The Sun and News, Saturday, December 4, 2021/ Page 13Deep CHS girls’ ski team working to gain experience
Brett Bremer
Sports Editor
Caledonia has had a pretty
great high school ski pro-
gram for the past seven sea-
sons under head coach Duane
Petrosky, and before his
arrival as well, but the pro-
gram has more depth than
ever this winter.
Now the Scots just need the
snow to get as little deeper.
The Caledonia varsity ski
team brings back senior
all-conference skiers Barbie
DeGood and Evie Schlett
this winter along with a
handful of other varsity ski-
ers from a year ago. The
program also added a num-
ber of new girls with skiing
and ski racing experience.
“The girls’ team has 14
members right now and all of
our new members have skied
or were a part of our middle
school program, so they are
coming in with some experi-
ence and knowledge of ski
racing,” coach Petrosky said.
“This will be the first year that
we will have a full varsity ‘B’
team for the girls and are excit-
ed about the opportunities that
this will provide our girls.”
The Caledonia girls placed
third in the Southwest
Michigan Ski Conference last
winter, with a ‘B’ squad earned
third place in the conference
‘B’ team standings as well.
Helping the varsity
throughout the winter last
season along with DeGood
and Schlett are returning
senior Claudia Shuster and
sophomores Mya Baldwin
and Kyleigh Thompson.
Among the newcomers to
the team are Austrian
exchange student Leona
Herdin, Italian exchange stu-
dent Elena Luraschi and
Danish exchange student
Meera Pederson.
Coach Petrosky likes the
leadership he has seen from
his trio of DeGood, Schlett
and Shuster so far.
“[They] are great leaders
that helped our girls’ team
grow last season and have
had a positive influence on
our sophomore group that
shows up in the girls’ work
ethic and desire to win,”
coach Petrosky said.
Sone of those youngsters
who will be working towards
varsity spots and skiing for
the ‘B’ team include senior
Lydia Sowerby, sophomores
Aida Whisler, Diana Bisono-
Balaguer and freshmen Liz
Hilton, Erin Peckham and
Kaylie Price.
“This team might be the
most athletic girls’ team I
have coached,” Petrosky
added. “They all either play a
variety of other sports or are
very dedicated in the weight
room. My sophomore and
freshman girls put in a ton
time working out this summer
and are extremely strong and
ready to use their strength to
become faster this season.
Our exchange students have
joined in and pushed them-
selves far beyond what has
been expected.”
The team didn’t get in the
kind of up-north training it
had hoped for last year due to
the pandemic, so there is
some work to do.
“Our younger skiers need
more experience on the big-
ger and steeper slopes at
places like Caberfae, Crystal
Mountain and Schuss,”
Petrosky said. “We have a lot
of training planned to help
give the girls the experience
they need to grow as racers.”
The girls are supposed to
open the season Dec. 15 at
the Battle for Bittersweet,
but that meet is likely to be
canceled due to a lack of
snow. The SWMSC seasonbegins Jan. 12 and the Scots
also have plans to participate
in the Cadillac Invitational
Jan. 18, the Benzie
Invitational Feb. 4, and the
Clare Invitational Feb. 7.
“The coaches are excited
to see our new additions ski
and to see how they can
enhance our core of talented
skiers,” Petrosky said. “We
have graduated a lot of tal-
ented skiers the past few
years and thought we were in
a rebuilding mode this year
but believe with the growth
in skill of our existing skiers
and the potential that our
new skiers are bringing that
we could be contenders for
the conference title again this
year. Our goals are always
the same and the kids push
hard to try to achieve them.”
Those goals include win-
ning the SWMSC title, fin-ishing in the top three at its
invitationals and securing a
top three regional finish to
earn a spot in the state finals,
as well as successfully plac-
ing in the top ten in the
MHSSCA Academic stand-
ings.The fight for a SWMSC
title will be a tough one with
the returning champs from
Mattawan bringing one of its
top racers back and the con-
ference runners-up from
Portage bringing everyone
back while adding to its ros-ter as well. The Plainwell/
Thornapple Kellogg team led
by Lucy VanDemark, last
year’s individual conference
champion, and the talented
Maddie Nagel should contin-
ue to improve in the confer-
ence as well.172445
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