Carrying the Olympic Spark into the Williams Carnival: Team Spirit, Relay Grit & Photo Finishes
- mlwagner9
- 38 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Prospect Mountain, Woodford, VT
All photos courtesy of Phillip Belena
The fifth carnival of the season brought EISA skiers to Prospect Mountain in Woodford, Vermont, for a weekend of racing hosted by Williams College. After almost a month of racing in cold temperatures, the weather finally took a warmer turn. On Friday, the skiers were greeted by sunny, bluebird skies as they prepared for their races. Quinn McDermott, a sophomore on the Williams ski team, said that the conditions at Prospect Mountain were the best he had seen all year. He "couldn't have be happier" with how the weather turned out for his home carnival.
The racing for the weekend opened with a 10k freestyle individual start, the same format as the last race at the UVM Carnival in Craftsbury. Coincidentally, it was also the same format as the men's cross country races happening the same day in Italy at the Milano-Cortina Olympic Winter Games, where many former EISA skiers competed for Team USA and Canada. After watching his teammate John Steel Hagenbuch race to an outstanding 14th-place finish overseas, Dartmouth senior Cooper Camp reflected that, "seeing John pop a really good race was super motivating" for his team. "We are super proud of his efforts."
The EISA racers completed three laps on Prospect Mountain's winding, old-school trails for Friday's 10k. Quinn McDermott shared that the Williams ski team frequently trains on the same loops as Friday's race course for their interval workouts, so his goal was to "leave it all out there" on the familiar course. McDermott's strategy was to "stay smooth, and then really rip on the last two laps, going super deep on the final hill." This strategy proved to be key for the day: McDermott put together a strong race, moving from eighth place to fifth place in the final two laps, tying his season-best result from last weekend's 10k at Craftsbury.
A similar approach was taken by UVM's senior Petter Bakken, who started his race in third place and closed on the final laps to move into the lead position. Bakken's teammate Ruben Kretzschmar finished just behind him, and the two Catamounts led their men's team to another victory. Mason Wheeler of Middlebury rounded out the podium in third, taking home his first career podium finish. Wheeler, who had been vying for the top three the whole season, said that, "it felt so good" to finally stand on the podium. "A whole gang of fourths and fifths obviously feels good," he continued, "but it's a weight off my chest to finally get a podium."
On the women's side, Dartmouth's Ava Thurston claimed her fifth win of the season, with Haley Brewster of UVM in second position and Hattie Barker of UNH in third place, securing her second podium of the season. For the Dartmouth team, the Olympic buzz from the morning, especially John Steel Hagenbuch's result, carried into the women's race. Thurston explained that her team woke up energized and ready to channel the Olympic momentum into their own performances. The Dartmouth women delivered, placing three skiers in the top ten and taking the women's team victory for the day.
On Saturday, team depth was put to the test in a 3x5k classic relay. Each team fielded two official three-person relay squads to compete for the overall victory. Snow fell as the first leg of the men's relay took to the line, each skier ready to complete two laps of a 2.5k course before tagging off to their teammates. Williams and Middlebury led early in the race, tagging off first and second after the opening leg. Saint Michael's College then surged into the lead on leg two, but by the anchor leg, five teams were still locked together in a lead pack: Dartmouth, Middlebury, Saint Michael's, and two from UVM.
On the final lap, all five teams approached the last hill as a pack, but it was Cooper Camp of Dartmouth and Ruben Kretzschmar of UVM who took the opportunity to attack. "I just tried to hang in there," Camp said. "On the last hill, I saw some guys losing steam and I felt pretty good, so I just tried to open up to see what I could do." In the final stretch, it came down to a sprint battle between UVM and Dartmouth. In a photo finish, Kretzschmar out-lunged Camp for the win by a single boot length.
The women's relay was just as competitive. Ava Thurston anticipated a close race on the women's side, which she said "will make things exciting." True to her word, Dartmouth, UVM, Bowdoin, and Middlebury pulled away from the field early in the women's race, creating a strong lead pack. After tagging off for the second leg, Dartmouth's Amelia Tucker put on a strong surge, creating a gap for the Dartmouth team as she tagged off Thurston into the anchor leg of the relay.
However, Middlebury's Shea Brams refused to go down without a fight. Brams closed the gap between Middlebury and Dartmouth on the final lap, setting up another head-to-head finish as the skiers approached the final climb. Thurston responded to Brams' challenge with a decisive move, charging away to secure the Dartmouth women their second win of the weekend and helping Dartmouth win the overall Williams Carnival title.
The racing at Prospect Mountain delivered warmth, energy, and a powerful reminder of the importance of the team behind every individual result. Cooper Camp put it best: "It's a lot of fun racing for the team in a relay. Compared to individual races, you have a lot on the line." Though cross country skiing seems like an individual sport, weekends like this make it clear that each team member is part of something greater.
The final carnival of the season, EISA Championships, will be hosted by Middlebury College at Rikert Outdoor Center in Ripton Vermont, on February 20-21. At EISA Championships, only six athletes per team are allowed to race, narrowing the field to an elite group. EISA Championships offers two final opportunities for athletes to prove they belong at the NCAA Championships in March: a 7.5k classic individual start and a 20k freestyle mass start.
A sincere thank you to the staff and volunteers at Prospect Mountain for making this weekend of racing possible!
⭐️ Full race results are available at bullitttiming.com
⭐️ Full photo sets can be downloaded at https://phillipbelena.com/eisa
⭐️ For more news & updates on EISA carnival racing, follow @eisaskiing on Instagram