Skiing Their Way to State Championships! Congratulations Ridgefield High School!

The Ridgefield High School (RHS) Ski Team skied their way to the state championships on February 28, 2018, at Mount Southington in Plantsville, Connecticut.

RHS races in The Connecticut Interscholastic Ski League (CISL), a high school ski racing league made up of over 20 high school teams from public and private schools throughout Connecticut who race against the best skiers in Connecticut. 

The RHS Boy's team entered the State Championships ranked second in the State. Fairfield Prep entered ranked first in the State.  "Ironically, a lot of the boys on RHS and Prep teams all skied together as kids on the Mount Snow Alpine Race Team - the RHS boys team and Fairfield Prep have a good friendly rivalry," explains Joe Pastore, whose children Joey and Jillian, are part of RHS Ski Team and Mount Snow Academy Team respectively.

According to Pastore, the Varsity Boys team that raced for the Championship was anchored by Captains Neils Van Beek, Will Coffin, and Jimmy Kulik with Jake Robinson, Luke Faillaci, Joey Pastore, Alex O'Reilly, Alex Bornstein, Elliot Hynes, and Owen Cherner racing for the team with Chris Hagel and Mikey Heller serving as alternates. Jake Robinson and Joey Pastore qualified for the individual state championships.  "While 10 races run for each team, the score is based on the best time for 2 runs by the top 6 on each team," says Pastore.

 Fairfield Prep won the State Championship, with a combined score of 259 seconds.  Fairfield High School nudged out the RHS boys for second, at 263 seconds and the RHS boys won third place at 264 seconds, beating Wilton by 0.13 seconds.  The RHS Girls team qualified for the Team State Championships by doing well in the last race of the year on Monday, February 26^th, but did not medal in the Championships.   Fairfield, Staples, and Weston were the top three for the girls.

Congratulations Tigers!