MOUNT BACHELOR — After years of Summit domination on the snowy flats of the Central Oregon Cascades, Bend High made a statement on Friday and Saturday during the Oregon Interscholastic Ski Racing Association Nordic State Championships.

The Lava Bears won both the boys and girls team state titles for the first time, and also boasted the individual combined state champions for both boys and girls.

The 5-kilometer skate races were staged on Friday, and the 5K classic races were held on Saturday at the Mt. Bachelor Nordic Center.

“I’ve been coaching here for a couple decades, and this is great,” said Bend High coach Ron Crawford. “First time both boys and girls have won at the same time. We’ve always been close. It’s fun because we have such good kids at our school. We press them, but then, we throw snowballs at each other. We’re a fun-loving team, and we’ve obviously got some amazing athletes on our team.”

Two of those athletes are senior Neve Gerard and junior Will Mowry, who each won combined (skate and classic) state titles while leading the Lava Bears to the boys and girls team championships.

In the girls team competition, Bend won with 32 points, followed by Summit (54), Corvallis (71), Caldera (125) and Ridgeview-Redmond (149). The team standings combine the results in the 5K skate, 5K classic and the relays.

Gerard, who will ski for the University of Utah next season and recently competed at the Youth Winter Olympics in South Korea, won the combined title with a time of 27 minutes, 48 seconds.

Piper Widmer of Bend was second in 30:51, followed by Caldera’s Maddie Carney (30:58).

“It’s really cool, because Summit used to dominate,” Gerard said. “It’s nice to end my high school career with this. It was a really fun weekend.”

Gerard, who skis for the Mt. Bachelor Sports Education Foundation, will travel next week to Germany and France, where she will race in Germany’s national championships and other top European races.

In the boys team competition, Bend won with 43 points, followed by Hood River Valley (50), Mountain View (55), Summit (92) and Ridgeview-Redmond (138).

Mowry won the combined title in 25:56, just 16 seconds ahead of Hood River Valley’s Fergus Waag (26:12). Mountain View’s Zach Shockey finished third (26:14).

“I wasn’t really expecting it going into this weekend, so so it feels awesome to do this with your best friends,” Mowry said of the team and individual titles. “I’m super stoked. … Making history I guess. It’s awesome. Bend High, we’re on top of Nordic sking in Bend. It’s great to win.”

In two weeks, Mowry, along with many other MBSEF skiers who raced the past two days, will head to the junior national championships in Lake Placid, New York.

“It’s so fun just being able to ski with all my friends,” Mowry said. “I train with these boys all the time. Being able to race with them and being able to pull this off, it feels really good. We’re making a statement.”

Crawford said that Mowry’s combined victory was a surprise to everyone but Mowry himself, as Shockey and Waag appeared to be the favorites heading into the state championship weekend.

“He knew he had it in him,” Crawford said. “When he knew he won the skate race on Friday, coming up that wall, he was just beaming, because it was a tactical race and he played his cards just right. It was a huge surprise.”

Perhaps a surprise, but definitely a statement as the Lava Bears are now the class of Oregon high school cross-country skiing.