picked up the podium placing in the second race. The men’s slaloms were controlled by collegiate
foreign skiers with Adde and Petter Brenna getting the wins. Max Marno was the top U.S. skier in
the second race in seventh place.
The Elite Spring Series at Mission Ridge got underway April 6 with super G’s. Rubie and Miles Fink-DeBray waged a terrific battle with Fink-DeBray winning the first by two-hundredths over Rubie, but
Rubie got the better in the second race, taking Fink-DeBray by three-tenths. Brian McLaughlin and
Andrew Kircher got the third place finishes. Bryce Bennett was fourth both days. Nicholas Krause
and Ryan Chase both notched top- 10 finishes on both days.
Laurenne Ross put down a comfortable margin win in the women’s SG opener over Jacqueline
Wiles, Rose Caston and Brooke Wales, who all finished tightly packed in that order on Day 1. Wales
rose to the challenge to take Ross in the second, with Wiles and Caston finishing third and fourth,
respectively. Anna Mounsey was fifth both days; Breezy Johnson recorded a nearly identical five-six
finish (the second, a tie). Paige Minahan was eighth both days and Lauren Samuels posted a pair
of top- 10 finishes.
The men then went with a pair of slaloms and the women a pair of GS races. Sandy Vietz got both
slalom wins the first by a tenth over Bryce Bennett and the second by a half-second, again over
Bennett. Sweden’s Sam Monsen was third and then fourth with no other competitor making the top
10 in both races.
Wales won the opening GS over Ross, but ran into considerable difficulty in the second run of the
second GS. Ross collected that win. Over the two days of GS Emma Naatz recorded a fourth and
third, Caston a third and fifth, Croate Matea Ferk was second and eighth, Courtney Altringer was
seventh both days and Caroline Klaesson also made the top 10 twice with 10th, and tied with Altringer in the second race.
The men and women flipped disciplines for the last two days of competition. Rubie got both men’s
GS wins, the first by five-tenths over Robert Cone, the second by seven-tenths over Felix Monsen.
Krause got fourth behind Swede Marcus Plyhr on Day 1 and it was Plyhr and Frenchman Lucas
Ricou in the three and four slots on the second day.
Schleper, making her last two career FIS starts, cranked up her well known slalom skills to take the
women’s first race by a second and a quarter over Ferk. Wiles was third, Mounsey fourth and Naatz
fifth. In the second race, wearing a dress, Schleper did not fare as well, finishing fourth. Naatz got
the win, Ferk was second and Lauren Samuels third.
A gate race series at Sugar Bowl started off with GS’s all around. Garrett Driller won both men’s
races with Dylan Brooks on both podiums. Julia Bjorkman got both the women’s GS wins. Katie
Hostetler was second in the first, and a second-run DNF in the second race. Ryann Daley reversed
that effort, going out in the first race and finishing second in the counter race.
