Pursuing her passion of skiing is something that senior Ellen McCarthy has been doing for a long time, and her hard work is paying off in big ways. McCarthy trains with a club team year round called Loppet Nordic Racing in the Minneapolis area. Throughout the winter, she has been competing in races called Junior National Qualifiers, and at the end of all these races, the skiers with the highest cumulative number of points in each age group (U16, U18, and U20) qualify for the Junior National Team. McCarthy qualified, and will be joining the Midwest team on a trip to Tahoe, California on March 8-14. In Tahoe, the Midwest team will compete against JN teams from other regions of the United States. “It is exciting to go and compete with my friends [and] teammates in a setting where everyone is serious about skiing, and have a really good experience,” McCarthy said.