahead of CU skier Sophie Spalding.

SSCV’s Will Bentley (12:19.45) took the top U18 spot and finished just 0.03 seconds off the overall podium while Landon Laverdiere (13:01.06) and Alex Current (13:14.66) were fourth and fifth, respectively, in the U18 rankings. In the U16 competition, Peter Kan (13:57.74) and Freedom Bennett (14:16.65) hopped on the podium in second and third.

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Sterling said she’s seen tremendous growth from Laverdiere, who garnered a bronze in the U16 sprint at junior nationals last spring in Lake Placid.

“We’ve been working a lot with his skate technique,” Sterling said. “He definitely is heading, I feel, in the right direction.”

Bennett and Kan got tangled up in the mass start on day 2, breaking a pole in the process, but still managed top-10 finishes in their second races, too.

“I’m excited to see them race more,” Sterling said, adding that Kan has caught the competitive itch after his 14th-place result in the mass start classic race in Lake Placid last year.

“He definitely made a big progress, both in his technique and just being stronger,” Sterling continued. “It motivated him forward. (He’s) one of those kids who is seeing that light and is like, ‘oh my gosh, I’m going to do this.’ So, that’s really exciting.”

SSCV Nordic ski team schedule

Rocky Mountain Nordic races

  • Dec. 20-21 – Howelson Hill JNQ, Steamboat Springs
  • Jan. 17-18 – Soldier Hollow Super-Q, Soldier Hollow, Utah
  • Feb. 1-2 – Aspen JNQ, Aspen
  • Feb. 15-16 – Crested Butte JNQ
  • March 1-2 – Youth Festival at Frisco Nordic Center, Frisco

U.S. senior nationals  – Kincaid Park, Ancorage, Alaska

  • Jan. 2 – 10k individual start classic
  • Jan. 4 – skate sprint
  • Jan. 5 – skate mass start
  • Jan. 7 – Super Tour classic sprint

U.S. junior nationals – Soldier Hollow, Utah

  • March 10 – 5/7.5k individual start classic
  • March 12 – skate sprint
  • March 14 – 5/10/15k skate mass start
  • March 15 – Mixed gender relay

 

Bentley was the U18 winner in the mass start, too, placing third overall.

“It was legit racing from the gun. It was no messing around,” Bentley said regarding the mass start, where he finished just 8.7 seconds behind Carpenter — who claimed a second-straight victory.

“I was super happy with how I skied it,” the senior continued. “I feel like I tried to ski pretty relaxed. Something I tend to do during mass start racing is be more frantic because I have to ski with other people.”

Bentley burst onto the national nordic map when he won a junior national title in 2023, but he’s battled bad luck on the injury and illness front throughout his career. A concussion and broken patella ended his 2019 and 2020 seasons prematurely and a spiral tibia-fibula fracture in December of 2021 ruined 2022. The last of four surgeries came in July 2022 — a month in which Bentley also suffered a severe high-ankle sprain in a bouldering accident. Going into his highly-anticipated junior season, Bentley broke both wrists at SSCV’s Thanksgiving training camp.

He was able to pull things together for U.S. Senior Nationals last January, placing third in the U18 10-kilometer classic interval start on the first day. Unfortunately, he came down with a fever the night after that race. It lingered, morphed into COVID (twice) and essentially knocked him out for the next two months. 

“He has terrible luck in these kind of things,” Sterling aptly stated before adding: “And I think he’s just extremely resilient and obviously very determined. These things just don’t stop him.”

Despite putting in just five sessions prior to departure, Bentley showed up in Lake Placid last March to defend his national crown. His first speed session came in the form of a pre-race warm-up. He left with two top-5 finishes.

“The sickness was stressful and I wasn’t expecting results out of it,” Bentley answered when asked about how he processed the health hiccup. “I would not call it a letdown at all. I was very happy with the results at JNs.”

“He went from no training, to pre-race, to being top-10,” Sterling added. “And for him that’s not good enough. But if you think about it, it’s like, amazing.”

Going into his final year at SSCV, Bentley said he logged more hours this summer than ever before. This fall, he committed to continuing his career at the collegiate level at CU, Sterling’s alma mater.

“It just clicked and it felt like the right fit to me,” Bentley said in a recent appearance on the Seder-Skier Podcast. “It’s close to home, Jana is amazing and they won NCAAs last year.”

Bentley will be one of the top juniors competing at U.S. senior nationals this week in Anchorage. Results from the weeklong race series determines American slots at several global competitions.

“That’s probably the biggest goal for me this year; that kind of dictates how the rest of the season is laid out,” said Bentley, who knows he can contend in both a pure guts endurance test and a sit-and-kick affair. “I’m not afraid to go to the front and push the pace, but I also feel like I have the ability to sprint at the end, so I’m also comfortable sitting around and waiting.”

