10 qualify for sprint heats at UNH carnival in Jackson

A fantastic day for the Ephs!! We qualified 5 women and 5 men to enter the quarterfinals, had 3 advance to the semis, 2 in the B-finals and 1 into the final.
Alice Nelson burned up the tracks this morning, finishing 5th in the prologue. She was joined into the quarterfinals by her teammates Kirsten, Liz, Holly, and Fiona. Alice was the only one to advance to the semis, where she took a solid second. In the final she held onto the front of the pack until the home stretch, where she barely missed third place. Her fourth place finish today becomes the best placing of her career.
On the mens side, Dimitri had the top prologue finish in 3rd and was joined by teammates Keith Kantack, Alex Taylor, Sam Kapala, and Evan Dethier.
Keith Kantack had an exciting semi, staying in the running all the way to the finish line, until he was boxed out by the first place skier so that he was unable to keep ahead of third place. Dimitri and Sam Kapala both had very strong quarterfinals and both advance to the semis, getting knocked out and then racing again in the B-finals.
Full results have not yet been posted as of this blog time, but they will be at the bart timing address:
http://www.barttiming.com/eisa/Results09/unh09.htm

Alice heads the charge in her semifinal - putting on the hurt right from the start.

Dimitri and Atay come to the final small hill in the midst of their quarterfinal pack.

Sam Kapala, coming into the stadium with two different poles after breaking one in the woods.

Keith Kantack stayed in the running all the way to the finish line with these two skiers, fighting for second behind UNH's Beddard, until boxed out by Beddard and getting edged by UVM's Uhl.

hannah, holly, maddy: cheering loud and proud.

Waffle Night

On Monday, Bud and Barb had the boys up to Pine Cobble for an evening of waffles. The waffles were made from Barb's Norwegian recipe and had us all longing for another trip to Sjusjoen.

Evan with his waffle.


Batter.


Caleb and Dave thought nobody was watching.



A good time.

Sunday Tour at Prospect w/ the girls

Day 2 of Bates Carnival

Maddy and Emily help give feeds - and smiles - for the mens race

Holly and Sarah push each other to catch places along the 3 lap course.

Atay holds his own out of the uphill, double pole sprint at the mass start.

Nick and Dave took turns pulling each other around the 4 lap course - what a team!

Keith and Dimitri - at the food table with glazed eyes after a very long, tough race.

Erik enjoys some post-race carbs at the food table and chats with (mom of Alice) Deb Nelson

Alice . . . .

Maddy lends a shoulder to an exhausted Gabby.
Address for article and results:
http://athletics.williams.edu/sports/skiing/2008-09/news/01_24_09_Bates_Day_2

First Carnival Race!!

Even with slow, wind-blown tracks, some of the top results in the 5 and 10 kilometer classic races were decided by mere seconds. The temperatures were much warmer than predicted, with a high of 24 under a cloudy sky.
Both mens and womens teams looked and finished really strong, all scorers earning 21st place and higher. For such a great showing, both teams took 5th, indicating the high level of competitiveness on the eastern circuit this year. The men had an early start, at 9:30 am, and Dimitri Luthi led the team with a 7th place finish, just .7 out of 6th. Erik Anderson and Keith Kantack rounded out our scoring team, in 19th and 21st.
For the women's team, Alice Nelson lead the charge at 10th place, Kirsten Johnson at 14th, and Liz Kantack at 20th.

womens results: http://www.eisaskiing.org/BART/Results09/bat2009-3.htm
mens results: http://www.eisaskiing.org/BART/Results09/bat2009-4.htm


Dimitri Luthi steps outside the snow-blown tracks to gain some seconds on a downhill.

Alice climbs over the top of the infamously steep High School Hill

Keith Kantack

Liz Kantack: still looking strong at 3.5km

A PR performance by Robbie Cuthbert

Fiona Worcester demonstrating strong shin angle

Great Photos!

Flying Point Road takes great photos of nordic ski races (both carnivals and eastern cups).  All the proceeds from the sale of these photos benefit NENSA!

There are lots of photos from this past weekend's Eastern Cup at Rumford.  Click HERE to check out the photos of our team!  

Eastern Cup in Rumford, ME

The less-than-posh life of a nordic skier: waxing skis the night before a race, under a flood-lamp, at below-zero temperatures.

And they're off! 170 men bolt out of the start at the same time.

Caleb and Keith hold their own in the melee, as Evan, in the background, tries not to get his pole stepped on.

Sam Kapala races a pack of skiers up the last hill.

