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Wolves fare well at Giants Ridge

With more than 75 schools and a whopping 1,200 skiers on hand, it would have been easy for the Ely Timberwolves to get lost in the crowd at the massive Mesabi East Invitational at Giants Ridge.Instead, a few Wolves separated themselves from the pack.Five Ely skiers - three girls and two boys - came home with top-20 individual finishes in the Jan. 7 event at Giants Ridge - North America’s largest prep Nordic skiing event.On the girls side, junior Carolyn Freeman had the best peformance on an Ely team that placed ninth in a field of 58 full teams.Freeman was 13th in a field of 195 athletes in the freestyle race, completing the five-kilometer course in 18 minutes, six seconds.The classic race was the same distance with two Wolves in the top-20. Junior Casey Sovil place 17th in 19:50 and teammate Ellen Anderson, a senior, was four seconds behind in 19th place.Junior Nick Peterson and senior Adam Shultz stood out or the Ely boys.Peterson set a blazing pace in the classic race, taking 10th among 177 racers in 16:21.Shultz was 12th in the freestyle in 14:57.In the girls race, Ely was the smallest school to field a team but the Wolves topped nearly all of their much larger foes.Ely is ranked seventh in the latest state poll after Saturday’s outing.In addition to Freeman, Sovil and Anderson, Ely entered senior Mary Bruels in varsity competition. She placed 84th in the freestyle race in 20:46.The Wolves’ Zoe Lampman placed 105th in the classic (23:19).Perennial power Grand Rapids won the team competition, with Twin Cities schools Roseville, Anoka, Stillwater and Eden Prairie rounding out the top-five.In boys varsity action, Jay Wilmunen took 164th (23:07) and John Crane was 169th (24:06) in the classic race.Eighth-grader Peter Schurke completed the course in 16:06 and placed eighth in a field of 110 in the freestyle junior varsity boys event. Jacob Dalbert (18:48) wound up 29th.Ely’s Jon Haaverson took 58th in the boys classic junior varsity race with a time of 22:25. Seventh-grader Isaac Olson was 64th (23:09).Audrey Kothe completed the girls JV classic race in 23:13, good for an 18th-place showing. Becca Klein was next (68th, 27:42) for Ely.Kathryn Van Every had a 23rd-place time of 21:53 in the JV freestyle competition. Cassie Leoni was 44th (23:10).

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