South Tahoe High Alpine Ski Teams 2nd and 3rd in League, State Championships start Monday

The 2017 Tahoe Basin Ski League State Championships (State) gets underway on Monday at Sierra-at-Tahoe, with several south shore skiers taking the gates for their schools. Tuesday's competition will move to Heavenly Mountain Resort.

Too much snow actually got in the way of a full season of competition for the South Tahoe High Alpine Ski Team.

"It has been a challenge with so many races getting canceled this year," said STHS Coach Kristi Leonard on how storms affected their season. "We really completed half our races in the week before winter break. We had to only take Varsity to Alpine Meadows so we could run two races in one day."

She said the Junior Varsity team only had three races for the entire season because of storms.

The 2016-17 season has been epic in many ways for the STHS Vikings. It was the first year Leonard has as many girls competing as boys. For the season, the girls team ended in second place in the Tahoe Basin Ski League, and the boys took third.

Now both teams head to State on Monday and Tuesday, February 27 and 28. On Monday the Vikings host the Grand Slalom events at Sierra-at-Tahoe and Douglas High hosts the Slalom events at Heavenly on Tuesday.

Eight boys and eight girls from the top three teams in the league send ski at State, with the remaining teams sending athletes based on their individual point total for the season.

South Tahoe High's team started the year with 30 athletes this year with 12 seniors, four juniors, seven sophomores and seven freshman. 16 of them head to the slopes Monday and Tuesday. Leonard's team started the year with 30 skiers but two are out due to injuries.

Whittell High School has five skiers qualified for State: Payton Norton, Gunnar Barnwell, Kaven Peck, Andrew Carlisle and Madison Idso.

STHS Alpine Girls Team: Rose McDonough, Lyndsey Allen, Summer Furrer, Kelsey Buckley, Kira Culp. Sarah Smith, Sierra Bedwell, Alexandria "Alle" Balme, Carrisa Buchholz and Shelby Lyon.

STHS Alpine Boys Team: Tristan Deatherage, Luke Allen, Noah Lyle, Logan Langemeier, Michael Noel, Aaron Johnson, Riley McConaughey, Evan Brewer, Nick Coolbaugh, Matt Sullivan, Jackson Kuzmik and Foster Saunders.

North Tahoe boys and girls team both took first place during the regular season. The boys were followed by Douglas High and then STHS. For the girls, STHS ended in second and Incline was third.

Top Six Season Point Totals for the season:
Girls
220 - Madeline Roberts, North Tahoe
216 - Jillian Ferre, North Tahoe
206 - Danielle Dolan, Truckee
196 - Rose McDonough, South Tahoe
192 - Rachel Meyer, Incline
190 - Lyndsey Allen, South Tahoe

Boys
223 - Winston Pretti, Incline
219 - Danner Hillman, Douglas
214 - Payton Norton, Whittell
205 - Sean Dunkleman, Douglas
203 - Luke Allen, South Tahoe
201 - Tristan Deatherage, South Tahoe