MIDDLEBURY CARNIVAL - EISA REGIONALS

This past weekend was the last carnival of the season at Middlebury!  We survived the rain and high winds on Friday during the 5/10K Classic and enjoyed a nice day on Saturday for the mass start skate races. It was a very successful weekend for the team with multiple top 10 finishes.

Will Wicherski led the men's team both days with an 8th place finish on Friday and a top 5 finish on Saturday! Those results solidified Will's spot at NCAA's for the third year in a row! Rounding out the scoring men's team on Friday in the classic race were seniors Kalle Jahn and Isaac Hoenig in 19th and 23rd place. Eli, Vanya and Jordan followed closely behind in 27th, 29th and 30th putting all 6 skiers in the top 30 once again!
Friday's 10K Classic results:
http://www.barttiming.com/eisa/Results14/mc2014-4.pdf
Hannah Cole led the women's team both days with a 15th place finish on Friday and a 9th place finish on Saturday. Like Will, Hannah's finishes solidified her spot at the NCAA championships! .4 seconds behind Hannah Cole on Friday was Hannah Benson in 16th place, followed closely by Elena in 25th to round out our scoring top-three. The women's team scored 69 points on the day, just 11 points less than the men's team! Olivia finished the day in 39th, Eliza 43rd and Sarah in 46th.
Friday's 5K Classic results:
http://www.barttiming.com/eisa/Results14/mc2014-3.pdf

After the races on Friday we cleaned a large # of klister skis. The truck is AWESOME when the wind is blowing 30+ mph with driving rain!!

Saturday's races did not disappoint. Much better weather and a very spectator friendly course made for an exciting day.

The men's team finished 3rd on the day with Will leading the way in 5th, Eli in 12th and Isaac in 19th. Vanya was in a sprint finish with Isaac and finished 20th. Kalle was just behind in 22nd and Jordan in 24th, once again showcasing our amazing depth. All 6 men were in the top 24. It was awesome to see 1/4 of the field up front in Williams suits!!
Saturday's 20K Skate results:
http://www.barttiming.com/eisa/Results14/mc2014-8.pdf

The women's 15K came next. An exciting start with several crashes created some extra work for a few of our skiers, but our scoring 3 skied very solidly with Hannah Cole finishing in 9th, Hannah Benson in 21st, and Elena in 32nd. Olivia finished in 38th, Eliza 48th and Sarah in 52nd. The course at Middlebury can be brutal and everyone on the team gave it their all and left everything out on the course. It was a great day!
http://www.barttiming.com/eisa/Results14/mc2014-7.pdf

After the 15k we had an outstanding tailgate (as always) courtesy of the Williams parents. THANK YOU PARENTS!!

Co-Captain Seniors, Isaac and Kalle
BUDDIES FOR LIFE!!!! We're sure going to miss you guys!

Sarah striding

Eliza in Friday's Classic Race

Olivia kicking and gliding

Men's 20K Mass Start

Will chasing down Dartmouth skiers

Jordan leading a chase pack

Kalle and Isaac

Eli charging hard

Vanya and Isaac skiing together

Will with coaches after the race

Coaches. Bud is the one with the sweet headband.

And here are the links to the Ephsports write-ups of the weekend:
http://ephsports.williams.edu/sports/skiing/2013-14/releases/20140221r38oqe
http://ephsports.williams.edu/sports/skiing/2013-14/releases/20140222fcjqjh

We're staying sharp this week and getting ready to take off to Utah on Sunday with Will, Eli and Hannah Cole for NCAA's. Luke, Hannah Benson and Laura will be racing at Junior Nationals. The rest of the team is continuing to train in preparation for the Bretton Woods Marathon and a variety of other races around New England. Stay tuned for news from Utah next week!

WILLIAMS CARNIVAL WEEK

We had a great week of skiing leading up to our home carnival. Even the golf course was groomed this week, which was very handy for those with afternoon classes!

Golf course grooming. Thank you Facilities Crew!

On Thursday night Tom and Liz Costley had the whole team up for a pre-race team dinner. It was excellent and the team had a great time. Thank you Tom and Liz!!

