Cornwall’s Lawney, Culgin compete at Gore Mtn.
Samantha and Mackenzie are skipping school for a few days next week. While their friends are stuck in classrooms, the girls will be zipping down Gore Mountain. The good thing is that it’s all legal. The teens aren’t playing hooky. They’re participating in the statewide high school skiing championships.
Sam Lawney earned the trip upstate by winning the division ski meet and then placing second in the Section 9 competition at Hunter Mountain. She came close to being Cornwall’s first section champion since 2009.
Mackenzie Culgin wasn’t far behind her teammate.
Mackenzie finished fourth in her first year on the varsity. The girls visited the newspaper office on Feb. 17 and admitted that they like to compete against one another.
In the section meet, the skiers had two slalom runs in the morning and two trips down the giant slalom in the afternoon. Then they waited for the results to be tabulated. The officials had to do some arithmetic. They took each skier’s faster time in the morning and added it to her faster run in the afternoon.
As the competitors gathered in the clubhouse, the officials identified the students who would be heading to Gore Mountain. The two Cornwall girls knew they had qualified. But when their names were called, there was still a huge reaction from their teammates. The cheering was long and loud.
Most of Sam and Mackenzie’s teammates are older than they are. Sam is a high school freshman. Mackenzie is an eighth-grader in the middle school.
Both skiers got an early start. Mackenzie was five when she made her first trip down the slopes. Sam was just two-and-a-half.
The competition gets tougher at the state level. It will include teens who live near Gore Mountain and practice there all the time, as well as upstate students who have ski runs in their communities.
The Cornwall girls aren’t as lucky. They’re a half hour away from Mount Peter in Warwick, where most of the high school ski meets are held. Outside of school, both girls race routinely on the weekends.
They have other things in common. They both prefer the giant slalom over the slalom, and they both have the same apprehension. I asked them if while they’re making those tight turns around the poles, they ever worry about falling. Both of them laughed and answered, “All the time!”
Sam was at states as a seventh grader. The next year the event was canceled because of COVID. If she and Mackenzie continue to ski well, they could become five-time qualifiers – the same as Giovanna Fichera, a Cornwall alumnus, who helped coach the high school team this year.
Cornwall State Skiing Qualifiers 2006-22
Girls
Mackenzie Culgin (2022)
Alex Fichera (‘06-07)
G. Fichera (‘11-12, 14- 16)
Brianna Kullberg (06-07, 09)
Sam Lawney (‘20, ‘22)
Lindsey Patterson (2014)
Emma Sabini (2015)
Olivia Santos (2019-20)
Boys
John Foody (2010)
Liam Foody (2012)
Charles Manzari (‘12-’15)
Jimmy Patterson (2012)
