The Ely boys and Proctor/Hermantown girls relay teams each raced to second place finishes on the Sprint Finals during day one of the State Nordic ski meet at Giants Ridge on Wednesday.

The boys teams, in a field of eight, took off first from the starting line and it was a photo finish. St. Paul Central just eeked out Ely by a fraction of a second. St. Paul Central finished first with a time of 13:40.32, while Ely took second with a time of 13:40.54. Their team comprised of Oliver Hohenstein and Eli Olson.

“I’m thankful I got to finish alongside a skier like Will Poppleton. I’ve known him since I was very young because he used to come up to Ely to train with us in the summer. so if it’s anybody who I’m finishing with, I’m glad that it was him,” Olson said, a senior with Ely.

“With the state rankings this year we always see ourselves under ranked in the rankings, and we just came out here today in the mile to show the state some boys up north can do a little damage too,” Hohenstein said, an Ely sophomore.

The Duluth East boys placed seventh as a team behind Soren Hanhan and Benjamin Pilate.

Up next were the girls. St. Paul Academy pulled ahead to take first with a time of 16:16.23. Proctor/Hermantown came up to claim second place with a time of 16:44.59 behind seniors Campbell Amundson and Nene Sclisizzo.

“I can’t believe it, making it to finals was the goal. This is just incredible, far beyond any goal I could have ever set for myself,” Amundson said.

“This is my first time because I’m an exchange student,” Sclisizzo added, a foreign exchange student from Italy. “I started always thinking like okay even if we’re eighth or five we’re happy to be here, so being and doing medal is crazy. We wouldn’t expect that.”

The Duluth East girls placed seventh as a team behind Edie Broadmoore and Sasha Wahman.

The State Nordic meet concludes on Thursday with the Classic Pursuit. For that schedule, Click Here. For full results, Click here.