The Dartmouth ski team finished fifth out of 21 colleges competing at the NCAA championships earlier this month at the University of New Hampshire.
The races were hampered by several delays due to the weather, but still concluded on time.
After finishing eighth at last year's national championships, the Big Green used a strenuous year of training to move up three spots, edging out all but one of the Eastern colleges in the competition.
Vermont, the winner of last year's NCAAs, finished a disappointing third this year, losing the title to the University of Colorado, which lost its bid to host the event to the University of New Hampshire.
Utah finished second place and Denver University edged out the Big Green for fourth place.
The first day of the events included the freestyle Nordic races. Denali Kemppel '96 was the star of the day, finishing sixth in the 5K race to earn second-team All-American honors. Behind her were teammates Lara Burgel '96 in 25th, Captain Heather Eliassen '95 in 28th and Valerie Wrenholt '97 in 40th.
The Dartmouth men were not as successful as the women in the freestyle event. Captain Cory Smith '96 placed a strong 11th in the competitive 10K race, but his teammates were not as lucky. Paul Stone '98, Colter Leys '96 and Brant Stead '96 took 36th, 37th and 41st place respectively.
Also on the first day, the alpine teams hit the slopes for the giant slalom race, postponed from the day before due to warm weather and a chance of rain.
The men's team skied well, finishing third. J.P. Daigneault '97, after a rocky Carnival season, earned first team All-American honors after finishing third in the 35 man race behind Bryan Sax of Colorado and Erik Roland of Denver.
Ben Robinson '97 finished 17th, Jeremiah Thompson '96 18th and Captain Andy Martin '96 in 25th.
Daigneault, who was a second-team All-American last year, is ecstatic about his finish, but disappointed about not winning the title.
"What isn't as good about my finish is not being National Champion by four one-hundredths of a second ...or runner-up by one one-hundredth of a second.That's tight," he said. "I've been first by that little before in other races, though, so I guess it's only normal to lose by that much sometimes."
The women's team placed ninth in the giant slalom, but considering there were only three women -- as opposed to a full team of four -- competing for the Big Green, their finish was strong. Freshman Laura Turner took 25th, Kate Buhrmaster '97 placed 32nd and Captain Jesse James '95 followed in 33rd.
The Alpine teams skied the next day in the Slalom races. The women improved but the men were not as lucky. James moved up to 11th place in the slalom and Buhrmaster moved up to 24th while Turner fell to 29th.
Daigneault took a fall in his first run and was disqualified, leaving the team one man short. Martin moved up to 16th place in the slalom, Thompson placed 18th and Robinson placed 31st.
"We didn't ski as well as we could have," Coach Peter Dodge said. "If you could compare skiing to golf, we had a few bogies, and that stopped us from reaching our potential. But I am pleased with Dartmouth's overall finish."
The final event of the NCAAs, the Nordic classical race, was held the following day and the Dartmouth team managed to lift the overall team score from sixth to fifth place.
Smith managed a 10th place finish in the 20K race, good enough for second-team All-American status. Teammates Leys, Stone and Stead finished in an improved 15th, 16th and 28th respectively.
The women skied the 10K Classical race similarly to the way they did in the Freestyle. Kemppel had to settle for 13th place this time around, but Eliassen, Burgel and Wrenholt skied as steadily as they did before, placing 24th, 27th and 38th.
Overall it was the team's strongest finish since 1988 when the skiers finished fourth.
"Dartmouth came through in the overall," said Ski Director and men's Nordic Coach Ruff Patterson. "Given a few 'curve balls,' the team effort and individual highlights of J.P., Denali, Cory and Jesse isn't bad."
