Williams, Middlebury and Junior Nationals

Morgan had a great Eastern Cup in Waterville Valley!

Well, we almost made it a full season with regular updates along the way! Sorry for the lack of pictures and stories here; the final uptick of activity at the end of the season has left little room for the blog!

WILLIAMS CARNIVAL

Let's start things off with Williams Carnival, where we had somewhat uneventful relays: the women were boxed out on some downhills despite Erin's quick speed out of the gate in the mass start. Kate proceeded to rock the 16th fastest relay split in the whole field, skiing the soft snow really well to glide to that great result.

Erin had a great start in the relay but was boxed out and lost some places on the downhills

The men's race was marred by crashes from team 1, with Eric, Will and Meng each taking diggers at various points in their laps. Eric suffered the worst fate, crashing early and then getting stabbed by a ski tip as another competitor fell onto him; he spent the rest of the race skiing with one arm while clutching his side with the other. Meng was in position to fend off Middlebury's team 1 before he too went down on the bermed-up S-turn before the final few hundred meters.

The men's second team was very competitive, with Kyle, Matt and Phil fighting not far behind SLU team 1 the entire way. Great racing from those guys!

The classic day on Saturday showcased another great classic effort by Eric in 19th, while Will used the power of some stiffer test skis to glide to a top-30 result. Kate and Erin continued posting results in the 30's in their weaker discipline, showing a big step forward with consistency.

Phil picked up his first top-40 in the Williams classic race

While the classic races were happening at Prospect, I loaded up a van with Blaine and Morgan to head to Eastern Cup Finals in NH with hopes of nailing down spots on the New England team for Junior Nationals.

EASTERN CUP FINALS

These were some great races thanks to the big storm and great courses. Blaine and Morgan had solid races on Saturday in the skate at Waterville Valley. I got to race too, my first time racing those trails since the 1999 Bill Koch Festival!

The points were good and Morgan skied to his best Eastern Cup result ever in 28th, with Blaine just ahead in 25th.

Blaine chasing down some competition at Waterville

The final day of competition at Holderness was absolutely perfect: sunny skies, narrow winding woods trails and a distance classic interval-start. Blaine was on the bubble for qualification and, instead of letting that pressure get to him, he took it as motivation to rocket to one of his best races ever. He nabbed 16th place and a coveted spot on the New England team!

Morgan had another solid race but was unfortunately on the outside of qualifying.

With the team named and official, I am proud to announce that we will be sending 3 athletes to represent Team New England: Erin Perryman, Calvin Swomley and Blaine Ayotte. Congrats to these guys for having great seasons and capping it with more success!

MIDDLEBURY CARNIVAL

Midd carnival is always a great time: fun trails and amazing grooming make for excellent competition.

Kate had been chasing her first top-30 all season and had been finishing tantalizingly close multiple times. She put all the questions to rest this weekend with back-to-back top-30 races of 30th and 25th to end her solid season on a high note!

Eric matched his career-best distance race of 14th on Friday, and followed it up with his second-best skate finish to cap an incredible career as a Saint. Four-year scoring member, top-15 carnival competitor, double Junior National Champion in 2012 and just an overall standout dude. Way to go Eric!!!

Meng and Kate say a few words and give Eric a photo signed by the team. Champagne also involved for a big toast! 

WHAT'S NEXT?

While writing about the end of the season it's impossible not to mention the elephant in the wax room: NCAA Championships in Soldier Hollow, Utah. 

With all the dust of qualification settled Austin was 3 or 4 spots away from earning a trip to the Big Show, and it definitely stings to not have any representation. We went into the season with the goal of having multiple guys make the team, with maybe an outside chance at one of the women going as well. Many factors play into a great season, and I think that 2014 was still up there in terms of being great. The simple fact, however, is that our top men did not perform in a way that represented their efforts, preparation and early results from summer and fall training.

