PARK CITY — the Park City High School mountain bike racing team held on to its series lead at the third race of the Utah High School Cycling League last Saturday at the Round Valley trail system in Park City.
Even though the Round Valley course is on Park City High's home turf, competing teams brought their A-game, holding Park City High to only two wins with Weber taking first in boys varsity, Salt Lake City Composite winning the girls varsity and D1/D2 junior varsity, Lone Peak taking boys D1 junior varsity and girls D1/D2 sophomore races, Sky View taking boys D2 junior varsity, Bountiful taking boys D2 sophomore and boys D2 freshmen races, and Ogden taking girls D1/D2 freshmen.
Racing conditions for the 670 student-athletes were perfect, with temperatures in the mid-70s and great traction on the slightly damp five-mile course featuring sweeping corners, switchbacks and 550 feet of elevation gain.
The girls varsity race was a difficult race for many reasons for overall points leader Sienna Leger Redel of Park City High, who faced stiff competition from Rachel Anders of the Salt Lake City Composite team, and an unfortunate pass right before the finish line. Anders skipped the second race at Nordic Valley to compete in the Xterra Nationals, where she took second in the female 15-19-year-old division. She competed in the Utah league’s first race at Soldier Hollow, where she placed second.
Girls varsity raced three laps for a total for 15 miles. Redel led the first two laps with Anders close behind, but Anders passed Redel on the final lap just before the single-track section leading into the downhill.
Describing how the race went after passing Redel, Anders said, “I was trying to go as fast as could knowing Sienna was behind me, and on the downhill I knew she was right there and it would come to a sprint finish.”
On the last section of single-track leading in the final straightaway, Redel tried to pass Anders, but the ill-timed move caused Redel to hook bars with Anders and both riders went down. Redel quickly got back on her bike, but the crash bent Anders' rear derailleur. Redel crossed the finish line first, followed by Anders 10 seconds later in second, with Park City High’s Brenna Egan coming in third 2:46 seconds later.
However, one of the league’s sportsmanship rules states, “Fair play and respectful, kind, supportive behavior is expected of all NICA student-athletes,” so Redel was assessed a one-minute penalty, awarding Anders the win, moving Redel to second and Egan remaining in third. Redel remains the series points leader.
The boys varsity race was different this round with series points leader Connor Patten unable to race due to an injury suffered during training last week. That left Weber’s Anders Johnson, Ogden’s Jacob Mathewson, Park City's Matthew Behrens and Timpanogos’ Adam Brown to fight it out on Round Valley’s fast technical course for overall series points.
Johnson led the boys four-lap varsity race from the beginning. “I started out and when I hit the single track I didn’t want to get caught, so I got in front, looked back and I already had a little gap so I decided to go for it and just built my lead every lap.”
After racing for 20 miles, Johnson took the win with a time of one hour, 19 minutes and 16 seconds, followed by Mathewson 1:03 later in second, Behrens in third 1:13 after Mathewson, followed by Brown in fourth 2:02 later.
Brown finished second at both Soldier Hollow and Nordic Valley, with Mathewson finishing third at both races. Those results, combined with Round Valley’s results, put Mathewson and Brown in a tie as series points leaders with 1,752 points each, followed by Johnson in third with 1,744 points and Behrens in fourth with 1,678 points.
