UVM wins its first carnival of the 2017 season

By Published On: February 12th, 2017Comments Off on UVM wins its first carnival of the 2017 season

The Northeast had been hit by snow for a week leading up to the Dartmouth Carnival, which created variant conditions for the historic event on Feb. 10-11. Unfortunately for the home team, the first carnival that they failed to win this season was their home event. The University of Vermont (UVM) Catamounts dominated the slalom on Saturday and came away victorious with 494 points in the alpine portion. Dartmouth placed second with 417 points and Middlebury College finished third with 405 points.

UVM also won overall with 884 points, followed by Dartmouth with 869, and in third was Middlebury with 676 points.

Dartmouth’s Foreste Peterson started the giant slalom off by winning the first run of the day ahead of UVM’s Paula Moltzan, who stood in sixth. In the second run though, Moltzan stormed ahead, winning the second run by 0.51 seconds, and it looked as if she could take away the win until Peterson came down. Peterson put together a combined time of 2:07.51, Moltzan finished 0.61 seconds back, and Middlebury’s Caroline Bartlett finished third, 1.23 seconds behind.

In the men’s race, Middlebury’s Rob Cone took home the win, his first of the season. He finished with an overall time of 2:03.17, followed by Dartmouth’s Brian McLaughlin, who finished a distant 0.96 seconds behind. UVM skier Max Roeisland finished third, 1.26 seconds back.

“I really like this hill. I think it has a lot of character from the top pitch moving onto the flats, so you need to really be thoughtful on how you make that top pitch happen and work it on the flat,” Cone said of the win at the Dartmouth Skiway.

Cone led after the first run of the UVM carnival a week earlier, but failed to finish the second run.

“I think my GS has been going very well. I just haven’t been able to put two runs together,” Cone said. Fortunately, he was able to put together a complete race this past weekend and led the Middlebury men to a second-place finish in the GS.

Moltzan and her teammate Laurence St. Germain returned from the NorAm circuit this week, and they made their presence known in Saturday’s slalom, each winning a run and the other following closely behind. They finished the day in the top two spots.

Moltzan won the race with a time of 1:40.01, followed by St. Germain, 0.14 seconds behind. Colby’s Mardene Haskell placed third, 0.76 seconds back. Moltzan was happy, coming away from the weekend with two podium finishes.

“Both days were pretty good, kind of tough conditions, but it’s been a good weekend here for me at Dartmouth,” she said.

Redneck Racing’s Robby Kelly won the men’s slalom with a time of 1:37.25. Due to the fact that Kelly is not a collegiate athlete, his win does not count towards collegiate standing or NCAA qualifications.

UVM’s William St. Germain and Sandy Vietze added to their schools medal collection for the weekend. St. Germain won the race for college students with a time of 1:37.53, followed by Cone who finished in second, 0.38 seconds behind. Vietze placed third, 0.71 seconds back.

“I just fired it up second run,” St. Germain said of his mentality going into second run. “I was trying to go as hard as possible,”

The EISA circuit will move to Middlebury Ski Bowl next weekend, Feb. 17-18, for the final Carnival before the Eastern Regionals.

Full results for the event can be found here.

Share This Article

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.