In addition to Horning, who was second overall (first U18) in the mass start race on day 2, SSCV alumni came to ski on the women’s side in Steamboat Springs as well. Keely Hendricks (St. Michael’s College) and Isabel Glackin (Bates College) were fourth and fifth, respectively in the U20 individual start and posted top-20 finishes in the mass start.

Ella Bullock finished 10th overall in the 7.5-kilometer mass start skate race on Dec. 21 at the Rocky Mountain Nordic Junior National Qualifier in Steamboat Springs.
Phillip Belena Photography/Courtes photo

Steamboat Spring’s Antigone Loomis (15:22.86) won the U18 individual start as Gracen Kennedy (15:59.87), Ella Bullock (16:10.35) and Claire Chimileski (16:27.23) all skied into the top 10.

Bullock, who won a Colorado High School Ski League state title two years ago before joining SSCV last year, is coming back from a significant knee injury she worked through this summer and fall.

“She ended up having really good races considering where she’s been even a few weeks ago,” Sterling said.

Isla Elton was the top U16 skier for Ski and Snowboard Club Vail at the first Rocky Mountain Nordic races of the 2024-25 season last month in Steamboat Springs.
Ryan Sederquist/Vail Daily

Isla Elton was the top U16 girl for SSCV, placing fourth in the individual start and fifth in the mass start.

“She’s made a huge amount of progress this year,” Sterling said of Elton, who competed for Vail Mountain School in the Colorado High School Ski League last winter.

“It was a good dipping her toes in, getting confidence from those races. That really helped her,” Sterling continued. “I could see last year she was pretty feisty when it comes to racing. She had great races in Steamboat and I think she will just keep getting better. … She’s just that kind of personality who is very determined.”

A smaller group of SSCV athletes are competing at U.S. senior nationals this week at Kincaid Park. The Rocky Mountain Nordic calendar continues with the ‘Super-Q’ at Soldier Hollow on Jan. 17-18.

Rocky Mountain Nordic JNQ – Steamboat Springs (Dec. 20-21)

Dec. 20 – Individual start classic

Overall women’s podium

  1. Rose Horning – 14:42.5
  2. Sophie Spalding – 14:45.65
  3. Mica Bodkins – 15:00.84

Overall men’s podium

  1. Corbin Carpenter – 12:05.55
  2. Benjamin Barbier – 12:15.80
  3. Luka Riley – 12:19.42

SSCV athletes

(place, division, name, time)

Boys

  • 7, U20, Reiner Schmidt – 13:37.18
  • 8, U20, Andrew Lombardi – 13:38.49
  • 1, U18, William Bentley – 12:19.45
  • 4, U18, Landon Laverdiere – 13:01.06
  • 5, U18, Alex Current – 13:14.66
  • 10, U18, Henry Reynolds – 14:06.89
  • 14, U18,m Parker Osborn – 14:31.03
  • 2, U16, Peter Kan – 13:57.74
  • 3, U16, Freedom Bennett – 14:16.65
  • 7, U16, Tyler Ciluzzi – 14:31.62
  • 25, U16, Ethan Current – 16:18.84

Girls

  • 4, U18 Gracen Kennedy – 15:59.87
  • 5, Ella Bullock – 16:10.35
  • 8, Claire Chimileski – 16:27.23
  • 4, U16, Isla Elton – 16:11.01
  • 11, Katie Lombardi – 17:27.41

Dec. 21 – Mass start skate

Overall women’s podium

  1. Karolina Kaleta – 24:19.4
  2. Rose Horning – 24:33.7
  3. Sophie Spalding – 25:03.7

Overall men’s podium

  1. Corbin Carpenter – 20:13.1
  2. Benjamin Barbier – 20:13.4
  3. Will Bentley – 20:22.1

SSCV athletes

(place, name, time)

Boys senior/U20/U18 (7.5k)

  • 3, Will Bentley – 20:22.1
  • 11, Alex Current – 22:22.3
  • 12, Henry Reynolds, 22:26.1
  • 14, Landon Laverdiere – 22:28.7
  • 18, Andrew Lombardi – 22:51.8
  • 29, Reiner Schmidt – 23:38.6

Boys U16 (5k)

  • 8, Freedom Bennett – 15:23.9
  • 10, Peter Kan – 15:38.5
  • 14, Tyler Ciluzzi – 16:04.6
  • 19, Ethan Current – 16:33.1

 

Girls senior/U20/U18 (7.5k)

  • 10, Ella Bullock – 26:16.6
  • 14, Gracen Kennedy – 27:15.3
  • 19, Claire Chimileski – 27:55.8

Girls U16 (5k)

  • 5, Isla Elton – 18:03.5
  • 19, Katie Lombardi – 20:40.4

 


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