Jose Riera raced to the individual title at the 2019 CISL State Open Championship on Tuesday at Mount Southington. Riera, a winner of two regular-season CISL races earlier this year, posted the fastest times in each of the two runs to take home the first-place trophy by a comfortable margin.
Riera led the Bruins to a 11th place team finish overall, as Brunswick was fourth in the small school division.
Starting in twelfth position for both runs, Riera sped down the first course with a top time of 23.63, building a 0.13 second lead on the second-place racer. Only four skiers out of a crowded field of more than 190 entrants finished with sub-24 second times on the opening course.
A new course challenged the racers on the second run at Mount Southington. However, Riera posted the quickest time of the entire evening, finishing the new course in 22.21 seconds. On the second run, just seven skiers broke the 23-second barrier, as Riera was .31 seconds faster than the next quickest finisher.
Over the two runs, Riera’s combined first-place time of 45.84 was .87 seconds faster than the second-place finisher. To put Riera’s impressive lead over second place in perspective, the time difference between second place and 11th place was .84 seconds.
William Kallman was the next highest finisher for the Bruins, placing ninth overall.
Riera and Kallman have one more scholastic event left, as the duo will race for Team Connecticut at the Eastern State Ski Championships. The three-day event, with teams from 13 different states, will take place at Attitash Mountain in Bartlett, N.H., beginning on March 7.
Brunswick race results:
Place Name Run 1 Run 2 Total
1 Jose Riera 23.63 22.21 45.84
9 William Kallman 24.32 23.15 47.47
43 Cameron Shipman 25.77 24.30 50.07
82 Tyler Eichmann 27.71 25.97 53.68
113 Henry Nagler 31.09 27.89 58.98
119 Theo Coupe 33.22 28.93 62.15
127 Jamie Meindl 36.35 31.13 67.48