RESULTS

DULUTH, Minn. (csssaints.com) - Sprinting is not St. Scholastica's Paul Schommer (Kimberly, Wis./Kimberly HS)'s forte reputation. In fact, his perceived lack of sprint speed led to a successful reshuffle of the CCSA Champion relay team Saturday, but Sunday, Schommer brought home hardware in the CCSA Championship individual sprint, in what he referred to as his first ever A final in a sprint event.   

Michigan Tech's Haakon Hjelstuen proved the odds makers right by taking the title, comfortably cruising through the qualifier, semifinals, and the final in which he crossed the line 20 meters ahead of unattached St. Scholastica student, Chris Parr (Eagan, Minn./Eagan HS). In fact, Parr was only one second slower in qualification for the heats, while Schommer qualified third, another four seconds back. It was another 30 meters to Schommer's silver medal CCSA performance in the final.

The qualification saw a sound performance by the Saints, taking nine of 18 spots in the heats, but Schommer and Joe Dubay (Coon Rapids, Minn./Andover HS), who qualified third among CCSA skiers, made it to the A final, while Calvin Mehrhof (Coon Rapids, Minn./Coon Rapids HS ), Reitler Hodgert (Bend, Ore./Summit HS ), and Gerrit Garberich (Brainerd, Minn./Brainerd HS ) advanced to the B final to decided places 7-12. 

In the A final, Hjelstuen controlled from start to finish with only Parr as a guest racer giving him any trouble. The strongest of the rest appeared to be Schommer, but Dubay's performance was impressive as he broke a pole early in the heat navigating traffic, and did not receive a spare pole until the race was decided, and still skied his way back to contact with the group still crossing the line sixth, fifth in the CCSA.

Mehrhof finished second in the B final to round out Saints scoring finishing eighth overall, but combined with Schommer's second and Dubay's fifth, it wasn't enough to overtake the Huskies in first, third and fourth. Gustavus edged St. Olaf by one point to take third on the day as a team.

"I thought the whole team skied great this weekend," said Saints head coach Chad Salmela. "Paul looked like his form was quite good, Joe showed a lot of life today, and the format that we don't get to race much let a lot of others on our team shine today, which I love to see."

The sprint and the relay are not NCAA events and the conference doesn't necessarily run them annually, something Salmela would like to see become commonplace. "It's a fun weekend with good racing, in formats that everyone not skiing collegiately are doing regularly. I think it's a good thing for the conference if placed well in a schedule and the distances and efforts don't suck energy too much from our NCAA hopes. The efforts are relatively small, but the fun factor for the conference is quite big."

The Saints hold a four-point lead over the Huskies going into the CCSA Distance Championships on Friday and Saturday, which will be a 20km classic mass start and 10km freestyle, held at Wirth Park in Minneapolis.