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First-year Hermantown/Proctor Alpine Ski Head Coach Cassidy Chaney has high hopes for her team for the already-underway 2024-25 season. “With Tobias Schunk and Britta Hansen leading our boys and girls teams, respectively – finishing in the top five individually in both of our races so far this season – and our other racers close behind, I believe this team is going to be very successful this season,” said Chaney, a former Pequot Lakes/Brainerd high school captain of the alpine ski, track and cross country teams, who anchored the school’s 4x400 relay track team to a state championship in 2018.
Hermantown/Proctor has a young team, “which is exciting because everyone is already so driven and hardworking,” said Chaney. “I can’t wait to see what happens as the team matures.”
Schunk is an ultra-elite junior competitor who inspires his teammates to be the best they can be.
“After being his coach for only a few weeks, I can already tell that not only will he be a very successful ski racer, but he is an amazing team leader,” said Chaney. “Brothers Zach (a junior) and Caleb (freshman) Shingler are also very strong racers and I’m excited to watch their improvement over the season. Oliver Hansen (8th grader) is not far behind the brothers, and is always trying to get better every run. Jonny Abramson is an 8th grader as well and new to our team this season, and I’m excited to see his improvement over the season as he becomes more comfortable with racing.
“Britta is our top girls' skier as only a freshman, and her drive to get better every race and practice rubs off on her younger teammates. Although junior Molly White only started racing a couple years ago, she is such a positive asset to our team -- and I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen her without a smile on her face. We have three new 7th-grade girls in Kylie Mell, Sierra Letourneau and Aalijah Blair and one new 8th-grade girl Monty Casperson on the team this year. They are great ski racers with such a drive at a young age, and they bring fun and laughter out on the hill every day. I’m super excited to see what our team can accomplish this season”
Chaney, 22, graduated from the University of Minnesota-Duluth last spring with a double-major in Entrepreneurship and Professional Sales and a minor in Psychology.
“I competed on the UMD alpine ski team all four years, was a captain my sophomore and junior years, and ended my collegiate ski racing career as the president of a national-qualifying team,” she said. “My last season as a senior and president was the first time that both the UMD alpine men’s and women’s teams qualified for nationals in over a decade.”
