The Concord High Nordic skiing programs picked up right where they left off last year and the 10 years before that – winning. The Crimson Tide have boys’ and girls’ Nordic teams have each won 11 straight Division championships, and last weekend both teams opened their seasons with wins on their home course at Beaver Meadow Golf Club.
“I’d like to think Concord punches above its weight,” Tide coach Sam Evans-Brown said. “We’re down south, meaning there’s not much snow, our standard place to train is a hayfield with no hills – but we manage to do pretty well.”
Captains Katie Watt and Gavin Graham both finished first in the season-opening meet.
Last year as a sophomore, Watt, who won the Meet of Champions as a sophomore to finish last season, clocked a 20:14 last weekend at Beaver Meadow to take first. On the podium with Watt were teammates Johanne Nichols and Maggie Cooper.
“The girls’ team is super strong because of the depth we have,” Evans-Brown said. “It’s skiing, things can go wrong. You can crash, not have the best wax on your skis, or just have an off day.”
If any of those difficulties hit the Tide, the teams has the depth to cover it up, and Concord showed that in its first meet.
Aside from sweeping the podium, the Tide ended with nine racers in the top ten: Mathea Graham (fourth overall), Alexis Christie (fifth), Clara Cooper (sixth), Gracie McHugh (eighth), Katherine Martel (ninth) and Colette Brochu (10th). A cut above, the girls are once again the favorites for another D-I championship.
In addition to depth, the Concord captains have immersed themselves in the sport. Both Watt and Graham also compete on the Eastern Cup Nordic Circuit, a higher level of competition requiring additional training.
“Gavin is hoping to ski in college and has been doing a great job of sticking with more intense training over summers.” Evans-Brown said.
Now a senior, Graham has to fill the ski boots of Cam Brochu, older brother of Colette. Brochu graduated after winning the 2019 Meet of Champions on the boys’ side.
Concord will be looking to Graham for consistent results since the boys’ team doesn’t have the same astonishing depth as the girls.
Graham finished the Beaver Meadow 5K course in 19:29 in the opener. The senior pushed his pace in the race and crossed the line with the only time under 20 minutes. Teammates following in his tracks were Eben Bragg and Brady Rice. Bragg, who led the Concord boys’ cross country running team to a D-I title in the fall, finished second and Rice was fifth.
Ryan Devine, who did not race Saturday, is projected as one of Concord’s top racers as well.
Even though the Tide boys don’t have the same depth as the Tide girls, the Concord boys are still the favorites in D-I, especially after the season-opening results. Keene, last year’s runner-up, was in the field at Beaver Meadow, and beating the Owls is a good sign for the Tide. And Evans-Brown believes the team is still capable of continuing the streak of titles this season. But things may look very different for Nordic teams across the state next season.
The New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association will restructure the Nordic divisions next year in hopes of balancing the competition.
The NHIAA plans to shrink the number of divisions from four to two, which means there will be a lot more teams in D-I to challenge the Tide. This is due to program strength in outdoor winter sports being less dependant on school size, and more dependant on location in a strong training atmosphere.
Evans-Brown gives lots of credit to the community for creating that strong training atmosphere for the Tide.
“Cross country skiing is really a community effort.” He said, “There’s a lot of unpaid labour that goes into making it possible. Our trails are groomed by volunteers, parents are teaching their kids how to wax skis in their basements. More than that, there’s no money in cross country, so all the work that it takes to get students to the point where they can take part in a successful high school program is done as a labor of love by the members of the community.”