Like many of the sports at Yorktown High School, the ski team has been a wonderful opportunity for amazing students to expand on their skills, learn new things, and have fun. For this article, Coach Nufer explains what the team is all about and expectations for the future.
“This year’s Varsity Ski Team expects to have a great year, as they’ll have a solid group of strong ski racers returning for their fourth or fifth year on the team. Some of those include seniors Madelon Gorman, Sofia Lam, Reilly Doller, Cameron O’Brien, Connor Reardon, and James Callaghan, all of whom competed at the Sectional Championships last year. Other notable standouts include juniors Brandon Zhong and Joseph Longo, who also competed at Sectionals last year, and sophomore Ryan Donnelly, who was first alternate to Sectionals. The Varsity Ski Team also includes numerous other returnees who worked hard on their skills and improved a great deal throughout last season.”
“Both the Girls and Boys Teams train and race together, under the expert instruction of Coach Nufer, who has been coaching the Varsity Ski Team for the past 21 years. For those who are relatively unfamiliar with the Varsity Ski Team, we asked Girls Team Captain, Madelon Gorman to tell us a little bit about the experience of being a team member.”
The following is an interview with Madelon Gorman, team captain of the YHS ski team, giving an inside look into how the team operates.
What do you like most about being on the Varsity Ski Team?
I love the community of Ski Team. It really feels like a family. I also love that we get to ski every day, and we have fun on the mountain together.
What are some of your goals as a Team Captain this year?
I’d really like to help build a strong team in terms of racing skills, and also hopefully bring some more girls onto the team, since the Girls Team is much smaller than the Boys Team.
What is it like being on the Varsity Ski Team? Please paint a picture of a day in the life of a ski racer.
Our season is divided into two portions: the Dry Land Training period, from mid-Nov to mid-Dec (before it gets cold enough for the local ski areas to make artificial snow), and the On-Snow portion, from mid-to-late Dec through the end of February, when we train and race at ski resorts in NY and CT.
We begin our winter sports season with dry land training, which involves a lot of different exercises on the YHS track & turf to build strength, speed, and agility. The Track Team sometimes jokes that we run more than them. We also do fun activities like playing soccer and Ultimate Frisbee, and then on some days we rollerblade down a slalom course in order to practice our slalom racing technique.
When it comes time to start skiing, our bus departs from YHS at 2:30pm, and heads to the one of the local ski resorts for a few hours, where we do drill work, and train in the disciplines of Slalom and Giant Slalom, as we practice going through courses that contain different gate combinations.
On race days we arrive all excited at the mountain and we hype each other up before the races. After the races, on the way back home, we sometimes stop for a little victory dinner at the Red Rooster in Brewster.
Do you have any predictions for how the team is going to do this winter season?
I think we’re going to have a great year! We have lots of competitive returning skiers, as well as a bunch of new people joining us that I’m sure will do great! I hope that many of us will qualify for Sectionals, and maybe some will even qualify for the State championships at the end of February. We’re keeping our fingers crossed for snow this winter because last year’s weather kind of stank.”
Thanks Coach Nufer and Madelon Gorman for informing students about the Yorktown Ski Team. Yorktown High school wishes them luck this season!
