Tobin, Bishop, Wellesley skiers conquering slopes

For the first time in many years, weather has not been a factor in the alpine skiing season. A cold December allowed significant training time and by the time the race season opened in January, both Blue Hills in Canton and Ski Ward in Shrewsbury had plenty of snow to host races. The Wellesley High School alpine ski team has taken advantage of this expanded amount of training in their first eight races, and has positioned itself to have a strong and successful end to the season.

The Raider alpine skiers race against 112 schools from across the Bay State. The Wellesley boys lost only one racer from a roster that placed third in the state last year, so expectations heading into 2017-2018 were extremely high as the Raiders returned a deep roster of sophomores and juniors, as well as adding a couple of talented freshmen.

“The boy’s field is very competitive this year,” noted coach Cory Tusler. “Wellesley has a strong group of racers. All varsity athletes ski for a club team up north on weekends, and bring significant experience to the team this year.”

The boys have been led by junior captain Jonah Tobin, who has placed in the top 10 (of the 95-racer field) in six of Wellesley’s eight races. Close behind is sophomore TJ Rubin, who has led the Wellesley scoring twice and has posted five top-ten scores. Freshman Sawyer Busny has shown strength in the giant slalom with a top-five score. Also scoring in the top twenty were sophomore Jay Driver and junior captain Matt McKenna. The boys team earned a league win in one of the giant slalom races and sits in third place overall with one week left in the season.

The girls team lost a couple of perennial state championship qualifiers from last season, but returned senior captain Kim Bishop, a league All-Star the past two years. Bishop has finished top-ten in all but one race this season. Freshman Patricia Landers has adjusted to the quick format of high school racing and has improved every night, with two top-ten scores in the most recent slalom. Supporting Landers and Bishop with top-20 scoring has been sophomore Olivia Francis.

“Bishop demonstrated leadership with her top-ten results and it was great to see Landers and Francis step up to contribute,” said Tusler.

The girls team currently sits in sixth place in the league.

At the time of print, the Wellesley alpine skiers will be back in action at Blue Hills on February 19 before their regular season finale of two slaloms on February 22.