HOUGHTON, Mich. (csssaints.com) -- Two teams made up the entire top 10 of the Men's 20km classic mass start at the Michigan Tech Invitational, Sunday. The St. Scholastica men's ski team was one of the two, with Reitler Hodgert (Bend, Ore./Summit HS ) claiming sixth (59:06.1), Joe Dubay (Coon Rapids, Minn./Andover HS) in his career-best CCSA finish in eighth (59:46.6) and Chris Parr (Eagan, Minn./Eagan HS) 10^th (59:54.6).

Northern Michigan continued to dominate in a fashion they have all year, taking first through fifth, seventh, and ninth. Ian Torchia skied away from teammates Adam Martin (56:34.6) and Fredrik Schwenke (56:46.6) to win in 55:54.3.

NMU won with 51 points, with the Saints solidly second with 42 points to Michigan Tech's 30 in third.

Hodgert hung with the leaders for the first of four laps then skied largely alone with NMU's Sam Elfstrom just on the horizon. Parr hung a bit further off the pace and faded, ultimately being joined by Dubay, with the help of NMU's Leo Hipp. Down the stretch, Dubay used his famous closing speed to out-sprint Hipp and Parr for eighth.

After a difficult wax race for the CSS women in the morning, the sun came out at above-freezing temps, baking what started as a powdery snow track, into saturated, compacted tracks that glazed like a mirror. Getting wax to work as grip became nearly futile, stickier klister tended to be slow or threated to gather snow and turn it to ice, potentially stopping skis from gliding at all. While wax room scramble theatrics abounded in the Boss waxing rooms on site, ultimately the majority of the field emerged with waxless "hairies;" special skis with fine, roughed up "hair" in the kick zone of the ski where grip wax usually resides. The turn of events, according to Saints head coach Chad Salmela, was a welcome development.

"(Assistant Coach) Josh Tesch was having trouble getting anything to work for kick that wasn't real slow," said Salmela.  "He came in and told us 'better try the hairies.' I was relieved, truth be told. It had been a nerve racking morning, so the decision just felt like the pressure being relieved."

The Saints faced nearly identical conditions at regionals three years ago at this venue.  "We had a great men's race on kick wax in the morning, then the sun came out, saturated the track, and we were completely unprepared," recalled Salmela.  "We had a pair or two of ill-fitted zeroes none of our ladies could kick. We had our worst day ever on skis some athletes had to actually run on just to finish. We took the bottom four spots that day. It was embarrassing, even though everyone understood what had happened to us."

That set Salmela on a course to amass sets of the specialty skis for just such conditions. "The reality is, most kids can't afford college tuition and the skis they need for 98% of all races, plus be invested into a pair of skis you might, just might use, once in a college career." 

Salmela relied on close-out deals from local shops, manufacturers, and elite athletes thinning out their ski fleet, and bargained his way to a full fleet of "hairies" for his team. "I knew I had to find deals over several years to afford the equipment, but I also knew it was going to pay off at some point and I knew I needed to do what I did.  And the day we needed them was today."

"My skis were awesome" said Hodgert, who raced on a pair originally intended for Sharmila Ahmed, roughly 2/3rds Hodgert's size. Dubay raced on his own pair to his greatest college success, while Parr used a pair left behind as a present to the team last year by Anita Kirvesniemi, upon graduation. 

"Hairies are weird," said Salmela. "They don't work like real skis. You take common sense on ski fit and throw it out the window. You hand Reitler a couple pair and say 'try these,' and he picks these skis built for a peanut, that just rocked for him today. It was like putting a bull on tooth picks, but hey, the result was great." 

It all delivered arguably the Saints' men's team's best team performance of the year.

The Saints have an off week of racing before the CCSA Championships February 13 and 14.