The younger men on the team impressed and scored big with Junior Nationals, but the upperclassmen were left searching much of the season for the form and fitness that was shown this fall. Like Arnold, THEY WILL BE BACK

Part physical? Part mental? Part emotional? Who can say, but probably a combination of these went into having a somewhat lackluster season compared to the aspirations we laid out earlier this year for the veterans on the men's side. Lessons are still being learned, review will be conducted and, rest assured, we will all be learning from the lows in order to make the highs higher next season. 

Small girl's team doesn't mean lackluster girl's team! These four had a great season

On that note, you can't talk about the low points without mentioning the great aspects of the season. The women's team really came into its own this year. Erin, Kate, Laurel and Taren used their small team size to their advantage, becoming a great group of friends that really raced well above expectations. They raced fast and in many ways demonstrated just how well a team can come together despite big differences in age and experience. 

So with that recap in the books, we look forward to some great spring adventures. Stay tuned for more from Junior Nationals!

Dartmouth Carnival 2014

Snow, snow and more snow!

Great shot from Barb of Erin in the classic race. Love the angle here...and of course the new snow!

Tons of new snow made the conditions incredible in Craftsbury this weekend! We were excited to get on tons of trails and experience the excellent grooming that the team there is so known for. Ethan even got a chance to sit on the Arctic Cat "Bearcat Groomer Special", the new hog we are trying to order for next year. He seemed pretty happy to envision himself grooming out at Higley with the new toy:

Etown is excited to get one of these up to the North Country

This was a big weekend with the Carnival combined with a Supertour event. The men were led by Meng during Friday's skate race, with a result that was again solidly in the top 20 but again not quite what he was looking for in terms of NCAA qualification. It's clear now that that battle for qualification will be much tighter this year, with a ton of new faces from different schools making moves. It's no longer just a UVM/DARTMOUTH show in the ranking list! 

Meng in Saturday's classic race

For the women Erin continued her great season with another points race in 27th. On a course that pretty much played to her weaknesses this was a great result that showed just how much she is improving in areas like pacing and late-race mentality. 

On Saturday morning we were greeted by more fresh trails and excellent classic conditions for a 15/20k individual start. We were also greeted by the newewst addition to the SLUHaul: a Keurig coffee brewer courtesy of the Frielinghaus family! Thanks so much!

Coffeemaker was immediately decked-out in SLUSKI sticker style

The race of the day came from Kate, who skied incredibly aggressively and passed tons of people on the hilly course to have one of the top races of her career. In fact, if you start putting together all the races she has done this year Kate has really taken a step up in almost every type of race and discipline from the last two years. 

Kate in the midst of a great classic race

Eric also had another great day for the men, picking up another top-20. He and Kyle were able to ski together which was great. Unfortunately Kyle did not get to test his skis before the race, so I ended up edging too high and going a bit thick on the kick. As a result Kyle's skis really suffered and Eric would pull away on the downhills and eventually out of reach. Still, skiing behind Eric really helped Kyle pick up a lot of confidence in how calm you can ski while still moving fast. For classic technicians to work with you can't do much better than a Lustgarten sibling. 

Eric (black hat) and Kyle (white hat) cruising by

What would Dartmouth Carnival be without Carni Crush?? The team spent their downtime practicing songs and writing valentines to their lovers on other teams, and everyone had a great time sharing their wild, funny and frequently vulgar gifts and expressions of affection on Saturday afternoon. 

Amid some Dartmouth onlookers, Eric and Phil strum and sing a song to melt the hearts of the Colby girls

BUT, we weren't done racing! Some stayed to have a nice OD on Sunday while Erin and alum Eric Wolcott raced the Supertour skate sprint! Eric qualified 5th and Erin 15th, and they each skied excellent heats to finish 11th (Wolcott) and 17th (Erin) overall. As she does more and more sprint races and makes it into the rounds more frequently Erin is really improving in the head-to-head racing. She stuck right on the heels of Caitlin Patterson and Erika Flowers and had yet another great showing to add to her year of highlights. Here's a quick video of her qualifier and heat:

Eric Wolcott '10 in the qualification round

Looking ahead to next weekend, we are headed to both the Williams Carnival at Prospect and the last Eastern Cups in Waterville and Holderness, NH. 

Williams Carnival will feature a 5/10k classic and a skate relay. 

