March 29, 2024
BIATHLON

Freeport teenager strong in summer debut Susla takes 5K; veteran Hoover wins men’s event

FORT KENT – Molly Susla had never been in a summer biathlon event before this weekend’s U.S. and North American summer biathlon championships. Douglas Hoover is in his 15th year of summer biathlon and had qualified for four straight world championship teams before this weekend.

In Susla’s case, experience level didn’t matter in the final running circuit of Sunday’s women’s 5-kilometer mass start competition. For Hoover, experience was key to overcoming one bad shooting bout and some rifle troubles late in the men’s 6K race.

Susla, a 15-year-old from Freeport, won her first-ever summer biathlon race, holding off women 30 years older than her, while Hoover continued his recent summer biathlon dominance to take the men’s mass start title as the three-day summer biathlon and world team trials ended at the 10th Mountain Ski Center.

Hoover, who swept all three competitions this weekend, was the top qualifier for his fifth world championship team.

“This is never old hat,” said Hoover, a 35-year-old from Williamsburg, Pa., who is a credit analyst at a bank and also coaches cross-country running and track and field at Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pa. “It’s always special to represent your country. That’s something you never take lightly.”

Susla also qualified for the world championships, which start Sept. 3 in Estonia.

Other qualifiers, based on the percentage-back results system for all three championship events, for the men’s team are Keith Woodward of Stowe, Vt., Christopher Fischer of Altoona, Pa., and Alden Sims of Venus, Pa. Women’s qualifiers were Grace Boutot of Fort Kent, Hilary McNamee of Fort Fairfield, Patricia Zerfas of Kensington, Md., and Kaitlyn Bernard of Fort Kent.

It is unlikely the Aroostook County qualifiers will be able to go to worlds because they must have competed in a sanctioned summer biathlon event earlier this season. None of them have – in fact, many of them are experienced in winter biathlon, but tried summer biathlon for the first time this weekend.

It is also not known if the rest of the field will choose to go to worlds. Hoover, for one, said he isn’t sure what he’ll do but he did go last year.

Not only was it Susla’s first summer biathlon, but she only learned how to shoot this summer during camps at the 10th Mountain facility.

She was thrilled with her shooting results in Sunday’s mass start – she made seven of 20 shots overall – which was fine for a newcomer. She was especially excited to have missed just five of 10 in the middle two shooting stages.

“‘I’m a runner, not a shooter,” Susla said. “I’ve been lucky, and I think I’m getting it. Hitting three was wicked, wicked good.”

Susla missed four straight shots in the final shooting stage, leaving her with four laps around the penalty loop. After Susla had gone around once, Zerfas entered the loop a few steps ahead of Susla. Susla passed the 45-year-old Zerfas, who had missed just three targets, so the two came out of the loop about five seconds apart with Susla in front.

“I thought she had four penalties, too, so I passed her and went out and thought, she has one more [penalty loop] to run,” Susla said. “I looked to the side and I didn’t see her so I thought, she’s behind me. I was wheezing when I was running, I was running so hard. It was scary.”

She maintained the lead and held off Zerfas in the final running circuit. Susla finished in 31 minutes, 25.9 seconds, just 3.2 seconds ahead of Zerfas.

“For me, [a penalty] costs me about 45 seconds,” said Zerfas, a longtime runner who just started shooting this summer. “If I had [hit] one more I would have beaten her.”

Susla may be new to biathlon, but she’s an experienced cross-country runner. She finished third in both the high school state and Western Maine Class C cross-country championships last fall.

Annalisa Percy of Petawawa, Ontario, was third overall. Oxbow’s Andrea Mayo was second in the youth competition.

Hoover had a big lead for most of the men’s race thanks to stellar shooting. He missed just one target in each of the first two shooting stages, which were both in the prone position and had about a 30-second lead on five-time former U.S. champion Woodward and Fischer.

But Hoover started to struggle a bit on the range after that, although his big lead helped cushion the time he lost. He recorded four penalties, which he attributed to his misjudgment of the wind and running a bit too hard on the preceding circuit, in the third shooting bout, which was the first of two in the standing position. He had some trouble with the action on his rifle in the last shooting stage.

No problem – Hoover hit all five shots to clean the target and seal the win in 28:07.6.

“The action jammed on me but that was where the experience pays off,” Hoover said. “Someone inexperienced, that tends to rattle you. I just took the round out and shot it at the end. No problem. I was just relieved [to clean]. I knew I was a strong enough runner that I had it.”

Hoover has never done winter biathlon, but has competed in summer biathlons this year in New Jersey, Vermont, Pennsylvania and New York. Fort Kent more than measures up to those summer biathlon hotbeds, he said.

“It was a long trip up but worth it,” Hoover said. “The area’s beautiful, the community’s been supportive and welcoming and the venue’s unreal. It’s been one of the best organized nationals I’ve been to.”

Woodward was second, followed by Fischer in third. Newt Rogers of Fort Kent was fifth overall and first in the junior men’s category.


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