HOUGHTON, Mich. (csssaints.com) -- Kelsey Dickinson (Winthrop, Wash./Liberty Bell HS) continued to lead the St. Scholastica women skiers in 11^th place, with a time of 54:29.5, in the Michigan Tech Invitational 15km classic mass start.

Dickinson started strong, staying with the lead pack of seven through 3.5km, before a slow unraveling from both early pace, but more so changing conditions that rendered her grip wax nearly unuseful. 

The race started fast and continued to lay carnage to the field by a group of Northern Michigan skiers, seemingly bent on pummeling each other in tricky waxing conditions. Vivian Hett made her skis work brilliantly to lay down unmatchable climbing to win in 49:21.9. Teammate Felicia Gesior stuck with Hett for half the race before Hett pulled the better part of a minute out of her in the latter half, to finish second in 50:09.6. Nearly another minute elapsed before NMU's early pace setter, Sophie Schimpl, crossed the line in 51:08.1, just three tenths ahead of Michigan Tech's Andrea Lee in fourth.

Northern Michigan continued it's dominant trend, taking eight of the top 10 spots.  Michigan Tech took the other two with Lee in fourth and Sonja Hedblom in ninth.

Ellie Evans (New Hope, Minn./Robbinsdale Cooper HS) and Chelsey Youngberg (Duluth, Minn./Duluth East HS) took advantage of great working skis to position themselves well early, only to struggle with kick late in the race. They finished 13^th and 15^th respectively in 55:22.0 and 56:20.4 to round out the scoring for the Saints.

NMU won with a perfect score of 51, Michigan Tech was second 41 points, with the Saints finishing third with 33.

The warm, borderline freezing conditions kept the coaches on their toes to make grip wax work with enough glide to keep from icing.

"We rode a fine line with tricky conditions," said Saints head coach Chad Salmela. What resulted was "great gripping, and fast skis…until the snow warmed and it kind of quit working, at least to various degrees for different people and their skis."

"My skis were great, until about halfway," said Dickinson. "Then I mostly had herringbone (out of the tracks) or double pole."

"Assistant coach Josh Tesch has such a tough job," said Salmela.  "I just mostly work on making sure the glide is good, which is relatively easy.  Josh is a student, and a great one, of how grip wax works and I can count on less than a hand the number of times in seven years with the Saints that we have not had ideal skis on a classic day. Today you had to compromise for the women's race—go a little thick to ensure kick and risk face-plants when they ice, or keep it thin enough to slip a bit but move. It wasn't going to be ideal no matter what we did. In the end the saturation of the snow at these temps just turned what we had running great the first lap, into a struggle as the race went on. Other teams had the similar issues and succeeded to varying degrees with it as well.  That's just how today played out. I'm proud of how our women fought in the face of adversity today."

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