BRIEF: Skiing Closes Regular Season In Vermont

The Harvard skiing team ended its regular season this weekend at the Middlebury Winter Carnival, where it finished 10th out of the 15 teams in the Eastern Intercollegiate Skiing Association. Dartmouth continued its dominance, placing first overall for the Big Green’s fourth carnival win of the season.

Conditions at the Rikert Nordic Center in Ripton, Vermont were ideal Friday after a week of snow, and warm temperatures on Saturday brought out a sizeable crowd to watch the races.

“It was a really supportive and loud group of people,” junior Kelly Steeves said. “Results-wise, it was a bit challenging, as the field is really deep this year, but everyone skied quite well.”

The Crimson was able to notch top ten marks in both the Men’s and Women’s Classic Sprint Relays. For the men, senior Devlin Shea and freshman William Rhatigan skied to a ninth place finish with a combined time of 22:03.0, while on the women’s side, senior captain Rachel Hampton along with sophomore Hannah Hardenbergh earned ninth place, posting a time of 24:09.5.

Hampton continued her strong showing with a top finish for Harvard in the 15K FS, coming in 22nd at 42:54.3. She was followed by Hardenbergh who crossed the line 33rd, at 44:27.5.

In the men’s 20K FS, Rhatigan finished first of the Crimson skiers at 31st place overall, with a time of 50.09.1. Seniors Ian Meyer and Devlin Shea also scored in the event, placing 40th and 42nd respectively. They were followed by sophomore Connor Green who came in 59th and freshman Mackinley Fitzpatrick who finished 60th.

The alpine skiers were led by a strong performance from Steeves, who finished 33rd overall in giant slalom with a time of 2:12.74 and 35th overall in women’s slalom with a combined run time of 1:48.73. For the men’s side, freshman Carter Kendig finished 55th in giant slalom with a time of 2:09.15.

“The big goal for our season qualitatively was to do a better job making race day performance a lot more like what we see out of the athletes during training,” alpine head coach Tim Mitchell said. “For the most part, I think we did a pretty good job of transitioning the stuff we’ve been working on in practice into the race.”

Next weekend the team will look to continue acting on this goal as it competes in the NCAA Regional Championships at Sunday River Ski Resort in Maine.