Green grab crown

BARTLETT, N.H. -- On top again!

It has been a long time coming -- 31 years, to be exact -- but Dartmouth returned the NCAA crown to the former home of college skiing, winning the title yesterday at Attitash with 698 points to second-place Denver's 648. Another perennial powerhouse, the University of Colorado, placed third with 592 points.

Not since 1976, when Dartmouth shared the title with Colorado, had the Big Green come close to winning a national title in any sport. The last time they won the skiing title outright was 1958, though Dartmouth dominated national ski racing in the pre-World War II years.

After that, momentum shifted to the Rocky Mountain colleges, leaving Dartmouth to chase the West, coming as close as third last year. Aside from Vermont's five national titles between 1980 and 1994, and Dartmouth's titles, Western teams have won every year since 1954.

So yesterday, the Big Green Alpine skiers headed into the men's and women's slalom with a lead, but with the weight of history on them.

"We had to be solid today and ski like we have been all season," said women's coach Christine Booker, who was named the Eastern Intercollegiate Skiing Association coach of the year after her squad helped Dartmouth turn in an undefeated season with a 6-0 carnival record. "We still had to just keep focused on skiing every run, every race, and not try to do too much or be too good."

Booker watched her All-American, Lindsay Mann, finish fourth in slalom, earning more than enough points (36) to ensure the title. Dartmouth's other big gun, Michelanne Shields, delivered 30 points with her 10th-place finish.

Earlier, the men's slalom provided some jitters when, in the first run, Dartmouth's David Chodounsky appeared to get disqualified when his ski was ruled to have straddled a gate.

"I knew I was OK," said Chodounsky, explaining that when his left knee hit the gate, his knee popped up, looking as if it had hit the pole. After a video review supported his version, Chodounsky charged into the second run, determined to overcome the error, but his overall time put him four-100ths of a second behind winner Adam Cole of Denver. Dartmouth's other Alpine star, Evan Weiss, placed eighth, earning 32 points.

"No one was playing it safe up there today," said Weiss, a member of the US Ski Team. "Everyone was just going all out for it."

So, too, were the women. Despite a supposed strategy that it's better to hold back and survive than crash, few racers appeared to be conservative.

"No way," said Mann. "This is the last slalom race of my life. I left it all out there today."

Earlier in the week, Dartmouth's Nordic team produced solid results, keeping the Big Green in contention leading into the Alpine events.

The Dartmouth men took fourth and third in their cross-country events, while the women brought home a pair of second-place finishes.

"This was just a solid effort by all four teams," said Cami Thompson, Dartmouth's Nordic coach. "Of course, I was nervous all week, but our teams just stuck to doing things pretty much as they have all year and they were really professionals in their attitudes. They just kept focused and did the job they knew they were capable of."

Tony Chamberlain can be reached at chamberlain@globe.com.