Heren finishes third in sections, takes 10th at state

Giants Ridge in Biwabik hosted the Section 7 Alpine ski meet last week with the Stillwater boys and girls both taking the section titles. Cloquet-Esko-Carlton finished third in the boys event and 15th in the girls event. Only one CEC skier, Thomas Heren, qualified for the state meet, which was held Wednesday afternoon, also at Giants Ridge, as this edition of the Pine Knot News went to press.

The winner of the boys title was Kaarl Damberg of Mounds View, who finished his two runs in a time of 1:14.90 with Hermantown's Thomas Borash finishing second in 1:15.8. Heren was third in 1:15.85.

"The top three kids in the boys race are definitely a bit above the rest of the field, so all three played it safe and skied conservatively," said CEC boys coach Ryan Zimny. "None of the three were gunning for the win, they all just raced at about 80 percent to safely finish and move on to state."

For his part, Heren finished less than a second behind the winner and agreed with his coach about just making sure he didn't crash on either of his two runs.

"I was really scared of crashing and I skied really laid back," Heren said. "I wanted to finish and didn't ski at 100 percent, but I was still satisfied with my finish."

In alpine skiing, the top two teams - in this case, Stillwater and Duluth East in the boys race, and Stillwater and Cook County in the girls race - qualify for the state meet and then the top 10 finishers not belonging on those two teams qualify on an individual basis.

"I really think that Tom is looking forward to letting it loose at the state meet," Zimny said. "No more conservative runs at this point. Hopefully he'll be able to show what he can do."

For his part, Heren had plenty of reason to be concerned going into the sectional meet because it was a year ago that the senior fell - which caused him to miss the state meet.

"I tried to stay focused this section meet but, admittedly, I was terrified," Heren said. "I didn't make the state meet last year because I made a mistake at sections and I did not want a repeat of that. I was nervous, but I knew I could do it, so I tried to focus on that."

While Heren was the only state qualifier for the Lumberjacks, there were other noteworthy performances.

"I thought seventh-grader Emily Regas also skied well," Zimny said. "She was a little too conservative on her first run, but had the 10th fastest second run. She was able to jump from 26th to 17th place and just missed a state qualification by four places."

The girls race was won by Hermantown's Ashely Winberg, with Cook County's Reilly Wahlers finishing second.

BREAKING NEWS

Esko senior Thomas Heren skied to a 10th place finish at the Minnesota State High School League Alpine Slalom championships Wednesday, the best finish of his high school skiing career. It was the first time in a while that the Lumberjacks have had an alpine skier medal at state.

Heren completed his two runs in 36.07 seconds and 38.05 seconds for a total time of 1:14:12. Kaarl Damberg of Mounds View took first place in 1:11.72.