COLERAINE, Minn. (csssaints.com) -- With the scheduled junior national qualifier early season events in Houghton cancelled, St. Scholastica skiers convened in an ad hoc friendly open meet on a two-kilometer loop at Mt. Itasca in Coleraine, Saturday.

Ellie Evans (New Hope, Minn./Robbinsdale Cooper HS) posted the Saints top result in 13^th overall and seventh among college skiers in a time of 17:10.0.  Annie Hart of Stratton Mt. Team T2 (VT) dominated in 15:34.1 for the overall win, beating Northern Michigan's Vivian Hett, the top collegiate skier, by 33.7 seconds with Hett posting 16:07.8.  Third overall and second collegiate skier was NMU's freshman, Sarah Bezdicek in 16:11.1. 

Chelsey Youngberg (Duluth, Minn./Duluth East HS) finish 17^th overall and eighth in the collegiate ranks in 17:38.2, while Evelyn DeLong (Calumet, Mich./Calumet HS) posted the 22^nd best time overall and 11^th collegiately in 18:11.7.  No team scores were taken.

"It was a sound start for the team today," remarked Saints head coach Chad Salmela.  "A late finals schedule and challenging skiing conditions the past two weeks has really challenged us with what we could do, and what we actually did particularly this last week.  I've felt we are bit disjointed right now on sound preparation to compete this weekend so I was prepared for anything results wise.  We had some really good performances by a few skiers, some so-so ones, and some flat ones.  It will be good to get out of finals week and really have the athletes focus again on sound preparation and really good training for the coming season.  I was mostly pleasantly surprised, but we need some refocus for sure now that we have some snow to ski on and finals are finishing up."

The Saints compete again Sunday at Mt. Itasca with a 10km classic event.