After finishing third in every Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association carnival this year, Dartmouth's ski team improved with a second place showing at the Williams Carnival. The University of Vermont won with 775 points, while Dartmouth took second with 716.5, just one point ahead of third place Middlebury.
On Friday, rain, sleet, ice pellets, hail, snow, thunder and lightning all struck with brutal force.
The cross country races were held at Prospect Mountain in Woodford, Vt., Torrential rain saturated the course right before the women's 10-kilometer freestyle race, but the hail and sleet that followed didn't slow down Dartmouth's Alison Crocker '06, who won the race in 25:03.7.
"I definitely skied into the race," said Crocker. "We did four laps of a 2.5-kilometer course so it got a little congested at times."
Kristina Trygstad-Saari '07 finished an amazing seventh for Dartmouth after catching an edge on a steep downhill and falling into a small pond. She lost about a minute and a half as she scrambled to get out and had to take off her skies. Teammate Susan Dunklee '08 finished right behind Trygstad-Saari in eighth, and Hannah Dreissigacker '09 grabbed ninth. Elsa Sargent '08 finished in 12th.
The men's 10-kilometer freestyle was delayed due to thunder and lightning, but once the skiers got on the course, Dartmouth men ripped up the competition. Ben True '08 flew over the ice and water to win in 22 minutes flat. Mike Sinnott '07 finished in second place, only 21 seconds behind his teammate. Glenn Randall '09 and Sam Naney '06 came in sixth and seventh, respectively, and Max Hopkins '09 finished 11th. The Dartmouth men won the event with 111 points. Middlebury landed in second and Vermont settled for third.
The alpine slalom races, held at Jimmy Peak, experienced the same vicious weather. Lightning knocked out power to the hill, so the competitors were given snowmobile rides to the start. For the third time this season, the women were only able to complete one run due to the weather. Megan Hughes of Middlebury won in 46.04, followed by three strong Vermont skiers. Dartmouth's first skier was Alexandra Fucigna '07 in 13th. Sophomores Sealy Livermore and Michelanne Shields finished 15th and 18th.
The Dartmouth alpine men had another sub-par day, finishing their top skier, Nelson Riley '08 in 11th. It was Charles Christianson of Williams who came away with the win on his home course. He completed the two runs in 1:53.47, one second ahead of Zachary Brown of Vermont. The Big Green's next two skiers were Rusty Heise '09 in 16th and Erik Johnson '06 in 20th.
As temperatures plummeted on Saturday, the men's alpine team stepped up its game for the giant slalom. Led by senior Karl Johnson's second place finish, the Big Green men took four of the top 10 spots in the event. Johnson was only three tenths of a second behind Eric Mann of Williams, who won on his home course in 1:36.19. Travis Gaylord '06 and Riley finished seventh and eighth, while Dave Chodounsky '08 tied for ninth.
"We had a little bit of everything this weekend -- snowmobile rides, lightning, power outages, slush, wind, rain, hail, anything you could imagine on the east coast," said Johnson. "The GS treated us better than the slalom, but in general things were up in the air."
Fucigna finished eighth for the Dartmouth women in a fantastic race, but it was again the University of Vermont that dominated the top 10. UVM's Hilary McCloy won in 1:38.27, followed by her teammates in third, fourth and sixth. Dartmouth's next skier, Hannah Tsai '08, took 15th, and Livermore grabbed 22nd.
"I think this season has pretty much thrown every type of bad weather condition at us just to see how we handle it," said Fucigna. "It's hard keeping your mind on the race when there are people telling you the race is cancelled or whatever the rumor is, but we've learned how to just keep our head in the game and focus on our own race. We're looking forward to Middlebury for one last chance to claim a carnival title as a team."
At Prospect Mountain, the nordic teams had another fantastic day in the 5x3 kilometer freestyle relay, finishing first for the women and second for the men.
The women's team of Trygstad-Saari, Dunklee and Crocker came away with an easy win after Trygstad-Saari opened the relay with a huge lead. Conditions were very icy and many skiers fell on tough corners, but the Dartmouth women were able to stay on their feet and finished 18 seconds ahead of Vermont's first team. Dartmouth's second team of Dreissigacker, Sara Studebaker '07 and Sargent finished in fourth, well ahead of most schools' first teams.
The men's team, which consisted of Naney, True and Sinnott, just barely squeezed out Middlebury in a sprint to the line for second place. Vermont's team of Anders Folleras, Juergen Uhl and Ryan Foster won by a large margin in a combined time of 34:19.7.
Next weekend, the carnival circuit comes to a close at the EISA Championship, hosted by Middlebury College.
