Pine Ridge Park
Orienteering Meet
13 November 2016

It was a bright, sunny, cool day... perfect for orienteering and that may have led to a much larger than expected turnout.  We had 101 participants  with 50 starts; this kept  registration and start busy nearly the whole time.   We had a large number of beginners as several boy scout troops dropped in on the event; this kept the instructors busy as well. There was some concern that the one water stop that was placed on Saturday would freeze over night; but that didn't happen so no one have to deal with a jug of ice.

Ryan Knecht was meet director for the first time; he designed five challenging courses.  The courses turned out to be longer than expected based on the winning times.  Only the yellow (novice) course had a winning time close to what would be expected.  The orange (intermediate) and red (advanced long) courses were particularly long.  However, the control flags were all in the right places and the vast majority of participants found them.  The times definitely reflected the high amounts of climb which are always an issue at Pine Ridge.  People coming back from the courses reported having a good time, although quite a few brought back ticks which for some reason were very dense in parts of the park.  

Thanks to Al  Sheaffer, Eric Steinbring and Christy Freeman for handling registration.  Thanks to James Fenn, Sherry Shank, Ryan Knecht, and Giuseppina Mecchia for running start/finish.  Thanks to Naomi Jarvis and Joe Logan for providing instruction.  And thanks to Alexis Rzewski, Joe Logan, Yaki Barak and Ryan Knecht for doing control pickup.

This was the last WPOC event for 2016; our next event (assuming we have snow) will be a ski-orienteering event at Laurel Ridge Ski Area on January 22.  (Our non-snow back-up date is January 29.)

To see the photos that Alexis took at the meet, click here


Beginner (White) Course                2.5 km    100 m climb     10 controls
  Name Notes Club Time
1 Deb Stage     63:00
2 Jim & Tommy Martin (2)     65:40
3 Scott Jones (2)   WPOC 65:48
4 Bacon Bretheren (7)   Troop 465 77:24
5 Max James (2)     80:03
6 Brian & Justin & Deb Skander     80:41
7 Christopher Ireland (6)     84:31
8 Troop 284 (5)     86:33
9 Mary Sleppy   WPOC 119:45
10 Sara Crystaloski     129:43
11 Russellyn Carruth     131:35
  The Rangers (6)  Missed last conrtrol; finished in 71:21 Troop 465 DNF


Novice (Yellow) Course                  3.2 km    165 m climb     11 controls
  Name Notes Club Time
1 Tim Spang   WPOC 47:17
2 The Sheepy Patrol (5)     65:30
3 The Garrison Corner (6)     68:30
4 Lydia McShane     81:00
5 Tom & Linda Gray   WPOC 85:19
6 Andy & Fletcher Mowrey     89:00
7 Meghan & Dan     115:22
8 Dennis Gibson (2)   WPOC 115:41
9 Christina Nowak     123:40
10 One Direction (2)     157:55
11 Emma Livingston (2)   WPOC 158:55
Luca & Pina Missed last control: finished in 102:58 WPOC DNF


Intermediate (Orange) Course          4.5 km      205 m climb       11 controls
Name Notes Club Time
1 Alexis Shank   WPOC 96:22
2 Mike Brown     161:00
3 Paul Sleppy   WPOC 172:34
4 Nathan Barkley (2)     177:30
5 Gordon Huang (4)   WPOC 207:50
6 Christy Freeman   WPOC 221:32
  Eric Steinbring  Found 7 controls in 99:06 WPOC DNF
  Huayun Huang Missed control 5; finished in 199:42   DSQ


Advanced Short (Brown) course       3.4 km      195 m climb      8 controls
  Name Notes Club Time
1 Tim Spang   WPOC 78:00
2 Joe Logan   WPOC 78:06
3 James Fenn   WPOC 90:35
4 Naomi Jarvis   WPOC 138:15
5 Hazelton (2)   WPOC 161:30
6 Lee Bash (3)     231:30
  Jett Downey Found 5 controls; finished in 176:47 WPOC DNF
  Loretta Opila Found 5 controls; finished in 203:12 WPOC DNF


Advanced Long (Red) course           6.5 km      285 m climb       17 controls
  Name Notes Club Time
1 Katrina Weinmann   WPOC 110:00
2 Dave Battista   WPOC 119:44
3 Alexis Rzewski   WPOC 152:00
4 Yaki Barak   WPOC 167:34
5 Sherry & Alexis Shank   WPOC 176:18
6 Edna Spang   WPOC 185:20
7 John Huffman   WPOC 202:08
  Matt Daniel (4) Missed last 3 controls; finished in 212:53   DNF
  Andy Karnavas Found 8 controls in 127:29 WPOC DNF
  Two Rogues Found 7 controls in 196:51   DNF