CCI nordic skiers clean up at OFSAA

 In Sports

Several Clearview Township youth contributed to Collingwood Collegiate Institute’s big win at the 2018 OFSAA Nordic skiing championships in Sudbury Feb. 21-23.

CCI is the Ontario champion in junior and senior girls team distance, junior and senior girls relay and senior boys relay. The team emerged the top senior Nordic ski team in the province, winning the senior combined championship banner, with individual medal and ribbon winners in each distance category.

The junior girls A team the junior girls championship with Sofie Ohrling (Collingwood) getting a sixth place finish and four other team members finishing in the top 20. The junior girls B team finished fifth. In total, all 11 CCI Junior girls are in the top 100 Nordic skiers in Ontario.

The Junior boys finished fourth overall, with Jack Czerny (Wasaga Beach) coming in sixth, helping the CCI boys to a team place of fourth.

The senior races would be run with what would transpire as another dominant performance for the senior girls.

CCI senior girls A team brought home a third consecutive OFSAA championship banner in the distance race, with Tess Wortley (Mulmur) skiing to the gold medal, Olivia Westbrook (Collingwood) in eighth, Milla Tarnopolsky (Duntroon) in 11th and Sofia Czerny (Collingwood) in 12th.

The senior girls B team ski to fifth place overall finish, led by Quinn Czerny (Collingwood) in 17th place.

The senior boys would ski in a tough field and be led by a silver medal performance by Erik Ohrling (Collingwood) to come to a sixth place team finish.

The junior girls A team also brought home the championship banner in the relay race, with the junior girls B team and the junior boys each getting a fifth place finish.

The senior girls were crowned champions in the relay, with the anchor skier finishing a full 29 seconds ahead of second place Parry Sound.

“The most exciting race of the day would be the senior boys as the owls came into the finals as a dark horse,” said coach Bill Hewitt. “The boys were led by one of the most gritty opening laps by Jake Korpi (Wasaga Beach) that the coaches have ever seen, keeping pace with the some of fastest skiers in the field to hand off a virtual tie to Nick Sammon (Nottawa). Nick would ski his heart out and hold the line for Erik Ohrling. Erik took off and you could see him open a lead that was truly impressive. As he handed off to his teammate, Freddie Pickess (Nottawa) he shouted encouragement to him.  Freddie would have the race of his life and anchor the senior boys to become OFSAA champs. This race would secure CCI’s status as the senior combined championship and mean that these owls would be raising six out of the 10 banners awarded at OFSAA here in ‘The Wood’.”

CCI is hosting next year’s championships at Highlands Nordic, where about half of the students also race with the club team, the Trailblazers.

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