Dartmouth is beast of the East
Big Green cap perfect season
Saving the best for last, Dartmouth crushed two of its closest rivals - Vermont and Middlebury - last weekend to score another undefeated season in the Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association.
At the final carnival, hosted by Colby College at Sugarloaf, Dartmouth carried a lead into Sunday, then ran away with the competition, totaling 961.5 points to rout Vermont (793) and Middlebury (732.5) and win the Eastern Championship. The Big Green will enter 12 skiers (three from each of their four teams) in next week's NCAA Championships hosted by Bates.
Dartmouth sophomore Courtney Hammond won handily in the women's giant slalom, with Vermont's Lyndee Janowiak second and Dartmouth's Kelsey Roddick third.
In men's Alpine, Vermont's David Donaldson won the GS ahead of a pair of University of New Hampshire racers, Sean McNamara and Michael Cremeno.
But the Big Green's dominance came on the Nordic side. Though Middlebury's Simeon Hamilton won the 20K, Dartmouth scored heavy points when Eric Packer, Patrick O'Brien, and Nils Koons were next in line.
The Dartmouth women were equally strong in the 15K as Sophie Caldwell, Hannah Dreissigacker, and Rosie Brennan followed winner Elise Moody-Roberts of Middlebury.
EISA skiers have this weekend off before heading to Rumford, Maine, for the NCAA Championships, starting March 11. Two years ago in Jackson, N.H., unbeaten Dartmouth ended a 31-year title drought by beating Denver. Last year, host Montana won the national title with Dartmouth placing fourth.
"Our kids are very young but really good," said Dartmouth spokesman Rick Adams yesterday. "Especially our Nordic side. I think our coaches might downplay [a title] because we're being realistic. There are lots of good skiers in the east, and of course the west always comes with powerful teams."
The women's Nordic team got a boost midway through the carnival season with the return of Caldwell, a freshman who missed the first three meets because she was competing for the US at the World Junior Championships in France. The men's Nordic side features senior Glenn Randall, who last year became the first Dartmouth skier in 41 years to win an NCAA cross-country title (10K freestyle). He will be joined next weekend by Koons and O'Brien.
Dartmouth's Alpine skiers will face heavy competition from New Hampshire and Vermont. Hammond, winner of 9 of 12 races this season, will be joined by Tina Roberts and Roddick. Rusty Heise, a Green Mountain Valley School graduate, will be joined by Eastern Cup winner Luke McLaughry and Ace Tarberry.
"I think we have a chance this year," said Adams. "In Alpine all the top skiers got better, but we've come on in Nordic skiing all season."
Competing at a local venue also favors the Big Green. The NCAA Championships alternate between eastern and western mountains. "When we go out there, we have to ski in soft snow that the western kids are used to. But when they come here, they have to ski on our ice."
Cami Thompson, the women's Nordic coach at Dartmouth for 20 years, has seen some strong teams, especially in the early and mid-1990s.
"I think this year we have a strong team in that anyone can win a discipline every day," says Thompson. "We have good depth all around rather than having just a few good skiers.
"With this team anything's possible. In [2007] some things had to line up for us, but we have some good things going this year. We have depth, we're strong and healthy." 