Wow, what a weekend! Two mass start races with a total of 300 racers, around a 5 kilometer loop that had a half-foot of fresh powder covering the tracks made for some excitement! The fresh snow did slow things down a little bit, but the races were still very fast and very aggressive.

With all of the colleges represented at this open race, our men's team had the most impressive showing, taking third place behind Dartmouth and UNH. This year ALL FIVE of our top men came in before our first finisher from last year! Dimitri Luthi headed up the front of this pack, finishing in 8th, with his teammates Keith Kantack and Erik Anderson right behind him in 10th and 14th.

 
The kick waxing was easy, but the kick was tough, as the tracks were less than solid on the flats and downhills and completely wiped out on the uphills. Still, with the temp at 14 and our team used to skiing these past couple weeks at temps below 10 degrees, we all thought it felt quite balmy! And the fresh falling snow, which didn't let up once during the day, was a beautiful backdrop for the race scene.

The women finished really solid as well, capturing three places in the top thirty-five: Alice Nelson at 9th, Kirsten Johnson at 22nd, and Fiona Worcester at 34th.

We now have only 3 days at home before we travel again to Rumford, ME to compete in our first college carnival races. Our home course, at Prospect mountain, has tons of snow and we are looking forward to some easy distance ski training this week as we prepare for the back-to-back races on Friday and Saturday.

The link for full results are: http://www.nensa.net/results/index.php?io_view=events&top_event_id=184&season=
(sorry, no pics of the women's race - I was waxing and did not have my camera out! But more pics of mens race are on the web album)

Williams Men Strong at UNH Criterium

The Williams men led the team today at the UNH Criterium in Jackson, NH, exchanging the lead with the top skiers from Bates and UNH, and skiing in a pack for most of the race.  The criterium format had the men and women each ski as many laps as they could for 20 minutes on the wide, perfectly groomed sprint course and then finish out the race with three final laps.  The weather was beautiful, a little chilly, but quite sunny and most of us are sporting slight sunburns from spending the morning outside.

In the men's race, Williams skiers led at times, alternating with the top skiers from UNH (Dylan McGuffin and Steve Bedard) and Bates (Sylvan Ellefson and Sam Evans Brown).   Alex Taylor finally emerged as the top Eph, finishing 3rd in a sprint finish over Ellefson.  Bedard (UNH) took the top spot with Evans Brown (Bates) close behind.  Evan and Keith came together for 6th and 7th, just behind McGuffin of UNH.  Dimitri took 9th with Sam and Caleb right behind.  Erik, Nick, Robby, and David all looked strong and moved up through the field in the last two laps of the race to finish well.  

The women had a tougher time overcoming a dominant Middlebury squad, who took several of the top places.  Kirsten led the women's team, despite having her glove and pole ripped off her hand in a pileup of skiers, with Holly and Sarah skiied together towards to the end of the race for a close finish following Kirsten.  Liz, Maddy, skiing with a sore shoulder, and Gabby finished it off for Williams.   

The team will ski in Jackson tomorrow morning before heading home to Williamstown for week two of winter study and a trip to Rumford next weekend for the Eastern Cup.  

The men's mass start.

Evan and A-Tay right on the heels of the leaders.

Erik looks good in his first race. 

Sam goes stride for stride with a UVM racer.

Evan and Keith controlling the pace. 

The men, with Caleb in the lead, on the first uphill of the sprint course during the second lap of the race.

Evan and A-Tay power up the final hill of the sprint course mid-race...

...with Dimitri and Keith close behind. 

Robby looking fast on a sharp downhill corner.

The sharp downhill corner in the sprint course. 

Nick getting forward on the hill.

The lead pack of women early in the race.

Sarah and Liz skiing together with two laps to go. 

Gabby goes after a UVM racer.

Maddy and fellow Minnesotan and former high school teammate Katie Walsh of UNH.

Sarah and Holly, all smiles after a tough race!  

At Prospect with the New Groomer

The team is just finishing up the first week of winter study and getting ready to head to Jackson on Friday for the UNH Criterium.  The past 24 hours brought six inches of snow to Prospect and everyone was psyched to get out and test out the trails and the tracks from our new groomer.  

The men's team poses with the new groomer.

Maddy heads for the S-turns.

Bud consults with Steve about setting tracks for the afternoon.

A trio of freshmen boys: Nick, Dimitri, and Erik

Robby, Keith, and Sam.

Just another day of winter study!  Maddy, Hannah, Gabrielle, and Kirsten.

Perfect tracks from our new groomer!