Skiing at times can be a very individualized sport.
When competitors put aside those personal goals to work for the betterment of the team though, often the results tend to speak for themselves.
Additional Images
That is what the Mt. Blue boys and Maranacook girls did at last weekend’s Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference championships, and it paid off in the form of team championships.
“This is an incredible team,” Mt. Blue Nordic coach Buzz Davis said. “They’re just all in, everyday. They’re not selfish; there are no egos on the team.
“The teamwork piece of it has really taken over. They’re all just really working together well and they’ve been steadily improving. I was really happy with the KVAC event.”
Davis also lauded his girls team similarly — as did Maranacook Nordic coach Steve DeAngelis when speaking about his boys — yet neither team quite has the same depth as the Cougar boys and Black Bear girls, thus making the team-before-me mindset less feasible.
“Everybody is there doing their own thing but we’re working as a team to try and get the team result, because you can’t have four guys that win,” Mt. Blue’s Miles Pelletier, who won the KVAC skimeister, said. “You can have a team that wins so that’s our goal.
“That’s just in our personalities. We do a lot of teamwork and we try to get the best team results that we can get. It doesn’t matter who’s scoring for the team because they take the top four, and we’ve got plenty of guys and plenty of depth so wee can work the best that we can to do well as a team. If one guy doesn’t have a god day than the other one will step up.”
For DeAngelis, the approach has been similar and also refreshing to see.
“We have a team that they’ve been really supportive of each other and they’ve really pushed each other,” DeAngelis said. “Everyone wants to keep their spot on the team. They push each other because there’s so much competition to be in the top six.”
With that kind of competition top spots are far from guaranteed at the championship meets. DeAngelis noted that when he spoke with one of his seniors, Natalie Wicks, about how it may be difficult to get her into both Nordic races at states she was more than understanding.
“She told me coach, you’ve got to do the right thing,” said DeAngelis, also noting senior Sydney Green had a similar response when approached about the topic. “You’ve got to make the team as fast as you can.”
Both Mt. Blue and Maranacook will get to see just how far their teamwork and talent can take them this weekend. The Class B and C championships are scheduled for Monday and Tuesday at Big Rock Ski Area, while the Class A meet will be Tuesday and Wednesday at Stark’s Hill (Nordic) and Mount Abram (Alpine).
Evan Crawley — 621-5640
ecrawley@mainetoday.com
Twitter: @Evan_Crawley
Copy the Story LinkSend questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.