Mountain bike club claims state title

MARSHFIELD – Not only did the Marshfield Mountain Bike Club win the National Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA) Div. 2 Wisconsin State Championship; they swept every single event of the entire season.

“The kids won every race as a team for Division 2 of the North Division,” Head Coach Candace Pernsteiner told Hub City Times.  

New this year were North and South divisions, and they had separate races going at different venues on alternating weekends throughout the fall season.

“This year was interesting for that respect,” said Pernsteiner. “It got so big that they decided to split us into a North and South because when they had over 12-hundred athletes racing each race, it was getting too much for one weekend.”

Both divisions did come together for the season’s opening event, the Bash at the Bluff at Powers Bluff in Arpin, as well as the recent Trek State Championships in Waterloo.

Marshfield also won the Cable Conquest at Hayward, the Hodag Hustle in Rhinelander and the Gnarly Nordic on a ski hill in Wild Rose.

“For Division 2, what they do is they pick your four top-scoring riders out of your high school athletes and, depending on where they finish, they get a point value,” Pernsteiner explained. “And those four athletes have to be a mix of males and females. You can’t just have four boys and you can’t just have four girls. And it’s the four top scorers that give you your team score.”

This year’s squad was anchored by senior Zane Hill.

“Zane was very consistent, finishing in the top five for four out of the five races that we competed in,” said Pernsteiner. “He is one of our most consistent racers. You could always count on him to score points for our team. He put in a ton of extra time on the bike in the offseason also and has over five-thousand miles that he put on his bike in training, beyond even what we do at our practices.”

Senior Connor Reisner was a consistent top 20 finisher for Marshfield this season.

“Connor was out there and put in a ton of extra time on the bike also,” Pernsteiner continued. “He had over four-thousand miles that he put in on his bike. He had a lot of resilience out there with situations.”

Reisner recorded his best result at the Hodag Hustle, finishing 10th.

After a crash and bike repairs left him in 20th following the first lap of the Gnarly Nordic, a top 20 finish seemed ambitious, but within reach.

“He posted his fastest time on his final lap and fought back to finish 15th. The 26 points he gained proved pivotal in the team winning the event.”

Junior Paige Pernsteiner, one of two female racers on the team, was a consistent top 10 finisher all season.

“She has over three-thousand miles on her bike this year,” Coach Pernsteiner shared. “At Nordic, one thing that stands out, she was able to close a gap of 42 seconds with the rider in front of her, taking a 7th place finish for our team, which helped us score higher when we did have one of our other racers DNF. She did not finish when her derailleur broke, so Paige was able to pull out an extra place higher than what she normally did to help our team.”

Senior Naomi Berg was back this year after an injury derailed most of her 2025 season.

“She was persistent as far as coming back as a varsity rider and wanted to race varsity and finished consistently in the top 25,” Pernsteiner said. “At the Trek Championships, she finished 29th.”

This year’s squad also featured two freshman, Euan Hooper and Carter Hamm.

“Both these guys had to do two laps instead of their normal one lap as middle schoolers, and both of them did phenomenal as far as coming into a two-lap race,” Pernsteiner explained. “You go from racing one lap, which is five to six miles, to all of a sudden as a freshman having to do two laps, so all of a sudden you’re doing 10 to 12 miles. That’s a big game changer for these guys when they’re coming into this situation because it’s a lot more endurance-based.”

The team’s JV2 rider this year was sophomore Isaac Ryner.

“Isaac this year has made just fantastic improvements in his riding,” Pernsteiner shared. “His hill climbing has improved substantially this year.

“At Nordic Mountain, when Naomi had to DNF, we told Isaac that he had to get a higher finish for our team. We would’ve taken fourth place in that race, but Isaac was able to push himself and finish ninth, scoring more points than he normally does for our team as a high school rider, and we were able to move from fourth place to go back up to our first-place finish for the team, so that was pretty exciting,” Pernsteiner added.

The team also features four middle school riders. They include eighth graders Emery Fellenz, Mark Smith and Aaron Luther.

There are also two sixth graders on the squad. They are John Siegler and Savannah Smith.

Team members who ride but choose not to race include Reid Lawler, a sixth grader from Nekoosa, Madalynn Viergutz, a Columbus Catholic freshman and seventh grader Kess Pyles.

Team membership is up from thirteen kids a season ago, including eight that raced on a regular basis.

“The kids that are attracted to biking are not necessarily your ball-and-stick kids that want to play those types of games,” said Pernsteiner. “These are the kids that want to do something different and the traditional sports just don’t attract them, which is kind of cool.”

The team trains at the Marshfield School Forest and also at NICA’s newest race venue, Powers Bluff.

“Just to be able to use our home course that was built on Powers Bluff and to draw attention to the fact that we have these beautiful mountain biking trails right here in our backyard was just a fantastic thing, not only for our team, but also for the community, to draw all these people into the community that brought revenue here,” Pernsteiner told us. “I mean, they went out and they ate in town and visited the local restaurants and stayed in the local hotels if they weren’t camping on Powers Bluff, so that brought 12-hundred racers, plus all the spectators, into this area, so you’re talking two-thousand people.

“As far as the course itself, the challenges it presented to the kids were like no other that they have ever seen,” Pernsteiner added. “Powers Bluff has very unique rock gardens due to having to control water on the hill and get the runoff off the hill without eroding the trails, so the kids were presented with some pretty substantial challenges and many flat tires on that weekend due to the rocks that are on Powers Bluff.”

Racers in grades 6-8 compete in single-lap events on a standard 4-to-6-mile course, while the freshmen and JV2 competitors do two-lap events, JV3 racers cover three laps and varsity team members race on a six-mile loop for four laps.

The team, open to all 6-12 graders in Marshfield, Pittsville, Stratford, Spencer, Colby, Loyal, Granton and Port Edwards regardless of abilities, starts training and practicing in July, typically at the Marshfield School Forest or a public park in the city of Marshfield. The group also utilizes the Hewitt-Marsh trails, the new trails at Powers Bluff, Levis Mounds near Neillsville and occasionally Nine Mile Forest near Wausau.

For more information, visit the Marshfield Mountain Bike Club page on Facebook or email Candace Pernsteiner at cdpernsteiner@hotmail.com. The Sports Den in Marshfield also has information about the team.