BRIEF: Skiing Comes Up Short at St. Lawrence Carnival

With such a start to the New Year, the Harvard skiing team has to be wondering if there will ever be an end to its woes.

The Crimson continued its stretch of poor showings at the St. Lawrence Winter Carnival this weekend, where the team’s performance entertained no one. The two-day tournament took place at Mt. Van Hovenberg in Lake Placid, N.Y., a scenic Olympic village that saw Harvard finish ninth out of 15 on the charts.

The Crimson only achieved a score of 349.0, 608 points below first-place finisher Dartmouth.

The Big Green came out skiing hard, taking the first five spots in the Women’s 5k Classic on Friday. Harvard senior Audrey Mangan crossed the line in 12th place, followed by freshman Esther Kennedy. These were the highest finishes by the Crimson for the entire weekend. Dartmouth’s Nils Koons also took first in the Men’s 10k Classic, while Harvard’s top finisher was senior Trevor Petach at number 43.

University of Vermont also had a strong showing at the competition, finishing second overall and taking the top two spots in the Men’s Giant Slalom. Harvard senior Christopher Kinner came in 32nd place with a total time of 2:07:49, almost eight seconds behind first place. The Catamounts also took the top spot in the women’s version of the event, while the Crimson’s top finisher was junior Margie Thorp in 37th place with a time of 2:14:36.

The second day was more of the same for Harvard. Saturday’s events started off with the first run of the Men’s Slalom, where Crimson sophomore Kevin McNamara finished 34th, and he maintained that position after his second run with an overall time of 1:51:71. Freshman Kevin Sprague—who is also a Harvard cross-country runner—came in the 33rd spot in the Men’s 20k Freestyle Mass Start, an even won by the University of New Hampshire. The Women’s 15k Freestyle Mass Start saw Mangan come in 30th place. Mangan recorded a time of 52:33:0.

Saturday’s events ended with the second run of the Women’s Slalom. Dartmouth came in on top to solidify its victory overall, while Crimson freshman Catherine Sheils came in 21st place. Sheils ran both times in the 58-second range to finish with a combined time of 1:57:35.

“It was a matter of putting two runs together and we went out there, but we were not able to stay on our feet,” junior Brad Alvarez said. “Hopefully next week we can come out and stay on our feet so we can place a little higher.”