The night before the race I was at the hospital with Rush, deciding if he was going to race at all. He showed a lot of grit to even perform that day, let alone win the race outright.

What she did would be the equivalent of someone from here on the track and field team, or the swim team, competing in the Olympic trials. She was hard on herself afterwards since she usually finishes at the top, but the reality is that those were the only thirty or so skiers in the country that could beat her.

[Small] has got the best training partner in the nation in Rush, who won the Nationals last year. They compete against each other every day in training.

He's improved a lot [since the start of the season]. We need to have our five best skiers in the top 15 to assure a win. We nearly achieved that [Saturday], and still got the win.

We don't want to lose to anybody, but we didn't come out with the right intensity and coach gave us a talking to at halftime.

Ocean Springs has a great track team. The biggest race of the night might be between Ocean Springs' Kelvin Bolden and Henry. They both have been chasing each other all year, so it might be the best race to watch.