Enjoying the cozy fireplace

Will and Kalle discussing race strategy

Enjoying each other's company after dinner

THE RACES:

The last carnival race that was held at Prospect was in 2010. This past weekend the 4 year drought ended with a BANG as mother nature dropped about 2 feet of snow on us Thursday, Friday and Saturday with the majority falling Thursday into Friday. This made for some really tough race organizing and grooming, but the races went off as planned thanks to a ton of work by many folks and the weekend was a success. On Friday the snow was so deep that the relay course had to be shortened to 3.25k in order to keep up with the grooming. Here is a shot from the waxing truck of the snowy landscape:

VERY SNOWY

The women's race went off first. Our team of Hannah Benson, Elena and Hannah Cole had the strongest women's result of the year and finished the day in 4th place! Eliza, Laura and Tsaina were the second Eph team to finish on the day. Results can be found here:

http://www.barttiming.com/eisa/Results14/woc2014-3.pdf

Eli, Jordan and Will also had a strong day and finished 4th in the team standings as well! Our second team to finish on the day was the team of Kalle, Isaac and Will. Results can be found here:

http://www.barttiming.com/eisa/Results14/woc2014-4.pdf

That evening we joined the outing club crew and Williams College President Adam Falk in an opening ceremonies parade down to Poker from Paresky.
There was a nice ice sculpture:

Silhouettes of the alpine and nordic ski teams
in front of the ice sculpture

 At the end of the parade there was a nice bonfire to help keep warm:

And a great fireworks display!

DAY 2 OF RACING:

We arrived to Prospect cloudy skies, but no falling snow on Saturday morning. That break in the weather gave the tracks a chance to set up a bit and things held up relatively well even though the snow started in again by about 8:30.

Our scoring women's team was lead by Hannah Cole in 15th, Hannah Benson in 22nd and Elena Luthi in 27th place. Eliza also was in the top 30 followed by Laura in 40th and Tsaina in 41st.

Women's Results: http://www.barttiming.com/eisa/Results14/woc2014-7.pdf

The men also skied well and found themselves on the podium again finishing in 3rd on the day. Eli led the way in 9th, followed by Vanya in 12th, Will in 20th, Isaac 21st, Jordan 25th and Kalle 31st.

Men's Results: http://www.barttiming.com/eisa/Results14/woc2014-8.pdf

It was a very successful weekend of racing with lots of individual and team personal bests!

Here is a little highlight video put together by Dylan Dethier:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbxKbcS9DlU#t=310

and the ephsports write-ups:

Day one: http://ephsports.williams.edu/sports/skiing/2013-14/releases/20140214ec3pwg
Day two: http://ephsports.williams.edu/sports/skiing/2013-14/releases/20140215keo0br


After all the racing was over Jayvin wanted to get a good look at the waxing truck:

STILL SNOWING!

Before the weekend the EISA coaches had brainstormed a way to honor Bud at his last home carnival after FOUR DECADES of leading the Ephs. After the awards ceremony I said a few words to acknowledge Bud and then handed over the mic:

BUD thanking the EISA crew

The EISA coaches then presented Bud with a t-shirt from their school. It was a great gathering to acknowledge the accomplishments of an incredible coach. WAY TO ROCK THE COW FOR 40 YEARS BUD!

And then the Dartmouth Men's team caught up on their Carnie Crush performance for the Williams Women:

All in all our home carnival was a big success and we'll look forward to hosting again in 2016!!!

Sunday's weather was absolutely beautiful and the team got in a nice classic ski at Prospect:

Jordan, Eli, Vanya, Elena, Laura and Jenna
on Chickadee

Thursday we head to Middlebury for the REGIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS!

WILLIAMS IN 3RD AFTER DAY 1 XC EVENTS

It was a total blizzard today for the skate relays, but our team raced well and currently sits in 3rd after day 1 of the Williams Carnival.

The course was shortened to 3.25 k so the groomer had a better chance of keeping up with the snowfall. Hopefully Steve has luck packing the snow down for the classic races tomorrow. GO EPHS!

Dartmouth Carnival

Winter is definitely here now and we've been enjoying some great skiing over the past couple of weeks! Here are a couple pictures from recent days:

Hannah B and Tsaina at Prospect
Before the big storm!

