Dartmouth Wins Home Carnival

By Published On: February 12th, 2018Comments Off on Dartmouth Wins Home Carnival

Dartmouth picked up their first home win in eight years this weekend. The Big Green’s cross-country team led the way by impressively winning all four events of the carnival, while the alpine team pulled their weight at the Datmouth Skiway, taking two of four races, the men’s GS and the women’s slalom. The University of Vermont led the women’s giant slalom and the men’s slalom.

Dartmouth won the alpine side of the event with 507 points, followed by the UVM with 477 points. Middlebury finished in third place with 350 points.

Foreste Peterson and Tanguy Nef started the weekend off right winning both the women’s and men’s giant slalom.

Peterson won with an overall time of 2:05.76, edging out two UVM athletes, Paula Moltzan, who finished in second, 0.35 seconds back and Josefine Selvaag, placing third, 0.58 seconds back.

Peterson has dominated in giant slalom this season, winning three of four races so far. Her worst finish in the event came last weekend at Stowe when she placed second.

“I think it always feels good to win on home turf and we weren’t able to do that in the last couple of years so I think it feels especially good and it seems like we’ve been gaining from weekend to weekend in the last three weeks as a whole team,” Peterson said.

Surprisingly, Peterson said that her home hill is one her least favorite hills on the circuit.

“It’s so easy that it’s hard to be fast on. I mean it’s mostly flat and I definitely prefer steeper hills, so I always find the hill challenging,” she said.

Perterson’s teammate, Nef, has been nearly as dominant in GS on the men’s side. On Friday Nef won his second GS of the season. Nef won on Friday with an overall time of 2:01.16. Biran McLaughlin, another Dartmouth athlete, finished in second, 0.56 seconds back and Riley Plant from Middlebury finished in third place, 1.01 seconds behind.

Dartmouth’s home hill advantage and depth of talent was on full display as they took five of the top ten spots including David Domonoske in 5th, Thomas Woolson in 6th and James Ferri in 7th. The final member of the men’s team, Kalle Wagner, finished in 11th.

“It’s obviously really cool, at the Dartmouth Skiway on our home hill, to step up and compete well as a team,” McLaughlin said, “the team is skiing really well as a whole and the fact is that they’re maybe a little more confident on a hill that we’re comfortable with, but I think the team has been really strong all year and now the young guys are stepping up.”

They did not let up the next day as they achieved the same result, putting five of their six athletes inside the top ten.

Sandy Vietze, from the University of Vermont won the slalom with a time of 1:42.57. Nef finished in second place, 0.13 seconds out and Max Roeisland placed third, 0.53 seconds out

McLaughlin finished 5th, Domonoske 6th, Wagner 7th and Woolson was 9th. Unfortunately, it was not enough to power the Dartmouth men to the win the event.

Depth was enough for the Dartmouth women however.

Moltzan won with an overall time of 1:46.79 and her teammate Francesca English finished in second 0.55 seconds back. Alexa Dlouhy of Dartmouth finished in third place 1.30 seconds back.

Peterson took 4th place and Stephanie Currie took 6th to push Dartmouth past UVM by just one point.

“I think we can go one, two, three instead of three, four, five. I think we can stack it in closer to the top,” Peterson said about the next couple of Carnivals leading up to NCAAs.

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About the Author: Chris Keating

Chris Keating grew up in Vermont and skied at Boston College where he served as captain during his senior year. He is currently a staff writer at The Valley Reporter in Waitsfield, Vt., and will be covering the NCAA and NorAm circuits for SkiRacing.com this winter.