By: Jakub Diakonowicz ’23

Alpine skiing is an individual sport, yet Hebron’s Alpine skiing team made it feel like a team. We kicked off the season with warm weather, no snow on the ground, but so much excitement. During two weeks of sweat, complaints, and hard work, we never hit the slopes but after all of that, the break did hit. I got to be on the team for two years and I have to say all members improved since last year. One example is girls becoming the M.A.I.S.A.D. champions. This year’s team contained people from all around the world. Countries including: Poland, Germany, USA, Sweden, and Spain. 

After the break, the alpine team had their first practice in Lost Valley, furthermore the day after we also had our first race. It was slalom and the majority of the team preferred GS. Even still, we manage to jump straight in, getting three members in the top ten overall. That’s also when I realized, we were the LOUDEST winter team this year. The alpine team cheered for anyone no matter what school they were from, and cowbells were necessary. We came up with different cheers: “It’s all downhill from here”, “Dunkin is after this” or we did wordplay with last names. Every member had an addition to the team, some added fun and noise, some showed care and made sure everyone was included, and some sacrificed their time into making the gear ready.

Each one of us, before our runs, got a ‘main character moment.’ Everything was about you; the coach was focused on you, the peers were cheering you on, and all you could concentrate on was your run. You could hear coach Stokes, A.K.A. Swaggie, telling you “It’s not icy, it’s fast” or “Do your best” and that’s how you knew, it was your time to shine. We ended the season with probably our best runs at M.A.I.S.A.D.S. We showed how much we improved both individually and as a team. All the girls secured top ten finishes, as well as  four boys were in the top ten of each category.