Dartmouth won the Middlebury Carnival for the second straight year, scoring a grand total of 928 points, 22 points ahead of second-place Middlebury. The University of Vermont came in third with 868.5 points.
The women's cross-country squad, which has dominated the EISA all year, came out with another strong performance. Susan Dunklee '08 bade farewell to EISA competition in an impressive fashion, winning both the 5k freestyle and 10k classic events.
Nordic captain Elsa Sargent '08 took second place in both events. Hannah Dreissigacker '09 came in sixth and fourth in the 5k freestyle and the 10k classic, respectively.
For the men's cross-country squad, Nils Koons '11 placed third in the 15k classic race. Glenn Randall '09 finished in fourth, Patrick O'Brien '10 was seventh and Max Hopkins '09 came in ninth, rounding out a Big Green quartet of top-10 finishers. In the 10k freestyle, Randall led Dartmouth with a third place finish and Koons followed in sixth place.
In the women's alpine, Courtney Hammond '11 finished her impressive freshman EISA campaign with a pair of third-place finishes. Hammond is the No. 1 women's alpine skier coming out of the EISA. Other top finishers included captain Michelanne Shields '08 who came in sixth in the giant slalom, Hayley Jones '10 who finished 12th in the Giant Slalom and Kelsey Roddick '11 who placed eighth in the slalom.
Shields was impressed with the development of the women's alpine squad, specifically Hammond and Jones.
"[Courtney] Hammond and [Hayley] Jones have had incredible seasons and have brought a lot to the table for the team," Shields said. "Hayley has made huge improvements this year and is consistently one of our fastest skiers, so it was really nice to see that she had a rough day in the slalom, but really went in there in the GS."
On the men's side, the Big Green posted some solid performances at the Middlebury Carnival, though the team's performance this season has not displayed the usual dominance associated with the program. In the slalom, Rusty Heise '09 led Dartmouth with a 13th-place finish, with Francis Fortin-Houle '10 following just one place behind. In the GS, Ace Tarberry '11 beat out his brother Alec Tarberry, a senior at Middlebury, by one spot.
The Big Green hopes to carry the momentum from the regular season into the NCAA national championships. This season, the championships will take place in Bozeman, Mont., giving the Big Green a chance to compete on the fluffy Western powder. The Big Green believes it will be prepared for the conditions.
"With all of the snow that we've gotten, we've gotten lucky to have similar conditions to what we will see out there, which will be softer and sometimes a little bit more inconsistent," Shields said. "It really hasn't changed our preparation at all though, in terms of specifically what we've been doing. We've been training hard the last couple of weeks and we'll head out there on Sunday and have four or five days to ski there."
From the central region, where teams compete only in Nordic events, Northern Michigan University and the University of Alaska, Fairbanks are in the best position to contend for the national title. The Wildcats and Nanooks will be sending six skiers apeice to the NCAA championships.
The Western region, which boasts several traditional powerhouses, will send several representatives that will be capable of winning it all. The University of Utah, following two wins and two second-place finishes, will be sending 12 athletes. Perennial title contenders the University of Denver and the University of Colorado, winners of the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association championships, are sending 11 athletes each.
The national championships will be held on March 5-8 at the Bridger Bowl and Bohart Ranch in Bozeman.
Dartmouth will send EISA first-team selections Dunklee, Elsa Sargent, Randall, Brennan and Hammond, second-team selections Jones, Shields, and captain Dave Chodounsky '08, in addition to Fortin-Houle, Tarberry and O'Brien.
"I'd like to see us win," Shields said. "I think that we can do it if everyone puts together a solid performance. It's totally possible. For me personally, I'd like to continue my streak as an all-American and get some top-10 finishes for me and my teammates and I think that everyone that's coming can be an all-American, and hopefully we'll come home with some big trophies."
