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)
No comments:
Post a Comment