GRANBY – Kajsa Wik of Nederland, runner-up in Friday’s skate competition, took one step further up the podium on Saturday by winning the classic title at CHSAA’s Nordic State Championships at Snow Mountain Range.
 
Meanwhile, Lake County repeated as the girls Nordic state champion using a victory in the Nordic relay (two legs classic, two legs skate) to increase a one-point lead to 11 to outscore runner-up Summit 694-638. Middle Park was third in the team race with 568, Battle Mountain was fourth with 561, and Steamboat Springs was fifth with 517.
 
Lake County won the inaugural Nordic girls team state championship last year.
 
Wik covered the 5-kilometer course in 20 minutes, 27.20 seconds, outdistancing second-place Lucy Greenwood of Summit, who finished in 20:51.57. Wik is Nederland’s first skiing champion since Emily Creek won the Alpine slalom in 2018.
 
Maeve Niemkiewicz, Greenwood’s Summit teammate, was third in 20:56.80. Greenwood and Niekiewicz also took one more step up the podium after placing third and fourth, respectively, in Friday’s skate.
 
Lake County had four skiers finish in the top 10: Lyla Zoller, who was ninth in last year’s classic, was fourth Saturday in 21:46.18, Finnley Stanek was fifth in 22:01.48, Aimee Lenhard was eighth in 22:59.45, and Chloe King was 10^th in 23:12.61. Stanek was fifth in the skate and was also third in last year’s classic, while King was seventh in the skate and was also eighth in last year’s classic.
 
The rest of the top 10 included Eden DeMino of Battle Mountain (sixth in 22:33.16) Marin Little of Summit (seventh in 22:44.69) and Evie Fisher of Steamboat Springs (ninth in 23:02.46). Little was ninth in Friday’s skate, while Fisher was sixth. DeMino was the Alpine slalom champion on Thursday.
 
In the relay, trailing first-place Lake County and second-place Summit as top-five finishers were Middle Park, Battle Mountain and Steamboat Springs.