Local SARS athletes shining in big events

SANDPOINT — The Schweitzer Alpine Racing School (SARS) alpine ski teams have begun competing at their Championship events for the 2010-11 Ski Season, with Sandpoint racers Lani Wahl, Brennan Powell, Zion Hartley and Carl Noges.

Margaret Wolf of Liberty Lake started the Championship season off by representing SARS at the J2 (15 and 16 year old) National Championships in Maine. She was one of only 48 girls in the United States invited to compete in this event.

The first team to return from a regional championship event was the Youth Ski League (12 and under), Buddy Werner Championship group which raced at Steven’s Pass in Western Washington last weekend.

SARS as a team competed against 23 teams from the PNSA division comprised of Oregon, Washington and Northern Idaho. There were 137 boys and 116 girls representing these 23 teams. The SARS team was represented at this event by Brooke Bowerman, Maddie Collins, and Halle Campbell of Spokane; Brogan Clemson and Niko McHenry of Liberty Lake; Matthew Duchow and Jack Harper of Coeur d’ Alene; Lauryn Trueblood, Jayce Bailey, and Alexi Panos of Hayden; Bailey Swoboda of Dalton Gardens; Audrey Flour of Bainbridge Island; and Brennan Powell and Zion Hartley of Sandpoint.

After all the results from the weekend were tallied, the team scores were as follows: SARS women’s team: 2nd, SARS men’s team: 4th, SARS combined team: 2nd

On Saturday, the girls competed in Slalom while the Boys competed in Giant Slalom. Maddie Collins finished 2nd, Halle Campbell 5th, Brooke Bowerman 14th and Bailey Swoboda 34th to score for the girls team and finish in the top third of the field. Scoring for the boys, and also finishing in the top third of the field were Matthew Duchow in 2nd, Jayce Bailey 14th, Niko McHenry 38th and Brennan Powell in 45th.

Sunday saw the boys and girls switch venues, with the girls competing in the Giant Slalom while the boys raced Slalom. Both teams were well represented with Champions in each event, Halle winning the girls race and Matthew winning for the boys. Brooke was 12th, Maddie 17th and Bailey 39th for the girls, while Jayce pulled in a 15th, Niko finished 42nd and Brennan 44th for the boys to score valuable points toward the team podium finish.

In an exciting sweep of the overall PNSA Buddy Werner Individual Championships, Matthew Duchow and Halle Campbell were crowned overall Champions for the weekend. Maddie Collins captured 3rd overall for the girls to give SARS one half of the overall podium spots.

This coming weekend, Andrew Black and Kenny Collins of Spokane, Abby Howard of Post Falls and Lani Wahl of Sandpoint will represent SARS at the Western Region Junior Olympics in Squaw Valley, California. They are part of the PNSA team selected from all PNSA athletes to represent the division at the Regional Championships.

Finally, SARS is proud to note that five athletes, including Courtney Altringer of Spokane, David Owsley of Moscow, ID, Michael Radford, Michael Bansmer and Carl Noges of Sandpoint are competing at the North American Cup finals in Whistler, British Columbia this week. These five athletes representing SARS are home to one club, which is more athletes than any other team in the Western United States.  The athletes will be competing against the Canadian and United States National Team members on last season’s Olympic Winter Games racing venue.