J4/J5 skiers race at Mount Shasta

Clear skies and warm weather smiled upon the recent mid-winter J4/5 races last weekend at Mt. Shasta, Calif. Though faced with demanding courses on changing, spring-like snow, the Diamond Peak Ski Team stepped up with exciting performances, and many skiers raced their way to the podium with top-ten finishes.

On Saturday, challenged by a lengthy giant slalom course, J4 racer Ty Sprock bounced back after a brief fall to a strong finish in second behind Heavenly's Hughston Norton. Laying down their best results of the year, the J4 girls excelled with Julia Bjorkman winning a bronze, followed by Hannah Johnson in fourth and Elise Nelson in 18th.

"I was very pleased with our athletes' effort and accomplishments this weekend," said coach Peter Sprock. "We were one of the top-performing teams there, which was open to more than just our local region."

Faced with difficulties in her first run, Marie Johnson came back and posted the fastest second run time of the afternoon of the J4 girls.

In the J5 category, Diamond Peak's Lauren Keller skied two clean runs and placed third among a tough field of girls. After a fast first run, J5 racer Nelson Bedient found himself in second, but a brief mishap on his second run dropped him to 14th for the day.

The Sunday J4 slalom course proved to be very tough, but completely unintimidating for Sprock as he blew past his competitors for the gold, nearly 8 full seconds ahead of his competition. Only two one-hundreths of a second kept Johnson off the top step of the podium, as she finished in a well-deserved second place. Bjorkman skied into eighth place, followed by Johnson in ninth and Elise Nelson in 16th.

At the J5 level, racers Nelson Bedient and Lauren Keller placed a respective sixth in each of their races.

Officials times were unknown as of press time. For results, go to www.fwskiing.org.