Other winners on Saturday are as follows*:
- Girls Divisions 1 & 2 freshmen — Sophie Scothern, Ogden (8th, 2nd)
- Girls Divisions 1 & 2 sophomore — Allison Teemant, Lone Peak (1st, 1st)
- Girls Divisions 1 & 2 JV — Lia Westermann, Salt Lake City (1st, 3rd)
- Boys Division 1 freshmen — Jon Jon Drain, Park City (2nd, 1st)
- Boys Division 2 freshmen — Josh Peterson, Bountiful (1st, 1st)
- Boys Division 1 sophomore — Estin Hicke, Park City (2nd, 1st)
- Boys Division 2 sophomore — Blair Perkes, Bountiful (1st, 1st)
- Boys Division 1 JV — Collin Richards, Lone Peak (2nd, 3rd)
- Boys Division 2 JV — Brad Huber, Sky View (2nd, 3rd)
* Info in parenthesis indicates placing at Soldier Hollow and Nordic Valley, respectively.There were 54 teams representing 89 different high schools that competed. After this third round, the top five teams in each division are as follows*:
Division 1
- Park City (13,380 points. 1st, 1st)
- Corner Canyon (12,299 points. 2nd, 2nd)
- Alta (11,543 points. 3rd, 3rd)
- Morgan (11,410 points. 3rd, 4th)
- Skyline (11,193 points. 5th, 4th)
- Division 2 Ogden High School (6,488 points. 1st, 1st)
- Salt Lake Composite (6,203 points. 2nd, 3rd)
- Riverton High School (5,980 points. 3rd, 2nd)
- Moab Red Devil (5,769 points. 5th, 4th)
- Herriman (5,516 points. 4th, 4th)
* Info in parenthesis indicates total season points, and placing at Soldier Hollow and Nordic Valley, respectively.Friday, Oct. 3, the league held the last of two Junior Development races for 166 middle school students.
Winners of Friday’s races were as follows*:
- Advanced girls — Mila Leger Redel, Park City (1st)
- Advanced boys — Skylar Patten, Park City (1st)
- Intermediate girls — Kali Caldwell, Ogden (2nd)
- Intermediate boys — Colten Stephens, Park City (3rd)
- Beginner girls — Sloane James, Lone Peak (2nd)
- Beginner boys — Levi Kammer, Lone Peak (3rd)
* Info in parenthesis indicates placing at Soldier Hollow.Beginning with the Nordic Valley race, the Utah League developed a special system to encourage sportsmanship and the National Interscholastic Cycling Association’s (NICA) core principles of developing strong body, strong mind and strong character. The Utah league calls it the “NICA Spirit Program.”
The Spirit Program has two elements — “Spirit Student-Athletes” and “Race Crew Spirit.”
Under the NICA Spirit Student-Athlete program, 12 different students at each race are given a large bag of goodies, including a bag of cookies to give to their coach to say “thank you” for their time and effort, a Clif bar to give to a hungry volunteer to tell them “thank you” for their time, cowbells and clappers to cheer and encourage racers to hang in there, and instructions to share the NICA spirit by finding and introducing themselves to someone they don’t know on another team.
Part of the Race Crew Spirit includes the Spirit helmet sticker program, which honors student-athletes who know and keep the rules, and students who show valued traits such as good sportsmanship, good attitude, perseverance, kindness and camaraderie to name a few.
Some of the people who received helmet Spirit stickers during the Round Valley race are:
- Sophomore Skylar Wilde of Murray Team Composite who finished second to last after jamming his chain in the front chain ring. He stood on one pedal and scooted with his other foot the last mile to the finish line.
- Freshman Chandler Rowley of Olympus after finishing last when asked by the announcers how he felt and why he races, with a big enthusiastic smile, responded, "I'm wicked tired!" and "because I want to."
- Boys D2 JV racer Tyler Guymon of Desert Hills had a tough race and when asked why he cheered while crossing the line he said, “It’s better to be happy than sad.”
Other student-athletes who received Spirit awards made statements such as “I love the community of the races. Everyone is so happy and friendly,” or “It’s fun being outside and getting to meet people. It's better than just sitting around, like I used to,” and “You have to be disciplined out here, push yourself really hard and that helps me know I can do that at school too.” “Competition at the races is fierce but also fun,” said Lori Harward, Utah High School Cycling League’s executive director. “We have national caliber athletes here, and students of all abilities showing national caliber sportsmanship. It’s very inspiring for me, the spectators, parents, and especially the athletes. The memories, attitude and life skills the student-athletes are developing will last forever.”
More information about the league, and detailed Round Valley race results, can be found at www.utahmtb.org.
Chip Smith is a sports contributor for Deseret News. He can be reached at csmith@soarcomm.com.