Dartmouth stuns West, wins NCAA championship

With a final push from its alpine squad, Dartmouth College claimed its first NCAA skiing championship in more than 30 years Saturday at the Attitash ski area in Bartlett, New Hampshire.
    Not only had Dartmouth not won in recent memory, but also the East hadn't managed to wrestle the team title away from a block of Western schools in a dozen seasons, since Vermont claimed its last in 1994.
    Led by its nordic teams as it had been all season, the Big Green of Dartmouth did not win a single individual event at the 2007 championships, but the team depth proved overpowering with its ability to score well in each discipline.

ATTITASH, New Hampshire — With a final push from its alpine squad, Dartmouth College claimed its first NCAA skiing championship in more than 30 years Saturday at the Attitash ski area in Bartlett, New Hampshire.
    Not only had Dartmouth not won in recent memory, but also the East hadn't managed to wrestle the team title away from a block of Western schools in a dozen seasons, since Vermont claimed its last in 1994. It is also believed that Dartmouth is the first school since the NCAA sanctioned the sport in 1954 to win the championship with an entirely American roster. Many of the Western powerhouses have relied heavily on European recruits in recent seasons.
    Led by its nordic teams as it had been all season, the Big Green of Dartmouth did not win a single individual event at the 2007 championships, but the team depth proved overpowering with its ability to score well in each discipline.
    The nordic skiers took second after the opening day behind nordic-only Northern Michigan and moved tenuously into first after the windy GS races. The third day's freestyle cross-country events saw the lead dwindle to a less than comfortable 38-point lead, with the University of Denver and its very dangerous slalom squad ready to pounce.
    DU's Adam Cole, having already won the GS, charged to the men's win with Dartmouth's David Chodounsky in second. DU got finishes of first, fifth and seven from Cole, Francesco Ghedina and John Buchar in a display of power, but Dartmouth held its ground with Chodounsky, Evan Weiss in eighth and Alex Felix 16th. The lead was down to 25 and Dartmouth was going to need a strong result from perhaps its weakest team, women's alpine. It got it.
    Cole's win snapped Dartmouth's string of five straight NCAA slalom titles.
    Lindsey Mann, a senior from Bedford, Mass., sat ninth after the first run and knew it was going to take a big race from her to cement the team title. While New Mexico's Malin Hemingsson got the race win, Mann won the second heat with a brilliant run to finish fourth, one placing ahead of DU's leading skier Claire Abby. When Michelanne Schield's 10th-best time topped the next-best DU finisher, the title went to Dartmouth.
    Dartmouth last won the national ski title in 1976.
    The Big Green had solid performances by both men’s and women’s teams in the slalom event, besting the University of Denver by 50 points. In the final team standings, the Big Green stood atop the heap with 698 points; Denver was second with 648; Colorado, the 2006 champion, was third with 592.
    “Just awesome … great. I can’t think of any other way to put it,” said Director of Skiing Cami Thompson. “I’m so proud of every single one of them. We knew coming into [the Championships] that there was an outside chance we could do it, and every single one of the performed as well as they possibly could.”
    The Big Green got All-America performances from junior Chodounsky and senior Weiss in the men’s race, and senior Lindsay Mann and junior Michelanne Shields in the women’s event.
    Chodounsky, the 2005 men’s slalom champion, was narrowly edged by Cole. Cole’s two-run time of 1:43.36 was just .04 seconds better than Chodounsky. Middlebury’s Andrew Wagner was third. Weiss finished in eighth place.
    It wasn’t easy for Chodounsky, who was initially disqualified in the first run when he appeared to straddle a gate. But video review of the run showed that Chodounsky cleared the gate, keeping him in contention.
    “The snow changed consistency a bit,” said Chodounsky, “and I slid,
then hooked up a bit, then got shot out. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but it could have been worse.”
    In the women’s race, Mann, in her final collegiate race, was .44 seconds off the winning pace of New Mexico’s Hemmingson, who took the title in 1:45.77. Colorado’s Lucie Zikova was second; New Hampshire’s Veronique Archambault-Leger was third.
    Knowing that the title was there for the taking, Mann says she felt little pressure. “This is my last race, and [women’s alpine coach] Christine [Booker] told me to just go for it and have fun.”
    “That’s what I always tell Lindsay,” said Booker after the race. “When she’s having fun, she skis fast.”
    Dartmouth junior Shields, a 2006 All American, repeated the honor this year by taking 10th in the slalom.
    For Dartmouth, it is the first team title since 1976, and the program’s third title overall since 1958. In all, nine student-athletes earned All-America honors: Mann, Shields, Chodounsky and Weiss in alpine skiing; and senior Sara Studebaker and Michael Sinnott and juniors Susan Dunklee, Elsa Sargent and Ben True in cross-country racing.
    “We’re very pleased with second place,” said DU alpine head coach Andy LeRoy. “To come here with 11 skiers and perform as well as we did, we are very proud of all the athletes. We congratulate everybody on Dartmouth, who came in here and did everything they needed to do to win.”
    Cole became the first DU skier to win both the slalom and giant slalom at a championship. Between Thursday’s giant slalom and Saturday’s slalom, all six Pioneers skiers earned either first- or second-team All-America honors.
    The scoring format of the championship changed this year to count all skiers for all teams. From 1997 to 2006, only 21 results were counted. According to championship statisticians, had the scoring format remained the same, Dartmouth and Denver would have shared the title with 638 points, and CU would have remained in third with 564.
    DU’s first-team All-America skiers were Claire Abbe, Annelise Bailly, John Buchar, Adam Cole, Francesco Ghedina, Rene Reisshauer and Jenny Tank. DU’s second-team All-America skiers were Karine Falck-Pedersen and John Stene.

For complete race results, click here.