Cycling: Golden Knights Finish Strong Heading into State Championship

This article was posted by Donna Evans. It was written by Cycling Coach Lee Bird of St. Francis High School. 

This past Sunday marked the final race of the 5-race SoCal High School Mountain Bike League series for the Golden Knight Riders. This final, regular season race was held at the Dirt Club mountain bike venue in scenic Los Olivos, California.

Throughout the course of the day, seventeen members of the Golden Knight Mountain Bike Team battled epic weather conditions (50 mph wind gusts), new single-track trails, and the longest course of the season for a difficult, but successful, season-ending mountain bike race.

The strong four-man Golden Knight freshmen team had another great showing at Los Olivos. Andrew Schiller gave it his all and was extremely pleased with his season-best seventh-place finish, earning him a podium award for being eighth overall for the SoCal league series.

Close behind was Michael Vega who also had his best result of the year, finishing in an impressive 11th place. Battling the tough conditions was George Orloff in 13th. Andrew Palaski had two mechanical problems that required lengthy repairs, but soldiered on to finish in 38th. This impressive freshman group finished every lap of every race, and certainly represents a bright future for St. Francis mountain bike racing!

All five Golden Knight riders for the Sophomore Division 1 class were present to compete in Los Olivos. Earning his fourth top-10 result in what became a remarkable break-out season was Nathaniel Blakely in ninth. Close behind in an equally impressive break-out season was Remi Roth in 10th place. Skyler Payne finished in 16th, with Owen Shain close behind in 18th, his season-best result. Rounding out the sophomore group was Alex Marshall in 22nd.

Junior Varsity Riders

The St. Francis JV team was, once again, very well represented with six riders showing up for battle at Los Olivos. Austin Hamilton had a fantastic race, narrowly missing his first podium of the season coming in sixth place, only three  econds behind fifth.

However, Austin was awarded a well-deserved sixth place overall for the season in the JV division with solid results all season long. Senior Matt Kubly has competed in every mountain bike race for the Golden Knights since his freshman year, and has been an inspirational leader for the team this season. Matt wanted to go out feeling good about his hard work, and did just that with a season-best 19th place! Also earning a season-best result was Hunter Nalley in 24th, followed closely by Kenny Larsen in 27th. Will Towne battled illness to finish in 33rd, with Chris Perez close behind in 35th.

Once more, the Golden Knight Varsity team was represented by junior Sean Bird and senior Scott Marshall. Like Matt Kubly, Scott Marshall was racing in his final SoCal league race as a Golden Knight and had something to prove. Scott has worked hard all season, improving his results each race. This week was no different with Scott Marshall finishing with his season-best 13th place. Sean Bird has also raced extremely well this season, his first in the Varsity class. Sean narrowly missed the podium with another great 6th place result, earning a very impressive fourth place overall for the Varsity class for the season. Like all of the St. Francis Golden Knights, Sean completed every lap this season and earned bonus points that helped lock up his fourth place overall result.

In two weeks, on Sunday, May 19, 2013, fourteen members of the St. Francis Mountain Bike Team will travel to Marin County in Northern California to compete in the NICA California State Championships at Stafford Lake Park. If the results in Los Olivos are any indication, it looks like the Golden Knights are peaking at the right time and will hopefully be in a great position to achieve excellent results.

The Golden Knights mountain bike team is 100% volunteer managed and coached and is very grateful for all of the support they have received from the parents, alumni, and their generous sponsors, including: Design Imports, Hollandays, Merchants Building Maintenance, Mountain Pine Shutters, Strategic Law Partners, Nu-Hope, Kevin Martin/UBS, Stratz & Company, Financial Guaranty Insurance Brokers, Lucas Horsfall Murphy & Pindroh, Lantern CycleWorks, Montrose Bike Shop, Crescenta Valley Insurance, and Church and Larsen.  GO KNIGHTS!

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