Mountain Bike team concludes season with State Champs podium, season-best performances

20 members of the mountain bike team concluded their 2025 season with the 5th and final race on the rocky sandstone outcrops of the Laurel Point trails on Raccoon Mountain outside Chattanooga. Much like the TVA hydroelectric pump-storage facility that dominates the top of the mountain, many of team’s riders saved their energy and best performances for this end-of-season contest on challenging trails.
The podium feather in the team’s cap for the day was freshman Elsa Absi’s strong 2-lap performance in just under 53 minutes, earning her a 5th place podium finish for the day, and 6th place overall for the season in the JV3 Girls category. Absi’s 6 minute improvement on a single lap compared to last year mirrored many of her HS teammate performances, with team points contributed by finishes from 9th graders Claire Dehner and Allen Chen and sophomore Adeline Miller. Chen dropped 3 minutes from last year, Dehner 8 minutes and Miller’s results landed her a the team’s only other top 10 for the season, finishing in 8th place overall for the JV2 Girls category. A solid and consistent group of 9th graders also competed in a challenging 2-lap race including Brianna Castro, Clio Cherry Pulay, Arianna Washington and Asha Guha. 
 
In the HS boys races, juniors Avery Savona and Charlie Blau matched pedal strokes for their 2 laps finishing only 20 seconds apart and  Savona claiming the fastest full lap of the day in just under 27 minutes. Aidan Harris and Seth Hauser were a few minutes back from the Savona/Blau duo, and freshman Allen Chen and Charlie McNulty putting in quick first laps, with Chen claiming 20th place helped by a super-fast 1st lap, and McNulty gaining 5 minutes on his 2024 pace. The HS team finished in 18th place for the day, finishing in 19th place overall out of 29 teams for the 5 race series. The league is made up of both “composite” teams (riders from many schools) and school-based teams like ours, and to add some context, USN placed 10th out the school based teams, a strong finish for our young team (that for the first time in our history has no seniors on the team).
 
For our MS squad, team points were contributed by Ella Murdock, Rosie Hauser, Sarah Absi and Emmett Cheney. Brand new riders Ella and Sarah really found their rhythm towards the end of the season, and both Hauser and Cheney left it all out on the trail for their 2 laps. Barry Chen zoomed through his laps, finishing 2 laps in just under 50 minutes while ames Barbieri had his strongest race of the season, and Julian Scheutz Sevin survived a single lap battling some nausea that slowed him down. This small but strong middle school squad finished 13th for the day and 11th overall for the season, quite the ending competing against nearly 30 teams.
 
Our lengthy 3-month campaign wraps up our team’s participation 13th season of the mountain bike league, which this year included 613 individuals racing through the 5 race trails from Jackson to Johnson City. The coaches want to give a huge shout out to the USN transportation crew for guiding our “Shred Shuttle” bus all season long, as well as the parents and families who often donated full weekends and more to these race weekends. We also missed some of our teammates for this race that have competed well earlier in the season, including: Caden Carrabba, Basil Broemel, Suzie Zhao, Sylvie Mackler, Mac Perry, Vincent Van Zandt, and James White. Full race and season results can be found here: https://my.raceresult.com/369081/results#0_BD42E1
Back

More USN News

List of 3 news stories.

Archive

Contact

Edgehill Campus
2000 Edgehill Ave.
Nashville, TN 37212

Phone:  615-321-8000
Fax:       615-321-0889 
Email:    info@usn.org

River Campus
1200 County Hospital Road
Nashville, TN 37218

Resources

USN Mission: 
University School of Nashville models the best educational practices. In an environment that represents the cultural and ethnic composition of Metropolitan Nashville, USN fosters each student’s intellectual, artistic, and athletic potential, valuing and inspiring integrity, creative expression, a love of learning, and the pursuit of excellence.