FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Michigan State Meet Wrap Up

Marquette's Superiorland Nordic Race Team competed in the Michigan High School Cross Country Ski Championships in Petoskey over the weekend and produced some excellent performances. The skiers brought home the boys state title for the first time in several years. They were led by Tom McFadden, who dominated the competition by winning all three of the races: skate, classic and sprint. This follows several victories for McFadden this season including a big win in Minnesota at the Mesabi meet in January, where he was up against the Minnesota's best high school skiers in a meet of 1,200 skiers.

Following McFadden in Saturday's combined skate and classic pursuit format were Zach Wagner, who made up a seven second deficit in the afternoon's classic technique race to take 2nd place, Anders Nienstaedt in 6th place, John McFadden in 8th, Tony Mattioli in 10th, Stig Fjeldheim in 13th, Zeb Johnston in 19th and Reed Payant in 21st.

While conditions on Saturday were perfect with temperatures in the teens and 20's Sunday brought freezing rain and rain for the sprints, creating icy tracks. This made for close head to head sprint racing that was both exciting and difficult, resulting in several falls. In addition to Tom McFadden's sprint victory, sophomore Tony Mattioli earned an excellent third place after getting tangled up with a competitor on the tight course. Zach Wagner won the B final to secure 5th place. Anders Nienstaedt of Iron Mountain was next for Superiorland, finishing in 8th, followed by John McFadden in 12th. Zeb Johnston was the final qualifier in 16th place.

The Superiorland girls team also performed extremely well. In the morning's skate technique race Kirsten Fjeldheim finished a strong second to the Copper Country team's Olivia Orr and gave her all to attempt to close the gap in the afternoon's classic technique race. Fjeldheim took back five seconds from Orr to record the fastest classic time and finished second overall. Marquette's Katie Holway took third in the skate, classic and overall results. With 4th and 6th places respectively in Sunday's sprints Fjeldheim and Holway tied for second in the girls team results with only the two of them scoring points against other teams scoring their top four girls.

The high school championships were also the last of the series of races to determine which junior skiers will qualify for the Junior National Championships that will be held in Anchorage, Alaska from March 9th through the 15th. Several Superiorland skiers have already qualified and will be competing against the best junior cross country ski racers in the nation.