Dartmouth Carnival

With the slalom events postponed due to high winds, UVM leads the Dartmouth Carnival ahead of the host team, and Middlebury sitting a strong third.

Anja Gruber from UVM won the 5k classic but three Dartmouth women crossed the finish before UVM’s next best, Stephanie Kirk, came through in 10th. The Dartmouth trio of Annie Hart, Corey Stock, and Mary O’Connell finished fourth, fifth, and sixth separated only by eight seconds. Annie Pokorny grabbed a 2nd place for Middlebury and Kaitlynn Miller put in an awesome 3rd place for Bowdoin College.

The men’s 10K classic experienced absolute domination from Dartmouth and UVM, who between the two occupied nine of the top-10 positions. The UVM men came a mere two points shy of Dartmouth in the event, a tiny figure compared to the 40 point spread back to the Wild Cats in third. The lone outsider to finish top-ten was Benjamin Lustgarten from Middlebury in 7th.
 
Dartmouth’s Big Green nordic team found big success at their home meet, winning each of the 4 nordic events; a major confidence boost with the NCAA Championships approaching.

Dartmouth’s success in nordic was overwhelmed by UVM’s alpine though, and the Catamounts lead by 107 points. 80 of the 107 point Catamount lead can be credited to their alpine women, who achieved their second GS podium sweep of the EISA carnival season. Kristina Riis-Johannessen took the win with her Canadian teammates Elli Terwiel, and Kate Ryley in second and third.

Middlebury was the big story in the men’s GS, with David Donaldson and Andrew McNealus 1st and 3rd. Donaldson is still undefeated in EISA GS, and the favorite to win the GS at the NCAA Championships in front of his home crowd at Middlebury next month (March 2013).