The sixth and final race of the 2019 Sugar Mountain Adult Race League (SMARL) took place Monday night at Sugar Mountain Resort on Oma’s Meadow. SMARL takes place on six Mondays in January and February and is now in its 14th year as an after-work, “beer league” for local skiers and snowboarders in the High Country.

SMARL is sponsored by Sugar Mountain Resort and Ski Country Sports.

The last race of the season brought with it a nail-biting finish that saw the top two ski teams have to settle the victory by a tiebreaker. Team Sugar edged out Ski Country A by the tiebreaker, which went to the team with the most fifth place finishes. Team Sugar had three more of those than Ski Country. Scoring for each race gives out points based on the top four finishers for each team, so for tiebreaking purposes, the fifth place point total was used.

“After 14 years it’s still very competitive and very close and it came down to two teams in the bitter end and Sugar won it by tiebreaker,” said Bill Leonard, owner of Ski Country Sports in Banner Elk. “Sugar ended up having three more platinums than we did during the course of the season. Congratulations to Sugar, everybody had a great time and we look forward to next year.”

Leonard also noted the increase in the number of women that are coming out to ski and compete in the SMARL races.

“Every year we get more and more ladies out there skiing and snowboarding, it’s really great to have that mix. It’s not a male-dominant sport anymore, there are getting to be more ladies out there and they’re doing really well as is evident by how competitive the top three ski and snowboard ladies are in the standings,” said Leonard.

Leonard wanted to send out a special thank you to those that provided dinner for the races during the season, including Keith Lane at Sugar Mountain Resort, Les Broussard from Banner Elk Cafe and the crew from Bella’s Restaurant. Rick Bowen and Jenn Carlson from the race crew also got a special recognition for his helping making this season a success after Monday night’s season finale. 

Sean McKee, the Race Director at Sugar Mountain Resort, has played a big part in organizing the SMARL races since the first year.

“Sean is the person that makes it all happen as far as coordinating on-mountain race activities. He does a great job and has been there for a long time,” said Leonard. “He is also one of the premier ski coaches in the southeast and is very well-respected in the race community.”

In addition to organizing the SMARL races, he also competes in them, calculates the scores, sends those out to the media and is the coach for the Sugar Mountain Ski Team, and he races for Team Sugar every Monday night for SMARL.

The fastest skier on Monday night was a tie between Trey Woody and Andrew Jochl. Each finished with a time of 31.52 seconds. In the snowboard races, Jeff Johnson had the fastest time crossing the finish line in 38.36 seconds on his first run. 

See individual results and team standings from the final week of the season, as well as the season-long results and winner photos below:

Individual Winners – Men Skiing

First Place – TIE with 500 Points Each

Andrew Jochl and Trey Woody

Second Place with 396 Points

Austin Oliver

Third Place with 320 Points

Matt Leonard

Fourth Place = Erich Schmidinger  &  Fifth Place = Lawson Fields

Individual Winners – Women Skiing

First Place – with 580 Points

Kim Jochl

Second Place with 480 Points

Caila Hall

Third Place with 380 Points

Elizabeth Beatle

Fourth Place = Carrie Smith  &  Fifth Place = Cindy Broussard

Individual Winners – Men Snowboarding

First Place – with 580 Points

Austin Burr

Second Place with 385 Points

Jeff Johnson

Third Place with 365 Points

Adam Englert

Fourth Place = Adam Thompson  &  Fifth Place = Andy McDaniel

Individual Winners – Women Snowboarding

First Place – with 460 Points

Kristen Gray

Second Place with 440 Points

Ashley Galleher

Third Place with 380 Points

Eve Parsons

Fourth Place = Lauren Feeney  &  Fifth Place = Abby Eller

TEAM WINNERS SKIING

First Place – with 123 Points

TEAM SUGAR

Second Place with 120 Points

SKI COUNTRY

Third Place with 104 Points

BANNER CAFE 

Fourth Place = The Lodge  &  Fifth Place = App State Ski

TEAM WINNERS SNOWBOARDING

First Place – with 87 Points

SCOOCH LEGS

Second Place with 85 Points

EDGE OF THE WORLD

Third Place with 76 Points

TEAM SOUTHEAST

Fourth Place = The Tavern

SKI DIVSION

SNOWBOARDING