The University of Vermont, the Big Green's nemesis, won the Carnival with 955 team points. Dartmouth finished in second with 848 points. Host Middlebury College and the University of New Hampshire finished in a tie for a distant third place, each school finishing with 724.5 points. Williams College claimed fifth place with 539.5 points.
Men's Nordic captain Eric Packer '12 did not participate, as he was competing in Turkey for the U-23 World Championships.
Dartmouth's women's alpine team skied to its best result of the season on Friday, winning the slalom event with a team score of 109 points.
Annie Rendall '13 paced the Big Green down the slalom course at the Middlebury Snow Bowl with a second place finish in the standings, boasting a two-run time of 1:38.60.
Erin Fucigna '12 was close behind, completing the course in sixth place with an aggregate time of 1:40.11. Abby Fucigna '15, Erin's formidable younger sister, finished her runs in 1:41.36 to earn a 15th place finish. The final Big Green racer was captain Sabrina Chiasson '12, who completed her runs in 1:43.97, good for 27th place.
The men's alpine skiers also raced well on Friday, led by the seventh-place finish of Ben Morse '15, who recorded a two-run time of 1:34.85. The team placed fourth in the slalom event, racing against dominant skiers from UVM and UNH.
Dylan Fisher McCarney '15 finished in 17th place for the Big Green with an aggregate time of 1:37.14. Mathieu Bertrand '14 finished in 20th place (1:37.89) and Hunter Black '15 finished in 54th place (2:15.19) after a sloppy second run soiled his solid first-run time of 48.91 seconds. Trace Smith '15 failed to complete his second run.
Friday also featured the Nordic team's freestyle races at the Trapps Course in Stowe, Vt., the second time this season the Nordic races have been relocated to Stowe due to a lack of snow at the Carnival host venues.
Friday's 10-kilometer freestyle race marked the first race this season that the Dartmouth men's Nordic team failed to win. UVM (119 points) edged Dartmouth by five points in the team scoring to claim first place.
Middlebury College's Patrick Johnson obliterated the field, winning the race in 24:36.7, nearly 30 seconds ahead of UVM's second-place finisher Franz Bernstein. Sam Tarling '13 finished in third place with a time of 25:12.8.
Gordon Vermeer '12 finished 20 seconds behind Tarling (25:32.9) for fifth place and David Sinclair '14 completed the race with a time of 25:49.2 to finish 10th as Dartmouth's final scorer.
In the women's five-kilometer freestyle race, UVM's Caitlin Patterson (13:40.7) and Lucy Garrec (13:56.6) took the top two podium spots, conceding to Sophie Caldwell '12 a third place finish in 14:01.2.
Annie Hart '14 finished just behind Caldwell in fourth place with a time of 14:18.6. Erika Flowers '12 earned seventh place overall with a time of 14:35.4.
"It was really hard and fast," Isabel Caldwell '14 said. "There was barely enough snow, but we all managed to ski some pretty fast times."
Saturday witnessed a host of impressive performances from some of the Big Green's youngest athletes.
In the women's giant slalom, Abby Fucigna paced the Big Green with a fifth-place finish (2:06.87). UVM's Kate Ryley led the Catamounts to victory with an aggregate time of 2:04.86.
"For the giant slalom on Saturday, I was focused on just trusting my training," Abby Funcigna said. "Middlebury has a tough giant slalom hill with lots of twists and flats and pitches, so you need to be consistent all the way down. I wanted to nail the key sections and cross the line with two clean runs. I've been having fast first runs in the giant slalom, so having a good second run today was a good step going into NCAAs."
Rendall finished in seventh place with a two-run time of 2:07.15. Madeline Packard '13 raced to a 20th-place finish with a time of 2:08.74.
The men's side also featured its rookies in a UVM-dominated giant slalom. McCarney was first down the hill for the Big Green with a two-run time of 2:01.49, good for 15th place. Morse finished right behind McCarney in 16th place with a time of 2:01.76.
Black salvaged his weekend with a 27th-place showing (2:02.82) to round out the scorers for Dartmouth. Bertrand and Smith completed the course in 29th (2:03.29) and 32nd (2:03.42) places, respectively.
On Saturday, the men's Nordic team returned from Friday's defeat ready to overthrow the UVM in decisive form in the 20-kilometer classic mass start race.
After Middlebury's Johnson won the race (1:19:34.5), a sea of Dartmouth spandex-clad skiers followed. Vermeer claimed second place with a time of 1:19:46.5, and Sinclair earned the final podium spot with a time of 1:19:46.9, just a hair behind Vermeer.
Alex Schulz '12 and Tarling finished fourth and sixth overall with times of 1:19:49.2 and 1:20:07.0, respectively. Silas Talbot '15 and Steve Mangan '14 also finished for the Big Green, crossing the line in 13th (1:20:54.5) and 20th (1:21:22.9) place.
"The success is mostly due to the strength of our group," Sinclair said. "Friday's loss to UVM really motivated us to win on Saturday. We stayed mentally focused despite the crazy conditions."
The women's Nordic squad also sought a win over UVM in the mid-blizzard women's 15-kilometer classic mass start race. Their strong efforts, however, proved futile. UVM's Garrec and Amy Glenn took first and third places, while Sophie Caldwell and sister Isabel Caldwell settled for second and fourth places. Sophie and Isabel Caldwell completed the course in 1:05:32.2 and 1:06:04.4, respectively. Steph Crocker '12 was the final scorer for the Big Green, finishing in 13th place (1:07:36.1).
Dartmouth now prepares for the NCAA Championships, which will take place March 7-10 in Bozeman, Mont.
