The Wilton High School Ski Team had one of its best nights at its final regular season race on Feb. 12 at Mount Southington. Both the girls’ and boys’ teams took first place and finished their regular seasons undefeated in their Class S division. In addition, the Wilton boys took first place overall (for Classes S and L), beating their number one Class L rival Ridgefield by nearly 20 seconds. Wilton girls placed second overall behind Ridgefield. Both teams are now prepping for the State Championships later this month.
“This [Feb. 12] race is a testament to how driven-to-win and sports-savvy this team is,” Michael Kaulins, the Wilton boys’ coach, said. “The skiers–boys and girls–made some astute observations about their course during their first runs and were able to turn them into big wins.”
In sweeping their race, Wilton boys had seven of their varsity skiers finish in the top 20 out of 140 skiers overall: junior Ryan van Heyst led in 2nd place with a combined two-run time of 41.02, followed closely by seniors Dominick Polito (3rd; 42.29); Scott Verrilli (7th; 42.89); and Phil Klinga (8th; 42.94); sophomore Ryan Leung (10th; 43.69); senior Ben Leung (11th; 43.85); and junior Kiel Polito (15th; 44.7).
For the Wilton girls, junior Kira Howard led the team by placing third overall out of 134 skiers, with a combined two-run time of 44.5 seconds. Also scoring for the Warriors were junior Alexandra Magnusson (18th; 49.13); senior Megan Kaeyer (25th; 50.8); and sophomores Dakota Kelly (32nd; 51.81), Lexi Hine (35th; 52.3) and Casey Vanderwall (55th; 55.38). (pictured above, L-R: Dakota Kelly, Abby Kyle, Lyla Hage, Julia Peterson, Sophie Peterson and Megan Kaeyer)
Complete team results may be found online.