State titles cap good year for Section II skiers

PHOTOGRAPHER: Stan Hudy

Broadalbin-Perth skier Colin Cotter skis down the slalom course on Echo trail during the Section II Alpine Ski Championships at Gore Mountain on Wednesday, February 16, 2022 in North Creek. He finished second in the slalom and captured the giant slalom race earlier in the day.

The fact that Section II Alpine skiers did well at the New York State Skiing Championships last week is not surprising. But the fact that they were able to do so with heavy hearts was.

On Saturday, Feb. 26, two days before the state championships, Shenendehowa junior Brandon Sherwood, a member of the Plainsmen’s Alpine ski team, died while skiing at Gore Mountain, the site of the championships.

The news hit hard, said Rich Burnley, Shenendehowa coach and director of Gore’s racing program.

“So I spent [Sunday] running an event for a hundred U16-to-18s while trying to tell as many team members as I could so they knew,” Burnley said. “So we went to the state meet in a somber state, and although our girls won and we did well, it put a little damper on any celebrating we did. They were racing with Brandon on their mind and for him.”

“It was a solemn two days,” Saratoga Springs coach Megan Beck added. “We all felt Shen’s pain.”

In the end, Section II came away with two combined champions, another individual discipline champion, the top-scoring boys’ and girls’ individual teams as well as the top-scoring section for boys and girls.

This year’s finish mirrored 2014, when the Shenendehowa girls and Saratoga Springs boys were the top-scoring teams. It was the Shenendehowa girls’ second state title and the Saratoga Springs boys’ third, having also won in 2012.

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Broadalbin-Perth sophomore Colin Cotter and Queensbury junior Meredith Montgomery earned the boys’ and girls’ overall combined championships, while Shenendehowa junior Micaela Leonard was the girls’ giant slalom champion. Shenendehowa junior Braden Kruk was third place overall for the boys, while Shenendehowa sophomore Allison Bach also took third for the girls. The other Shenendehowa skier was Sarah MacFarlane.

Saratoga Springs’ boys didn’t have a podium finish in either the slalom or giant slalom, but the team of Matthew Moeckel, Nathan Rodriguez and James Parobeck delivered consistently good results.

“James’ second run in the giant slalom after Nate fell was important,” Beck said. “He’s such a consistent skier, I knew he’d stay up and place well, and he did just that.”

It was especially sweet for seniors Moeckel and Rodriguez.

“This was the icing on the cake for them that they were able to pull it off,” Beck said.

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On the first day of states, Cotter had the boys’ two fastest first runs in the slalom, of 41.88 seconds and 40.82, respectively. He led Brighton’s Ben Comeau by nine-tenths of a second.

On the second day, Cotter and Comeau tied for the fastest first run on the giant slalom course, of 1:13.2.

“After his first run, we looked at it from the top of the course after we did inspection, and thought it was a very fast course, but a course he could attack in most spots. But there also were a few spots he couldn’t attack too much,” said Broadalbin-Perth coach and Colin’s father, Shawn Cotter.

On the second run, Colin Cotter produced the fastest time, 1:12.5, while Comeau skied it in 1:12.9, clinching the overall title.

“Honestly, my mindset was to do my best and compete to the best of my ability,” Colin Cotter said. “I felt I had a really great weekend. I’d been doing a lot of training, mostly at Oak Mountain, and it just all came together.”

Colin Cotter was toward the beginning of the lineup on the second run, “so I was watching everybody come down the hill wondering how it’ll hold up.”

In the girls’ competition, Leonard had the fastest time, 43.03, on the first run of the slalom, but didn’t finish the second run. In the giant slalom, Leonard’s two runs in a combined 2:35.3 edged out Montgomery (2:36.8) to earn that discipline’s championship.

“Micaela won sectionals as a freshman, couldn’t race as a sophomore because she was in COVID protocol, so this year she was determined to win, and she did, and her teammates stepped up and we won the overall title,” Burnley said.

Burnley noted that Section II was strong on both days. Its girls had five of the top 10 overall finishers in both disciplines, while the boys had six of the top 10 in both disciplines.