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Saints freshman Waylon Manske (Bemidji, Minn./Bemidji HS) skied toe-to-toe with some of the best countries Nordic skiers his age this past weekend at the Junior Olympics event in Anchorage, Alaska, a week-long event that doubles as the U.S. Junior National Championships.

Competing in the Older Junior (OJ, age 18-19) category, Manske finished a career-best 13th in Friday's 10-kilometer Freestyle. His time of 42 minutes, 54.1 seconds was third fastest among Midwest skiers in the OJ category and only 4:19 behind the leader, Reese Hanneman of Alaska. Manske's finish among the Midwest skiers at the event also put him on the region's top OJ relay team competing in the 3x5K race on Saturday.

Skiing second on the Midwest 1 relay team Manske produced a breakout performance, moving his team from 15th to 5th during his leg. His 5K split of 11:43.2 was second fastest of second-leg skiers and fourth fastest of all skiers in any of the three legs of the 15K relay.

At the finish, Manske's Midwest 1 team finished 6th in the OJ category missing the top-five podium by a scant three-tenths of a second.

"Waylon completely set the course on fire and you could see he was eating up the course fast," said Saints head coach Chad Salmela who was working as a coach with the Midwest team. "Waylon's never competed on a national stage at this level, but he was the fastest guy from our Midwest contingent (Saturday)," Salmela added.