Dartmouth's ski team blew past its competition this weekend, winning the University of Vermont Carnival with a total of 919 points. The victory marks the team's third straight carnival win.
As in past contests, Dartmouth had to conjure strong second- and third-day performances after ending Friday's races in third place behind both the University of New Hampshire and the University of Vermont, respectively.
The Nordic teams, however, delivered on their first day of racing on Saturday to push Dartmouth to first place with 692 points. The Nordic teams' work was followed with a string of solid results on Sunday to give the Big Green a comfortable win, with a final gap of 120.5 points. over second-place finisher UVM.
The women's team came out on top in all four of its races to take first in both alpine and Nordic.
Courtney Hammond '11 netted her fourth and fifth first-place finishes of the season in the giant slalom and slalom races, contributing 200 points to Dartmouth's final tally. Women's alpine coach Christine Booker, however, said she hopes not to always have to rely on individual skiers.
"Luckily, there are always two or three players who are stepping up, but I can't wait until the day when everyone has results for themselves," she said. "We have some really fast skiers, but they just need to build their confidence a bit in the races right now."
With no individual first place finishes for women's cross-country, the team relied on a group effort to bring home team wins in both the five-kilometer freestyle and the 10-kilometer classic.
In the freestyle, Rose Brennan '11, who last week delieved a strong performance despite suffering from illness finished second with a time of 14:34.4 -- just 1.2 seconds behind first-place finisher Caitlin Patterson of UVM.
Ida Sargent '11 and Erika Flowers '12 finished fifth and sixth, respectively.
Sargent also placed third in the 10-kilometer classic, where a total of four Dartmouth skiers placed in the top 15.
Despite wins in both of these races, women's cross-country coach Cami Thompson said she is still not satisfied with her team's performance.
"It was frustrating because we are still not totally healthy, and I still believe we can ski a lot better," she said.
The men's alpine team improved dramatically from past carnivals, contributing to the win with a solid second-place finish in the slalom race, the team's highest finish of the season.
Ace Tarberry '11 finished third in the slalom race with a total time of 1:45.30. He was followed by Rusty Heise '09 in eighth place and by Francis Houle-Fortin '10 in 11th.
"The other Dartmouth skiers are all very good and usually score most of the points for us, so we really wanted to try to contribute our part for the whole team," Tarberry said. "We have kind of been lacking a little bit, and we wanted to prove that we're as good as we really are."
Men's Nordic jumpstarted the weekend with impressive results in the 10-kilometer freestyle, with only second-place finisher Sylvan Ellefson of Bates preventing a sweep of the top four places by Dartmouth's skiers.
Nils Koons '11 placed first with a time of 26:05.1 and was followed by five other Big Green skiers in the top 20.
With such strong performances, the team easily took first in the freestyle, amassing an overwhelming 135 points, the highest for any race of the carnival.
But the team had to overcome difficult skiing conditions on Sunday, as temperatures warmed up on the last day of racing.
"In the classic, you have to wax your skis, which is more difficult to do when it is hot out or if the temperature is rapidly changing," Koons said. "This may have affected our performance in that race, but everyone had similar problems so it was not just us."
The Big Green will now prepare to ski on its home turf at Dartmouth's Winter Carnival next weekend. The team will enter the competition undefeated.
"Everyone on the ski team knows the trails really well, and they have been skiing [those trails] phenomenally," Thompson said. "We are all really looking forward to skiing there next weekend."
Booker cautioned, however, that, despite the team's impressive finishes the last three weekends, the team has several more competitions before the end of its season.
"We still have good four weeks before the championships, so you never know what is going to happen," she said. "We're on a good roll right now, and we just need focus on doing our best, and that's all we can do for now."
