At least the bullwheel was turning.
EISA racers capped off a grueling weekend of races by returning to Lyme, NH, this morning for the rescheduled Dartmouth Carnival GS. The original race was cancelled last week due to unsafe race conditions. As a result, EISA staged a third day of racing after competing in the Middlebury Carnival SL and GS races on Friday and Saturday.
Although today’s race was an official rescheduling of the Dartmouth Carnival GS, there was no team scoring. The Dartmouth Carnival SL race scores were doubled to account for team scores last week, and today’s races count only towards individual qualification to the NCAA Championships.
Without team scores on the line, Middlebury and Dartmouth chose to bench their top talent in the men’s race. All of yesterday’s GS podium winners were noticeably absent: Erik Arvidsson (MID), Tim Gavett (MID), and Drew Duffy (DAR). By and large, the rest of EISA was game to race, eager for the slightly elevated chance of scoring NCAA Qualification points. You might say it was a not-quite-Carnival Carnival race.
You might also say it was a stacked Carnival race: the top-10 men all finished within a half-second of each other.
The University of Vermont’s Patrick McConville won the GS in a combined time of 2:01.47, a mere .02 seconds over Middlebury College’s Justin Alkier (2:01.49). Third place resulted in a tie: Saint Michael’s College’s Benjamin Throm shared the podium step with Middlebury’s Pate Campbell after they both skied their race runs in 2:01.64.
You might be thinking, A tie? That’s odd. And it is, a little.
But get this: there were three pairs of tied finishers in the top-10. Three! It almost makes me wonder about the efficacy of the timing system. Or about the physics of space, time, and gravity on the strangely flat Worden’s Trail out here at the Skiway.
After Throm's teammate Guillaume Grand took fifth (2:01.70), UVM’s Max Roeisland and UNH’s Patrick Kenney tied for sixth (2:01.73). Rounding out the top-10 were Kipling Weisel (DAR; 2:01.79), who occupied eighth place by his own, lonesome self before his teammates David Domonoske and Peter Fucigna — you guessed it! — tied for ninth: 2:01.93.
The women’s race results are far less peculiar. There’s a bit more daylight between the top women: nearly three seconds.
Dartmouth repeated their season-long habit of placing three finishers in the top-four. The Big Green’s Alexa Dlouhy won the race in 2:02.36. Her teammate, Patricia Mangan, came in second, nearly a half-second back in a time of 2:02.80 — and UVM’s Mille Graesdal (2:03.16) took third. Steph Currie (DAR; 2:04.15) finished fourth.
Catamount Francesca English finished in fifth place with a time of 2:04.28 before UNH’s Lisa Olsson and Emma Woodhouse came through in 2:04.73 and 2:04.78, respectively. (Close, but not a tie!) Rounding out the top-10: Midd’s Caroline Bartlett (8th; 2:04.85) and UVM’s Rachael Desrochers (9th; 2:05.03) and Josefine Selvaag (10th; 2:05.20).
Hopefully all the EISA racers and coaches get a good night’s sleep tonight. On Thursday, we all head up to Newry, Maine, for the NCAA Eastern Region Championships at the Bates College Carnival!
See you at the Jolly Drayman!