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The Piedmont Highlander

The Piedmont Highlander

Morgan Ellis skis through winter at Sugar Bowl

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H13 – Morgan Ellis

Third quarter for most PHS students entails warmer weather and a potential transition into another season of a sport or a new field of academics to explore. However, for freshman Morgan Ellis, ski attire and snow define her third quarter, as it’s spent at the Sugar Bowl Academy located near Lake Tahoe.

Ellis said she has skied for her whole life and became serious about the sport at around the age of eight.

To blossom her early-developed affinity for skiing, Ellis joined alongside other driven skiers.

“I joined the Sugar Bowl Ski team and my interest grew from there,” Ellis said.

Before entering PHS, Ellis took time away from Piedmont Middle School to attend the Sugar Bowl Academy, an educational institution for competitive skiers known as one of the premier sports academies in the country, according to Sugar Bowl Academy’s website.image (1)

“I decided to attend [Sugar Bowl Academy] first in eighth grade because I wanted to improve my skiing,” Ellis said. “I asked my parents about it and they agreed to let me go and try it out for a season.”

After having a positive first year experience, Ellis decided that she wanted to return for the 2016 season.

At the Sugar Bowl Academy, Ellis has a demanding schedule, unlike that of her schedule at PHS.

“Training is six days a week, full days on weekends and in the morning during the week, with the exception of Monday which is a full day of school,” Ellis said. “It’s a lot of hard work and it’s really exhausting, but it definitely pays off.”

To provide an even blend of academics and athletics, both evenly take one half of the time allocated in her daily schedule.

Ellis said that she has a workout from 8 a.m. to 8:45 a.m., skiing from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and school from 1:15 p.m  to 5:10 p.m. Her free time is mostly spent doing homework.

During the skiing portion of her day, Ellis said that if a race is coming up, her time is spent practicing the event that she’ll be skiing in the next race.

 

In addition to the athletics, the Sugar Bowl Academy academic experience has been positive for Ellis.

“The transition from PHS to the Academy was pretty easy because all the classes start a new unit when the winter trimester begins, so I wasn’t arriving in the middle of anything,” Ellis said.

Ellis’ academic time spent away from PHS will not limit her from receiving the required credits needed for graduation.

“We take in what credits they have earned and apply them to their graduation credits,” college counselor Ashley English said. “When they come back to us, they do a grade check out form from the school they’re leaving with the percentages they have in each class and then the teachers here take that as where they are and grade them from there until the end of the semester.”

Like Ellis’ experience at Sugar Bowl Academy, her experience with the sport is mostly positive.

“I don’t really dislike anything about it [skiing] besides for when the conditions aren’t that great,” Ellis said. “But I rarely have a bad time while skiing.”

In addition to skiing, Ellis has also sacrificed time away from the mountains to play on the soccer field.

“I have been doing it [soccer] for most of my life,” Ellis said. “It is a team sport which I think is nice because you feel less pressure when you lose a game but skiing is different because it’s an individual sport and if you have a bad run, you put more pressure on yourself.”

As a result of the individuality that skiing is tied to, Ellis sets her own game plan for her races.

“Before a race I try to think about what I’ve been working on during training and how I can incorporate it into my run,” Ellis said. “Visualizing my run also helps gets me focused.”

Ellis said that she hasn’t decided if she will continue to attend Sugar Bowl Academy throughout the rest of high school, but she thinks it’s definitely a possibility.

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