The Wolves are packing up their skis and equipment as they head to Boyne Mountain for the MHSAA Skiing Finals.
The Clarkston Boys Varsity Ski team secured their spot at the finals with an overall first place at the regional race last week.
They scored 62 points for the top spot. Lake Orion took second with 86.5 points and Grand Blanc finished third with 142.5 points.
“They are on target,” said Coach Mike Foyteck. “I have had a lot of kids traveling and a lot of injuries. I haven’t run six kids together in any race for a while. It was good to get them all running together. They skied well. I couldn’t be any happier with the way all of them performed.”
Ryan Callahan finished in first place in the slalom race, finishing in 53.91.
“It was good to see,” Foyteck added.
Derek VanItallie finished in third place in the slalom race and Alex McIntosh finished in fourth place.
Heading to the finals for the girls are Birmingham Marian, Fenton/Linden and Rochester Adams.
The Lady Wolves did have two racers qualify for the state meet – Karoline Holsbeke in the giant slalom race and Caroline Spytman in the slalom race.
“They had a good finish,” Foyteck added about Holsbeke and Spytman. “On the girls side, they just had a bad day. They had a couple of mistakes they couldn’t recover from.”
He added state looks good, and they have the same team from last year’s state champions.
“They have a lot of confidence,” Foyteck said. “They have a lot more gate time this year. If they ski clean, we should have a good day. They didn’t ski clean last year. If I can get them to ski clean in slalom, everything else will follow. They need to ski top to bottom, gate to gate.”
Clarkston will have tough competition at the finals from Lake Orion, Marquette and Traverse City Central this year.
“Lake Orion has a really good team this year. They will be in the mix,” Foyteck explained. “Marquette is a very good team this year, and they are pretty deep as far as their racers go as well as Traverse City Central.”