Hillary Rowse crosses the finish line and skids to a stop. (Photos by Rob Williams)
The Bromfield ski team raced hard this past season, making themselves known on the state level like other Trojan teams. Five of the team’s eleven racers qualified for last Tuesday’s state championships at Berkshire East in Charlemont. All five who competed finished in the top half.
The Trojans race in the Mass Bay West League’s Alpha Division, and compete at the Nashoba Valley Ski Area in Westford. Throughout the season, the teams compete in two giant slalom races and three slalom races. The other teams in the Alpha Division are Acton-Boxborough Regional High School, Chelmsford High School, Groton-Dunstable Regional High School, Lowell High School, Newton South High School, and Westford Academy.
The boys and girls actually compete as two separate teams. The girls team consisted of five members: Bromfield junior Hillary Rowse was the girls captain, and senior Amber Masters was the other Bromfield member. Three students from the Parker Charter Essential School on Devens joined the girls team: junior Anastasia Dolph, freshman Kate Elkind, and eighth-grader Alexandria Dolph. Sophomore Pasquale Eckert captained the boys side, joined by fellow sophomores Greg Wenger, Ryan Parker, and Anders McCready. Freshman Josh Wright and seventh-grader Sam Elkind also raced for the Bromfield boys. Hillary’s father, Steve Rowse, coached both teams.
Rounding a gate, Greg Wenger eyes the finish line.
Due to the delayed arrival of snow, the team had two races postponed. By the time the first giant slalom race took place on January 23, the girls team was prepared. Elkind placed second in the race, while Rowse came in third. The girls finished in second place as a team among the seven competing schools. The boys team finished in seventh place that day.
As the season progressed, the results only got better. At the competition January 30, the boys team came in fifth in the slalom race. Wenger placed first among individual racers with Parker, Wright, Eckert and McCready all finishing in the twenties. The girls fell to sixth place overall on this date due to a shortage of racers. However, their individual finishes were quite impressive: Elkind, first; Anastasia Dolph, fourth; and Alexandria Dolph, sixth.
Both teams slipped at the second giant slalom race on February 6. The girls came in seventh, and the boys came in sixth. The team got back on track later that week, however. At the slalom race on February 8, the girls finished in fifth place. This was an amazing feat, considering they had only four skiers compared to the other schools’ five. Elkind finished in first place again. Alexandria Dolph edged her older sister to finish fourth, while Anastasia came in sixth. Rowse came in eighth place among all female racers. On the boys side Wenger finished in second place overall, while Wright improved to twelfth place. The Bromfield boys third- place finish was their best team finish of the season.
The final Alpha Division race was another slalom race on February 13. The girls team tied for first place overall with Westford Academy. Wenger kept up his slalom dominance for the boys with another second-place race. He finished in the top two for all three slalom races.
At the end of the league season, the girls team was fourth overall while the boys came in seventh. Wenger tied for fifth in the individual standings among racers from the seven schools. Wright came in twentieth, Parker in twenty-sixth, and Eckert in twenty-seventh. The Bromfield girls placed four skiers in the top seven individual performers. Rowse was fifth, Anastasia Dolph was sixth, and Alexandria Dolph was seventh. Freshman Elkind took the top spot in the Mass Bay West League’s Alpha Division for all female racers. The four girls and Wenger all qualified for the state meet at Berkshire East in Charlemont on February 27: all qualified because they finished in the top ten of their league.
The state meet was a change of pace for the Bromfield racers. Wenger described Berkshire East as a “bigger course … more than twice the size of Nashoba [Valley Ski Area].” There were also more than 160 racers in each of the four events. Hillary Rowse said, “I don’t think that any of us really knew how competitive it was going to be.” Wenger also noted a lot of pressure during the state championships. Elkind finished twenty-sixth in the giant slalom and nineteenth in the slalom. Anastasia Dolph (forty-third; forty-seventh), Rowse (forty-eighth; fifty-sixth) and Alexandria Dolph (seventy-fifth; fifty-ninth) all turned in impressive finishes at the state championships. Wenger finished the slalom tied for sixty-ninth place.
Coach Steve Rowse said, “I’m really pleased and proud of the hard work and results that the team displayed this year.”
“[My dad] learned a lot and he definitely taught [the team] a lot,” Hillary Rowse said. Looking to next season already, both Hillary and Steve Rowse expressed a need for more skiers.
“We will have a better chance of qualifying for states as a team … [if] more people come out for the team,” Hillary said.
