Early childhood memories for Philomath High junior Joe Barnes and sophomore Ana Candanoza include skiing. Both were introduced to it at a young age. Both come from families that find enjoyment in the activity. Both compete for the high school’s club team.
And yes, both are finding success so far this season.
Barnes, in fact, has yet to lose a race with first-place finishes in four straight competitions — twice in the giant slalom and twice in the slalom.
“My dad wanted me to ski race when I was younger so I’ve been doing this for 12 years,” Barnes said, adding that he first got up on skis at age 2. “It’s fun, I mean, you go up every weekend and get to meet new people when you ski. And it’s a way to get out of the house.”
Candanoza took first a couple of weekends ago in the slalom and is among the top female individuals in the season’s league standings with aspirations of making it to the state championships.
“I’ve been skiing basically since I could walk,” Candanoza said. “My family loves to ski and my mom raced a little bit in college and I just grew up around it.”
The Philomath club also has a third member in sophomore Montgomery Jones, who is in his first year of competitive skiing. He was introduced to the activity by his stepdad, who met his mom around seven years ago.
“He’s been skiing about his whole life and ever since she met him, we’ve been skiing with him and his family,” Jones said. “It took a while to get the hang of it, about two or three years to actually get a little bit decent and after that, it’s been way more fun.”
The Emerald League’s ski season started a little later than usual because of a lack of mountain snow. Four competitions have taken place so far — giant slalom Jan. 20 at Willamette Pass Ski Area and Jan. 24 at Hoodoo Ski Area, and slalom Jan. 27 at Willamette Pass and Feb. 3 at Hoodoo.
Marc Barnes, Joe’s dad, established the club ski program at Philomath in 2017. Luc Barnes, who is Joe’s older brother, was a skiing standout during his time with the team.
Joe Barnes has been dominant so far this season. On Jan. 20 at Willamette Pass, he won the giant slalom with a combined cumulative time of 1:39.90, which was 7.87 seconds over the runner-up. On Jan. 24 at Hoodoo, he won the giant slalom with a time of 52.69, just .07 of a second better than the second-place finisher. The competition was limited to one run.
The past two competitions have been for the slalom and he won Jan. 27 at Willamette Pass with runs of 47.24 and 47.19 for a total of 1:34.43, which was 4.31 ahead of the runner-up. Then this past Saturday, he had a total time of 1:07.82 with runs of 34.49 and 33.33, which was 1.65 seconds better than his nearest competitor.
As one might expect based on those results, Barnes leads the Emerald League’s overall individual standings in both events.
“My goal is to at least get top five at state — that’s what I’m hoping for,” Barnes said.
Barnes competed at state during his freshman season and placed 14th in giant slalom.
“I crashed on both runs on the slalom course at the start,” he said.
Last year, despite finishing in the top four in most of his races, he opted to skip state.
Candanoza is currently sitting in second place in the slalom and sixth in the giant slalom so far this Emerald League season. She won the slalom at Willamette Pass on Jan. 27 with runs of 48.42 and 49.48 seconds. Her cumulative time of 1:37.90 was 2.01 seconds better than the runner-up. In the giant slalom, she placed seventh and fifth, respectively, in her first two competitions.
On Saturday in the slalom at Hoodoo, Candanoza was sitting in fourth after her first run of 37.15. But on the second run, she missed a gate, which goes down in the books as did not finish with no time.
Candanoza said her goal for this season is to qualify for state.
Jones has competed in only a few races so far and he enjoys the faster slalom a little more than the giant slalom, which features wider gates that are set farther apart.
“I’m doing it because one, it’s really fun and two, I want to get better at skiing,” Jones said. “I’ve been doing good … I’ve definitely improved by being on the team. I would like to get better at being able to control myself more on the skis and work on my technique.”
Philomath is training this season with the Eugene Schools Ski Team under coach Bryan Jensen. The group includes skiers from Churchill, Marist Catholic, North Eugene, Philomath, Sheldon, South Eugene, Springfield, Thurston and Willamette.
“There’s dryland training which gets you stronger,” Barnes said. “You run and do calisthenics and stuff but I haven’t been going to that lately. I probably should be going to that … It shows on the mountain when you’re getting stronger.”
Candanoza is an accomplished all-around athlete who competes in soccer and cross-country in the fall and track and field in the spring.
“Cross-country and track are harder and skiing is just so fun,” she said. “It’s really exhausting though because your days are so long. On race day, we’re there for like eight hours and we race for like two minutes total. So they’re just huge days of racing and training so it’s really exhausting but it’s really fun the whole time.”
Barnes, who is among the top pitchers for the Warriors, plans to play baseball in college. Candanoza still has a ways to go before college but said she’d love to ski when she gets there.
The season continues into next month with the state championship races scheduled for March 6-8 at Mount Bachelor.
