Dartmouth’s Depth and Buckrell’s Double Highlight Carnival Opener
- Caleb Horsch
- 12 hours ago
- 3 min read
By: Caleb Horsch
The carnival season went off with a bang this past weekend as the 13 teams of the Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association raced down the iconic Narrow Gauge hill at Sugarloaf Mountain. Conditions were solid for both days of racing, with cold weather during the Slalom on Friday setting the surface up for an excellent day of GS racing on Saturday. Dartmouth College emerged from two competitive days of racing, building a commanding lead as the alpine portion of the Colby Carnival concluded. They will turn things over to their Nordic squad who will race next weekend.
The Dartmouth men were led by four podium finishes, including Oscar Zimmer and first-year Louis De Pourtales who finished second and third in the Slalom, as well as Dan Gillis and Heming Sola who landed second and third in the GS. With four different skiers on the podium, and Philip Lunquist and Sawyer Reed finishing in the top 10, Dartmouth looks to have a level of depth that will be difficult to match.
Dartmouth was also helped by senior Riley Grosdidier who took the top spot on the podium in the women’s GS. The result marked Grosdidier’s first collegiate win and will earn her the GS leader’s bib when the season continues next week at Saint Lawrence.
Despite the podium finishes from the Big Green, it was reigning NCAA Slalom Champion Jayden Buckrell from the University of New Hampshire who took wins in both events. Buckrell looked dominant across both days. He won the Slalom by 1.20 seconds, showing last year’s performance was anything but a fluke. He followed it up on Saturday with another win, this time in GS, filling the massive hole left by former Middlebury skier Bradshaw Underhill to claim another impressive victory.
For Buckrell, managing first run leads proved a challenging proposition. "It was extremely tough mentally to be leading both first runs, trying to convert them to wins for the team." But Buckrell managed the challenge exceedingly well, crediting his and his team’s success to a recent big training block. Buckrell added that he and the Wildcats were looking to use the race "to build off of the performance heading into Saint Lawrence this weekend where we had some strong performances last year."
The Wildcats skied to second place in the team standings, on the back of Buckrell but also assisted by first-year Celine Sommerova who skied to fourth in the Slalom and Tilde Kandell in seventh in the GS. Also of note were Benedetta Caloro’s finishes across both days of racing. The graduate transfer from Saint Lawrence finished 11th in the Slalom and backed it up with a seventh-place finish in GS.
The University of Vermont had strong finishes from their newcomers, headlined by Cailin Apple and Sara Stiel in Slalom where they landed sixth and 15th respectively. But it was Cydnie Timmerman who led the squad with a second and fourth-place finish on the weekend that landed her Skier of the Week honors. The Catamounts wrapped up the weekend in third place in the team standings.
Hosts Colby had phenomenal results from their women’s squad with three different skiers landing on the podium. In what was no surprise to any who followed last season closely, Carissa Cassidy dominated the field to win by nearly two seconds. However, first-year Katharine McKenney turned heads by winning the second run and scoring a very impressive second-place result in her first college race as a Mule. McKenney was not the only Mule with a first-ever podium finish, as Althea Noyes delivered a superb second run to finish third.
Speaking after the weekend Cassidy reflected on her teammate’s performance, “it felt pretty special to watch Althea and Kate get their first podiums at home, and I felt super lucky to have had a good day of Slalom in my last race at Sugarloaf.”
Speaking after the weekend, Cassidy reflected on her teammates’ performances: "It felt pretty special to watch Althea and Kate get their first podiums at home, and I felt super lucky to have had a good day of Slalom in my last race at Sugarloaf."
Other notable results this weekend included Williams College senior Eliza Sullivan, who scored her first collegiate podium to kick off her senior season, and the Boston College men’s team who finished third in both days of racing. Bode Flanagan and Nick Kirwood both finished in the top 10 in both events and Colin Hanna grabbed tenth in the GS. Duncan Armstrong from Harvard just barely missed his first podium but scored fourth in Saturday’s GS.
In total, five different teams grabbed at least one podium finish, which bodes well for a thrilling season of racing. The league will have a short week of training before racing kicks off at Whiteface Mountain on Thursday.