JACKSON/BARTLETT, NH – The Williams alpine and nordic ski teams combined to place fifth at the UNH Carnival over the weekend in New Hampshire. After placing third the day before, the Ephs added two more top-ten finishes and had several promising results on Saturday, but nonetheless slid two places as a team, finishing just nine points behind fourth place Middlebury College.
The men’s alpine team put two athletes in the top ten to finish fourth as a team in Saturday’s slalom race. Junior Alex Dyroff came through with a career-best race and his second podium result in as many carnivals with his second place finish in the slalom. Dyroff, third after his first run, skied well in his second run to move up one place and better his third place finish from last week’s slalom at the Bates Carnival. Senior Eric Mann, sixth yesterday in the GS, put together two strong runs to finish 10th.
Sophomore Alex Reeves, on the strength of his 15th place first run, finished in 24th place overall. Team captain Jim Whitledge finished out the racing for the team with his 33rd place finish. Freshman Sean Cummiskey and senior Eirik Burrass, sitting in 36th and 42nd, respectively, after the first run, did not finish their second runs. UVM’s David Donaldson won today’s race, only fourteen-hundredths of a second ahead of Williams’s Dyroff.
Junior Kelsey Levine led the women’s alpine team, finishing 14th in the slalom, to lead her team to seventh overall. After her first run left her in 28th, Levine came through with a speedy fourth-fastest second run to move up to 14th place and add valuable points to the team total. Freshman Amy McLaughlin was the team’s second scorer, skiing two consistent runs to take 26th place, with junior teammate Emily Porter right on her heels in 27th place.
Senior captain Kelly Kirpatrick matched her 30th place GS result from yesterday by finishing 30th in the slalom, while freshman Laurel Carter, 11th after the first run, slid to 45th place after having to hike on her second run. Annie Hanson did not finish her first run. Dartmouth sophomore Courtney Hammond captured her third carnival win of the season in today’s race.
The men’s nordic team took seventh in a tightly contested 10K freestyle race, only seven points out of fourth. Junior Alex Taylor led the team with a career-best 11th place result, just three seconds out of the top ten, bettering his previous career-best of 14th place from last weekend’s freestyle race. “The new courses at Jackson really lend themselves well to racing,” said Taylor, “because they have two difficult sections each with a little recovery afterwards that really suited me well.”
Freshman Dimitri Luthi was the team’s second scorer with his 18th place finish, with sophomore teammate Keith Kantack 10 seconds behind in 20th place, remaining consistent and matching his freestyle result from the previous weekend. Sophomore Caleb Lucy and senior Sam Kapala made it five in the top 30 by finishing a second apart in 27th and 28th place, respectively.
Freshman Erik Anderson, twenty seconds back, took 34th place, with sophomore Evan Dethier finishing 44th. Sophomore David Hansen and freshman Nick Fogel took 67th and 71st place to close out the racing for the Ephs. Bates senior Sylvan Ellefson cruised to a ten second victory over his nearest competitor.
Leading the women’s nordic team for the fourth straight race this season was junior Alice Nelson, taking 19th place in the 10K freestyle race. Senior Fiona Worcester, second for the team, picked up a 26th place finish, her best freestyle result of the season, with freshman Holly Whitney taking 35th to collect the last of the team points in the eighth place finish by the women’s nordic team.
Sophomore Sarah Tory bettered her freestyle race from last weekend by a place to finish 36th, 17 seconds behind Whitney, with senior Liz Kantack seven seconds back in 38th place. Sophomore Maddy Wendt skied strongly to a 41st place finish, passing several racers on her way to the best finish of her career. ; Sophomore Gabrielle Joffe finished with a 47th place result, her best finish this season. Dartmouth sophomore Rosie Brennan, building on her win in yesterday’s classic sprint, captured today’s race with a narrow six-tenths of a second victory over UVM’s Caitlin Patterson.
“The whole team seems to be making progress as a group, moving from sixth to fifth,” said head nordic coach Bud Fisher. “In nordic, we had very good results yesterday, but one can tell the level of competition with the men and women sliding to seventh and eighth today. We’ll need to get a little more consistent if we want to keep pushing the team score.”
The alpine and nordic team’s will race in Stowe, Vermont next weekend at the UVM Carnival, where the alpine team will begin on Friday with the GS, while the nordic team will be delayed a day to begin racing on Saturday in order to coincide with the NorAm Super Tour series at the Trapp Family Lodge. Both teams will race on Saturday in the slalom and freestyle technique races, while the nordic team will conclude the carnival on Sunday with a 10K/15K classic race.
