by Beth Tickner

The Town of Webb School Alpine Varsity Ski Team headed to Tully for Sectional competition on Tuesday, February 14th, and the kids’ Valentine’s Day evening was spent racing Slalom down Song Mountain in mild temperatures, which made racing at night more bearable.

The events started with Girls’ Slalom where, in the first run, McKenzie Liddle placed 1st, Lauren Holt 6th, Jessica Hannah 8th, Camry Liddle 9th, Lexie Haehl 10th, Mara Gaffney 13th, Maggie Queen 17th, Brianna Brownsell 25th, and Ella Mitchell 28th. Unfortunately Danielle Gibbs fell causing a DNF (Did Not Finish).

For the second run once again McKenzie Liddle led the team by placing 1st, Lauren Holt 5th, Lexie Haehl 9th, Jessica Hannah 10th, Camry Liddle 11th, Mara Gaffney 13th, Danielle Gibbs 18th, Briana Brownsell 28th, Ella Mitchell 30th, and Maggie Queen who finished 38th in spite of a fall and injury.

These results were strong enough that the Town of Webb girls now lead the Section in first place against the Holland Patent, Manlius Pebble Hill, South Lewis and Lowville teams.After the course was “slipped” to try and get some of the ruts out, the boys lined up to go.

Their coats and ski pants are turned over to the girls to bring to the finish line.

Upon their arrival they are greeted with warmth, and the results showed West Tickner finishing 4th, Corey Down 5th, Daniel Heroux 6th, Griffin Kleps 8th, John Gaffney 10th, Adam Levi 11th, Hunter Lawrence 14th, and Adam Winslow with a DNF.

Hoping to improve their scores on the second run, as competition is neck-and-neck with the Holland Patent Boys team, West Tickner placed 2nd, Daniel Heroux 5th, Griffin Kleps 7th, Corey Down 9th, Adam Levi 11th, Hunter Lawrence 13th.

Unfortunately, Adam Winslow had a DNF and John Gaffney a DSQ (disqualified). In spite of their efforts, the boys were in second place to Holland Patent’s first place by a two point lead.

After a long day on the bus and the slopes, the kids headed off to their hotel for a quick bite to eat and some sleep. Probably only half of the kids woke at 3 a.m. when the fire alarms went off down the hallways. Apparently there was some mechanical error and it caused them to go off a second time. The next three hours of sleep went too quickly before getting up and starting their next race day.

Again, the girls go first and this time the event is Giant Slalom. GS courses take longer to run as they are designed with larger, wider turns across the hill, which in turn cause speed to increase.

Slalom courses are set with gates that are more centered and closer together so you have to quickly maneuver through, “punching” them out of your way as you come upon them.

This time McKenzie Liddle placed 2nd, Lauren Holt 6th, Jessica Hannah 11th, Camry Liddle 12th, Danielle Gibbs 15th, Mara Gaffney 16th, Lexie Haehl 18th, and Brianna Brownsell 29th.

The girls kicked it up a notch on the second run  with McKenzie Liddle placing 2nd and Lauren Holt right behind her in 3rd.

Jessica Hannah sped into 8th while Danielle Gibbs achieved her finest finish of the season in 9th. Lexie Haehl and Mara Gaffney placed 14th and 15th respectively, while Brianna Brownsell finished 28th.

Camry Liddle was bummed out with a DNF. However, the girl’s top three finishes of both runs once again confirmed that they are Sectional Champions for another year!

The boys turned over the girls’ coats and ski pants and headed up the chairlift to try and overtake the Holland Patent boys. West Tickner finished in 2nd, Daniel Heroux 3rd and Griffin Kleps 6th.

John Gaffney, Hunter Lawrence and Corey Down followed with 9th, 10th and 11th places. Adam Winslow scored 14th and Adam Levi 16th.

In scoring team placement you take the top three finishes of each team and total the points—the lower the points the better the placement. In combining their scores from the night before with their first run results, the Old Forge boys now were in first place with a one point lead.

They really needed to hold on to their slight lead in the second run in order to once again claim the title of Section Champions.

Daniel Heroux started off the line-up for the Town of Webb and blew out of the start shack with high hopes.

As he cruised down the mountain in his usual stylish form, he unexpectedly straddled a gate and veered off course to the side.

This not only crushed Daniel, but the hopes of the boys team for maintaining their lead. West Tickner knew what he had to do to try and salvage their lead and he did this with great success as he finished in 1st place.

Griffin Kleps pulled his weight and finished in 6th. When Corey Down finished in 11th and was not as happy with his results as usual, things looked bleak for the Town of Webb boys.

The boys were missing three of their of their solid team mates as Carter Lawrence, Cy Barkauskas and Connor Glasser werepreparing to compete in the J3 State Championships for their USSA race circuit.

Now, in addition to acquiring the wonderful title of Section Champions, it brings with it an added bonus. The winning team of Sectionals gets to bring an additional racer from their team to the State Championships.

At this point it is too hard to calculate where the rest of the boys have finished and trying to calculate team finishes so it has gone under the assumption that the boys have come in second to Holland Patent after the rare DNF of Daniel Heroux.

This of course, saddens the boys since Old Forge has been Sectional Champs for 26 of the past 37 years. The most recent winning streak was from 2005 through 2011. (The girls have held the title 22 of the 37 years.)

It should be noted that in the earlier years Alpine and Nordic teams were actually combined when calculating Championships.

When the results were finally calculated we discovered that Hunter Lawrence knocked it out of the park with an 8th place finish, John Gaffney with 9th, Adam Levi 12th, and both Daniel Heroux and Adam Winslow with a DNF.

After taking the top three finishes, which in this case were West’s 1st, Griffin’s 6th and Hunter’s 8th, it was found that the Town of Webb boys have tied with Holland Patent!

To break the tie it is necessary to add in the fourth place finishes of both the Slalom and Giant Slalom runs.

And once again due to the depth and strength of the Town of Webb boys, Griffin Klep’s 8th place finish in the first run of Slalom, Corey Down’s 9th place in the second run, along with John Gaffney’s 9th place finishes in both the first and second runs of Giant Slalom broke the tie with an outstanding victory over Holland Patent’s fourth place finishes of 17th, 17th, 15th and 14th.

Celebration is in order as the Sectional Awards are announced for the Slalom and Giant Slalom combined finishes.