Both Calvin Swomley and Erin Perryman are among the top New England JN qualifiers and pretty much have their spots locked down which is awesome. Blaine is currently ranked within the New England team as well, but will race both days of Eastern Cups this weekend in order to solidify his spot or even improve upon it. Morgan is a bit outside but with two great races he could sneak in and get on that team as well. 

Chumley is currently the 4th or 5th ranked U20, while Blaine is not far behind in 8th. Erin is the 4th U20 for the women. 

While we're on the subject of rankings, it's worth noting that Blaine, Calvin and Erin all have current-year NENSA points averages that are lower than last year's best race for each of them. That is HUGE improvement for all of them!

OH, and one more thing! Much of the team got together early in the dining hall this morning to watch former Dartmouth skier Sophie Caldwell get an awesome 6th place in the Olympic Sprint race! Woohoo!!!

(Many photos on this post courtesy of Barbara Beall)

UVM Carnival: Heating up

The UVM Carnival turned out to be a big step forward for SLUSKI, as several members posted best-ever performances...in some cases by a huge margin! 

The event began with classic sprints on Sunday. The 2012 Junior National champion in this event, Eric's excitement for this race was barely containable. He delivered on his high energy with a 7th place finish, cutting his previous-best finish (14th) in half and scoring the first single-digit men's race for SLU since 2010. 

Eric in his heat (photo by Connor Hunt '13)

Eric also skied well in his heat, ending up in 4th place there to take 17th in the massive open Eastern Cup field. Meng finally showed some excellent spark in qualification, and despite not being a strong sprinter he narrowly missed out on the open heats and was 22nd in the EISA field. Another unexpectedly solid sprint day came from Will, who placed 32nd. 

In the women's race Erin once again showed her excellent sprint speed with a 15th place finish, a new career best far ahead of her 29th place in the 10k at Colby this year! She skied to 5th in her open Eastern Cup and got great practice in the same event that will be held at Junior Nationals at this venue in March. 

Erin drew a tough quarterfinal with Anja Gruber (2013 NCAA Classic champ) and Rosie Brennan (recently back from the World Cup). Bowdoin's Kaitlynn Miller is also pictured here (Photo by Ian Nesbitt for EISA)

The next day was fast and fun with 5 and 10k classic races on the twisty, technical race loop. Erin had a great bib draw and was final starter in the EISA field, which made it even more impressive that she came through 4k fighting for a top-10 finish. She ended up 14th to achieve a new career-best just 24 hours removed from her prior top finish. Before the races we had talked about this weekend having the potential for two top-20 results...with back-to-back top-15's she took it one step further!

The girls success continued with Kate taking her first NCAA points in 31st (with points for 28th, as Laval skiers do not count for NCAA purposes). Kate is getting stronger with every weekend, and as a whole I believe all the girls had their best placing yet.

The men's race was exciting as well, with Meng posting 12th and getting back more and more snap with his skiing. With two Laval skiers in front of him he picked up NCAA points for 10th and is starting to climb up the ranking list. 

Eric started smooth and had a great second lap to finish 24th, while the most impressive race of the day may have been from Kyle. Last year Kyle had great success in slop, mashed potatoes and other conditions that required grit and stamina. Fast, squirrely conditions were a difficult situation. 

Kyle's balance work pays off to earn him his first top-30 (Photo by Connor Hunt '13)

This year, lots of work on the Bosu ball and with various ankle-strengthening boards and gadgets (they all seemed like trivial and silly exercises this fall...but who's laughing now?) gave way to a big change. Even though this course was technical and fast, with super slippery and unpredictable snow, Kyle mastered the conditions and finished in 25th place for his first top-30 result. Placing 3 men in the top-25 was a big step forward and the momentum is only building!

On a sadder note, it was clear that everyone involved with the races this weekend felt the loss of Dartmouth skier Torin Tucker on Saturday. All of our thoughts go out to the Dartmouth team, along with the friends and family of Torin. Losing someone so involved with the sport at any level is difficult to accept, especially in the midst of a weekend of racing. An event that will not be forgotten soon.