Ski team clinches league title

Justin Thomas concentrates at the gate before one of his two crucial runs on Saturday, where he led the Outlaws to a league title. Photo by Todd Williver

The Outlaws boys ski team held off a late-season onslaught from the Bend High Lava Bears to clinch the first Central Oregon Ski League championship since Sisters entered the league in 1992.

The Sisters varsity boys, led by two near-perfect runs by Justin Thomas, finished the day second overall, accumulating enough points to secure the league championship.

Michael Timm of Bend High won the boys' event with a winning time of 1.29:280. Sisters' Thomas finished a close second with a combined time of 1.30:270.

The .99 second differential was one of the narrowest margins of victory of the season for the standout Bend athlete.

The Outlaws' Karana Ellis finished third (1.34:020), Nicolas Yopp sixth (1.36:270), Ryen Schneringer 11th (1.39:550), Chris Boyle 17th (1.44:560), Ben Boro 21st (1.49:890), and Kyle Benhower 25th (2.00:350).

The Outlaws found themselves down by two seconds after the first run, scoring a team time of 2:27:160 to the Lava Bears 2:25:280. They came back in the second run to slide past the Bend team by a mere .06 of a second, 2:13:400 to 2:13:460.

The combined total left the Sisters boys in second place, netting 10 more points, to take the league title with a total of 68 points.

Bend High finished the regular season in second with 64 points, Summit and Redmond ended the season tied for third with 40 each. Mountain View rounded out the league with 28.

"It's the first time in the history of our school that we've held this league title. It's quite a feat," said Head Coach Todd Williver. "Especially when you consider we are a 3-A school and the other schools in the league are 4-A.

"We thought at the beginning of the season we had a good shot at the title, we've worked hard and skied well. Bend High turned out to be a tough team, as always. We were just a bit tougher this year."

The league championship secures the first seed spot for the Outlaws at the State Championship to be held at Willamette Pass Ski Area the first week of March.

"We've got a couple of weeks of hard training ahead", Coach Williver said. "We're a good team, but we now have to ramp up to compete with the best teams in the state.

"We're a young team, there is a lot of pressure at the state race. We won't have Nicolas Yopp (who will be attending the Deaflympics in Sweden), but we'll come ready to compete. I like our chances, I don't think I'm being overly optimistic expecting our best showing ever at the state level."

The Outlaw girls also finished the season in commendable fashion. With Whitney Engstrom finishing third, Allie Smith 13th, Bethany Benhower 14th and Amanda Perry 24th, the team skied to a fourth place finish for the day and a third place standing in the league, again against much larger schools.

With 42 points, the Sisters girls finished ahead of Mountain View (32) and Redmond (0). The Summit Storm girls finished atop the league with 72 points followed by the Bend High girls with 60.

Individual points give Engstrom second place in both slalom and giant slalom standings for Central Oregon Ski League, allowing Engstrom to participate in the state race as an individual, even though the Outlaw girls team missed the cut.

"I'm expecting good things from our girls in the years to come," said Williver.