Outlaws skiers perform well without star

What happens when Sisters High School standout Liz Dale misses a ski race due to a scheduling conflict? Someone has to step up and take her place. That is exactly what happened last Saturday on the slopes of Mt. Bachelor.

Sisters sophomore Jenna Sneva turned in two blistering runs on the first Giant Slalom (GS) of the season, winning the girls race by almost six seconds. In fact, her time was so fast that only five of the 50 boys were able to best her performance.

Sisters' Annie Hancock put together two good runs to finish in a solid second place, completing Sisters' girls' one-two sweep in the girls' event. Additionally, strong early season performances by Nicole Veloso and Bethany Bachman left Sisters' girls with a nearly four-second advantage over Summit's girls and a 17-second eternity over the normally strong Bend High School girls.

"I guessed we'd be a strong team this year," said Coach Todd Williver. "But I didn't think we'd make it look this easy. The girls are really skiing well, and we're definitely the force to contend with in the Central League."

The boys also skied well. With nearly half of the 10-boy team being new to ski racing, the Sisters boys finished strong in third place, just one second out of second place after the first run.

Sisters senior Michael Cristiano turned in a strong fifth-place finish, followed by Lucas Rietmann in 6th and Jake Thomas in 12th overall and Dominick Deleone in 15th.

Additional Sisters finishers were Nick Anthony, 18th; Davis Rapp, 23rd; Steven Enger, 28th; and Andrew Enger, 32nd.

"It was a great start for our inexperienced boys' team," said Coach Williver. "We really had some pre-race jitters. The boys didn't know what to expect. Now that we've got that out of our way, we can start skiing to our potential."

The Sisters High School Alpine Race Team will be in action on the slopes of Mt. Bachelor for the next four Saturdays.