Buoyed by strong finishes from the women's Nordic team, the Big Green cruised past second-place University of Vermont, who ended with 784 points.
A short-handed women's cross-country team dominated the courses, as three of its skiers placed in the top four of the 10-kilometer freestyle race on Friday. Erika Flowers '12 captured her maiden first-place finish, with a time of 31:10.9. Katie Bono '10 clocked in at 31:47.7 and Stephanie Crocker '12 timed in at 32:00.4, as they followed in third and fourth, respectively.
"It was a great opportunity for Erika to win a race, since she's never done that before," women's Nordic coach Cami Thompson said. "Once you start getting one-two-three finishes, you start to expect it, but it think that one-three-four is pretty good too."
The women's cross-country team was without three of its top performing skiers, as Sophie Caldwell '12, Rosie Brennan '11 and captain Ida Sargent '11 are currently competing in the World Junior Championships and Under-23 Championships in Hinterzarten, Germany.
Thompson said Vermont's women's Nordic team was also missing one of its skiers due to the championships, but every other school fielded its regular team.
The men continued to dominate in the freestyle event, as Nils Koons '11 skied to his second first-place finish of the season, while captain Patrick O'Brien '10, the next Dartmouth finisher, secured sixth place. These finishes helped the Big Green inch past Vermont in the race by two points.
Saturday's Nordic event replaced the classic sprint with a 3x3 classic sprint relay, in which one of Dartmouth's women's teams took first place earning 116 points. The team, consisting of Crocker, Flowers and Bono, beat out second-place finisher Middlebury College by a cumulative time of almost 30 seconds.
Dartmouth's top-performing men's team ended the relay in second place, behind Middlebury.
"I think the relay is something we used to do all the time, but now we have more events so we can't do it every week," Thompson said. "It is a great team event to see the team camaraderie and see everyone working hard together. It was too bad that Middlebury won for the guys."
Eric Packer '12 and Sam Tarling '13 are also competing at the World Junior Championships and missed out on this weekend's carnival.
While the Nordic team had a successful weekend, the alpine teams failed to garner any event victories and struggled in Saturday's slalom races.
Friday's giant slalom races started out strong for both teams and saw the women race into second place, with Courtney Hammond '11 providing the team its best finish at third place.
Ace Tarberry '11 finished first in the giant slalom event, posting his first carnival win.
"I had won individual events before, but never a whole race," Tarberry said. "It felt really good to put the two together."
Both the men and the women finished fourth in the slalom events, signaling a tough day for the alpine teams.
"Every so often someone has a bad day, and that's why we have six people," Hammond said. "Today more than one person had a bad day, but a couple of us had some great runs, although it was not the best-case scenario."
Women's alpine team captain Tina Roberts '10 gave the Big Green its best alpine finish in eighth place, followed by rookie Annie Rendall '13 in ninth.
For the men's slalom on Saturday, Braden Long '12 had the team's best finish with seventh place.
Tarberry said that the men's team had difficulty in the slalom due in large part to the tricky parts of the course, which took many skiers out of their second run.
Putting this weekend's results behind them, the teams will now have a two-week break before heading out to Stowe, Vt. to compete in the Vermont Carnival.
With the races in Germany concluded by then, Dartmouth expects to return with its full roster, and Hammond said it is important to remain concentrated during the off-weeks.
"In training we all really need to focus on consistency," Hammond said. "We need to get it ingrained in us, by getting miles, run after run, and to figure out how to do more of what we're doing so that it is consistent."
