This year has been a strange one for the men’s and women’s Nordic ski team, but they have managed to find success, despite battling illness and dealing with a lack of snow.

“With all things considered, [this season] is going really well, considering the amount of snow we’ve had this year. Our women are doing very well, especially considering that a lot of them had been sick during January. It seemed like they took turns being sick, but they did really well. And the men started out a little bit slower out of the gate but then they cranked things up at the end of the month, so I think they are finding their form and they are skiing really well now. And now we are gearing up for our last two weekends; our conference championship and our regional championship,” Head Men’s and Women’s Nordic Ski Coach Jed Friedrich said.

The unseasonably warm weather and lack of snow this winter has forced the men’s and women’s Nordic ski team to be creative. This is the first year in the eight years that Friedrich has been at Gustavus that the team has rollerskied in January. “We also drove up to the cities every Wednesday in January to get on snow, but [this winter] wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The main thing has just been to keep everyone positive, that’s really been a big thing when you are dealing with a winter like this, is just to keep everyone positive and focused on training and racing as hard as they can,” Friedrich said.

“The hardest part of skiing this year has been the lack of snow. It definitely put us at a disadvantage when we had to constantly travel to the cities for snow,” First-year Tyler Gustafson said.

The next two weekends are big weekends for the Nordic team. This weekend is the conference championship, and the following weekend the team will travel to Michigan for the NCAA regional championship. Gustafson said that he won’t be racing these next two weekends.

“My season is done but the top six males and females have two weekends of racing in Michigan coming up. Their goal is just to ski fast and ski hard, and hopefully some will qualify for the NCAA championships,” Gustafson said.

First-year Megan Allen is excited to ski in the conference championship. “I’m excited for the conference meet because there’s a 10k on Saturday and on Sunday we race 3×5 sprints, which is really fun because you race as a team. Nordic is usually a really individual sport, but in a relay you have to rely on your teammates,” Allen said.

“My goal [at the conference championship] is just to be as competitive as I can be, and to keep improving and getting better this year and the next few years,” Allen said.

“I’d like to be the top team in Minnesota [at both the conference and regional championships]. But really just to improve these next two weekends and to put together the best race that we can; to finally put together a race where we have three really solid results, because our top three skiers score points for the team. Top five in the region is a goal we would like to hit for both weekends,” Friedrich said.

Looking back at the season, Friedrich said that it hasn’t been as difficult as he had expected because the skiers were flexible. “I’m really proud of how our seniors are skiing this season, it seems like they are putting forth their best season, so I’m really proud of that. It’s always fun working with these skiers because they work really hard and these next two weekends are my two favorite weekends of the season,” Friedrich said.