In a lot of other years, four local athletes competing in the Winter Olympics would have been a runaway choice for the top sports story in Central Oregon.

But such was not the case in 2018.

The Olympians — snowboarders Ben Ferguson and Kent Callister and alpine skiers Laurenne Ross and Tommy Ford, all from Bend — share The Bulletin’s pick for the region’s biggest sports story of the year with the girls distance runners at Summit High School.

In May, Isabel Max, Kelsey Gripekoven, Fiona Max and Azza Borovicka Swanson were among the distance specialists who fueled Summit’s run to a record 12th straight state track and field championship, the last the Storm would win as a Class 5A program. By autumn, OSAA reclassification had elevated Summit (as well as Bend High and Mountain View) to 6A, but the fresh challenge did nothing to slow the Storm.

In early November, Summit toed the starting line with longtime 6A cross-country powerhouse Jesuit in the state championship meet at Lane Community College in Eugene. A lot of eyes were on the Summit-Jesuit showdown, and it figured to be close.

It wasn’t.

Led by junior Fiona Max’s first-place finish, the Storm beat the Crusaders from Portland with a score of 39 to Jesuit’s 68. Freshman Teaghan Knox finished second for Summit and fifth overall. Isabel Max, Fiona’s twin sister, was eighth overall, and juniors Gripekoven and Swanson were 11th and 14th, respectively.

For an encore that same group, along with junior Stella Skovborg, took their show to the next level. A week after winning state, they won the Nike Cross Northwest Regional meet in Boise, Idaho, earning a spot in the Nike Cross Nationals. And on Dec. 1 in Portland, the Storm literally reached the summit of high school cross-country: Competing as “Central Oregon,” they outlegged teams from across the United States to win the national championship. Fiona Max led the way, finishing 11th overall.

Carol McLatchie, co-coach of the Summit cross-country program with her husband, Jim, likened the national champions to a “dream team.”

Bend to Pyeongchang

Ten months earlier and more than 5,000 miles away in South Korea, another group of local athletes captivated Central Oregon during the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Four Bend snowriders — boarders Ferguson and Callister and downhill skiers Ross and Ford — took part in the Pyeongchang Games, and all four did their fans back in Central Oregon proud.

On the ski slopes, Ford, competing in his second Olympics and first since recovering from a fractured right femur, raced in the men’s giant slalom and jumped from 28th place after his first run to 20th. Ross, also competing in her second Olympics and just 10 months removed from a serious knee injury, finished 15th in the women’s super-G, and four days later she placed 15th again, in the downhill.

In the snowboard halfpipe, two riders from Bend were among the 12 to advance from qualifying into the men’s finals. The following day, Callister — a Bend resident competing for Australia — took 10th place, and fellow Bend boarder Ferguson was in contention for a medal before finishing just off the podium in fourth place.

Making his Olympics debut, the 23-year-old Ferguson was beaten out in the finals by snowboarding legend and countryman Shaun White, who won the gold, Japanese star Ayumu Hirano, who claimed silver, and Australian Scotty James, whose score of 92.00 was just 1.25 points better than Ferguson for the bronze.

Twins make pro football history

Bend’s Jacob and Cody Hollister became the first twins to be members, active or inactive, of a team appearing in the Super Bowl. The Mountain View High School graduates were undrafted free agents (Jacob out of Wyoming, Cody out of Arkansas) who signed with the New England Patriots a week after the April 2017 NFL draft. Both rookies for the Patriots, neither Jacob, a tight end, nor Cody, a wide receiver on the practice squad, was active for New England’s 41-33 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LII. Jacob Hollister did play in 15 games for the Pats in the 2017 season, making four catches for 42 yards.

State championship Saturday

While Central Oregon’s high school teams had their share of successes in 2018, one day stood out: Saturday, Feb. 17, the day four local teams captured OSAA state championships. At Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Portland, Crook County won the Class 4A wrestling title, its fifth in six years. On the same Coliseum mats, Culver won the 2A/1A title for the 11th time in 12 years behind five weight-class champions. Meanwhile, at Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham, Bend High swimmers claimed both the girls and boys 5A state crowns, the second straight for the girls and the third in four years for the boys.

Iconic bike stage race shelved

Central Oregon’s Cascade Cycling Classic, the longest-running road cycling stage race in North America, was canceled in mid-April, weeks before the event’s 39th edition was to unfold. The Mt. Bachelor Sports Education Foundation, which for years operated the CCC as a fundraiser, turned the race over to Visit Bend and Bowen Sports Performance in late 2017. Typically staged in mid-July, the Classic in 2018 had been slated for May 31-June 3. But the new organizers in April decided to pull the plug on the race, citing a lack of time for planning and vowing to bring the event back in 2019.

Bend cyclist makes Tour debut

Though the Cascade Cycling Classic was bumped from the calendar for 2018, local fans of elite racing were able to follow a homegrown rider in the most famous event in pro cycling: the Tour de France. Bend native Ian Boswell learned in late June that he would be one of eight Tour entries for the Swiss team Katusha-Alpecin. In his Tour debut, the 27-year-old not only finished the grueling three-week race (2,082 miles over 21 stages), he was third on the Katusha team and third among five American finishers. He was 79th overall in a field of 145 finishers, and his strong rides in the Alps and the Pyrenees helped teammate Ilnur Zakarin to a top-10 overall finish.

Comeback coach in Culver

In late May, after waiting more than a year on a transplant list, 45-year-old Culver High athletic director and football and baseball coach Shea Little underwent a lifesaving double lung transplant. In 2011, Little had been diagnosed with a genetic disorder that jeopardized his lungs. His wait for new lungs was prolonged by the extraordinary size of the 6-foot-6-inch, 255-pound Little’s chest cavity. But the procedure at the University of Washington Medical Center was a success, and after spending most of the summer recovering in Seattle, Little was back in Culver by mid-August assisting with the Bulldogs football team.

OSAA reshapes prep landscape

The start of the fall season brought a new look to the structure of high school sports across the state, particularly in Central Oregon. The Oregon School Activities Association’s reclassification for a four-year time block starting with the 2018-19 school year elevated three Bend schools — Bend High, Mountain View and Summit — from Class 5A to 6A, where they joined five Salem-area schools (despite an appeal by Salem-Keizer Public Schools, citing potentially hazardous travel conditions, greater loss of class time and increased transportation costs). The move of the Bend schools left a new-look 5A Intermountain Conference consisting of, for most sports, Central Oregon’s Redmond, Ridgeview and Crook County along with Hood River Valley, The Dalles and Pendleton.

—Reporter: 541-383-0359, bbigelow@bendbulletin.com