Luke and Ben on a post race weekend
distance ski

On Thursday we left Williamstown for the second week in a row with the Hob Knob in Stowe as the destination. The Dartmouth races were held in Craftsbury, but Stowe is under an hour drive away and provides better accommodation and dinner options for the team. We were invited to ski at the Halvorsen's on Thursday afternoon and it DID NOT disappoint. Absolutely amazing and an awesome day of skiing!!!  Thank you so much Halvorsen family!

Nice Setting

Perfect tracks all to ourselves!

No caption needed.

Eliza, Sarah, Laura, Elena, Luke and Hans
ALL SMILES!

Post race tele practice and dog racing

Olivia happy in the snow!
Vanya may have been responsible for this

DARTMOUTH CARNIVAL RACING

We woke up early Friday morning and headed to Craftsbury to find perfect snow conditions with about an inch of new snow on top of a very firm skate track. The men fired up an outstanding day and finished on the podium for the 3rd race in a row! Here is the EISA websites summary of the day regarding the EPH MEN:

"Williams College put no skiers in the top ten on Friday, but still managed to put 5 in the top-20 by placing Eli Hoenig 12th, Will Wicherski 13th, and Jordan Fields 15th. The solid skiing by the deep Ephs team capped off their third team podium in as many races, and continued their quietly impressive season. Vanya Rybkin was 17th and Isaac Hoenig was 19th on the day."

We've had many folks come up to us this year to comment on the depth of our team. It's really exciting to see and the boys keep us guessing everyday as to what the finish order is going to be!

The women's team followed up the men Friday with Hannah Benson, Hannah Cole and Tsaina leading the way as our top three.

Here are the results from the Skate Races:

http://www.barttiming.com/eisa/Results14/EISA/doc2014-4.pdf
http://www.barttiming.com/eisa/Results14/EISA/doc2014-3.pdf

Saturday's competitions were the 15/20K Classic individual start races. The Craftsbury 5K loop is brutal with a ton of climbing and the team capitalized on their fitness and skiing abilities for another successful day of racing.

The men's field started first again and finished 4th overall, tying UNH for the 3rd place finish for the weekend. Jordan led the way in 10th, followed by Eli in 12th and Isaac in 18th. All 6 carnival skier men finished in the top 31!

Men's results:

http://www.barttiming.com/eisa/Results14/EISA/doc2014-8.pdf

The women went next in the 15K classic and rallied to a much higher team score than on Friday. Hannah Cole led the way with her first top ten finish! Hannah was followed by Elena who had a great race on the grueling course in 27th and Eliza who would have finished 35th in the college race, but was racing in the open field. Tsaina rounded out our top three scorers in 36th place.

Women's results:

http://www.barttiming.com/eisa/Results14/EISA/doc2014-7.pdf

And here is the ephsports write-up for the weekend:
http://ephsports.williams.edu/sports/skiing/2013-14/releases/20140208gqf8sk

The parents were a HUGE help as always this weekend manning the food table. In addition Bill Jahn headed up the feed station on the race course, Peter Benson was taking video and Peter Hoenig and Emily Benson were taking pictures! Bud and I could not do this without such a GREAT PARENT CREW. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Here are a few of Emily's pictures from the weekend:

Okay, this is from my iPhone.
It was CARNIE CRUSH weekend.
CAN YOU TELL?
HARVARD BOYS

Hannah Benson en route to a great skate
performance

Eli

Eli and Vanya
Vanya caught a great ride for 8K!

Kalle

The outstanding (and pretty famous at this point)
Williams Parent Food Table!

Laura

Will striding away

Eli charging the top of the big climb

Vanya

Jordan racing to his first collegiate TOP TEN!

Luke on the big hill

Tsaina

Elena

Olivia

Hannah Cole on her way to her first TOP TEN CLASSIC
RESULT

Hannah Benson

Eliza

Jenna

Eph Waxing Headquarters

We returned to Prospect for our distance ski on Sunday to find excellent PistonBully groomed conditions.

Prospect race loop pic taken
Sunday Feb 9th.

More snow is forecasted for this Thursday, so the trails will definitely be white for the 5/10K Classic races and the 3x5K Skate relays this Friday and Saturday at the Williams Winter Carnival. Hopefully we'll see many of you there! ROCK THE COW!