St. Cloud Breakaways Prepare For Season With Expanded Roster From Multiple Schools

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- An area ski team is already starting to get ready for its new season. The St. Cloud Breakaways will be adding students from Paynesville and Albany to its roster for the upcoming season.

Chris Longtin/St. Cloud Breakaways

Breakaways Ski Team Expands Roster Across Nine Schools For Upcoming Season

The Breakaways are made up of boys and girls from St. Cloud Tech, Cathedral, Apollo, Sauk Rapids-Rice, Sartell-St. Stephen, St. John's Prep, ROCORI, Eden Valley-Watkins, and Becker. Head Coach Chris Longtin says it will be good to add the kids from the new schools to their team:

"Alpine skiing is one of the smaller sports, and so that's why we have to gather kids from different schools, and I know the Paynesville athletes were on the development team at Powder Ridge, which is where some of our athletes come from, so they've already been ski racing, which is awesome."

Self-funded Ski Team Taps Lions Club Support And Bernicks Partnership

The Breakaways are totally self-funded.  For that reason, Longtin says the kids have to do a lot more than just ski to be a part of the team:

"The kids will do things like, they'll go to their local Lions Club and do a presentation, and the Lions Club might give us a $1,000 or $2,000 or something along those lines, and we have a sponsorship with Bernick's, and they give us stickers for our trailer and some free beverages and stuff like that, so we do have some super supportive sponsors, which is pretty, pretty awesome."

Longtin says alpine skiing is a great sport for kids to learn and participate in because it is one of the few sports people can do for their entire life. The St. Cloud Breakaways will start practice in mid-November with their first race in late December or early January.

Chris Longtin/St. Cloud Breakaways

Chris Longtin/St. Cloud Breakaways