Colby Freshman and local Kid, Wyatt Fereday: Tearing it up in NCAA Skiing
Posted on January 21st, 2008
Bogus Basin Nordic Team alum and now Colby College freshman Wyatt Fereday skied to 3rd out of 96 men in his first eastern collegiate “carnival” 10 kilometer freestyle race, and the next day placed 18th in the 20 km classic hosted by Bates College.
Here are some further results and information of his progress from the Colby website and other sources:
The Colby College men’s Nordic team won the school’s first-ever ski carnival race in Nordic skiing by placing first in the 10-kilometer freestyle technique at the Bates College Winter Carnival on Friday at Black Mountain. In the opening ski race of the season, the Colby men had four skiers in the top 10 to accumulate 89 points. Dartmouth College took second place with 82 points and Middlebury College was a distant third in the 11-team field with 69 points. The last Colby victory in a ski carnival race was the women’s alpine team in the slalom in 2004.
“I told the guys last night that we have a great team and it’s really a credit to all 12 skiers on the team,” said head coach Tracey Cote, the Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association Co-Coach of the Year last year. “All of them deserve praise because you don’t get better on a bad team. All of these guys work really hard and push each other.”First-year skier Wyatt Fereday (Boise, Idaho) finished in third place with a time of 23 minutes, 6.8 seconds to lead the Mules.
“I’m not surprised with Wyatt’s finish because I feel on any given day that I have six or seven guys that could of finished in that spot,” Cote said. “But it’s great for Wyatt to take third place in his first collegiate ski race.” This last week, on Jan. 17, Fereday placed 7th in a 10 km skate competition near Lake Placid, NY, the St. Lawrence University Ski Carnival. On the following day, the Colby College men’s Nordic team had three skiers in the top 8 and 7 skiers overall place in the top twenty, for a second place finish to Dartmouth in the second day of racing, a 20-km classic race. Wyatt skied to 17th in this event, six laps around a 3.3 km course.
These are outstanding results for any NCAA skier, particularly a Freshman entering his first NCAA level races. The BBNT kids and parents need to take note of the success coming out of the program and the level of commitment that Wyatt put in as a junior skier. We’ll have more reports on Wyatt. Stay tuned.
Reported by: E. Jensen
