We opened our collegiate season this past weekend at the Bates Carnival with three top-10 individual results, and several solid team placings, including a 4th for the women’s alpine in GS.
Alpine Race Report by Coach Mitchell
Harvard alpine took to the hill this weekend for the first collegiate race of the season at Sunday River. Snow conditions were great, although some new fallen snow and strong winds made visibility difficult at times. The women’s team got off to a strong start with a 4th place finish in Friday’s GS, led by some stellar skiing by Rebeca Nadler in 6th position. Catherine Sheils and Caroline McHugh rounded out the scoring spots for the team with very strong results in 21st and 30th respectively. This represents some of the best GS skiing we’ve seen from the ladies this year. Freshmen Cate Kistler and Liz Strong both ran into trouble in the first run, but only after putting down some great turns on the challenging upper section of the course. With the addition of several new teams to the league has come a new rule cutting the field down to the top 60 after the first run. The men had a tough go of it and narrowly missed the cut-off in the GS.
In Saturday’s slalom, the women were poised for another strong result after the first run, but a few hiccups in the second run had the women end up in 8th position. Scoring was again led by Rebecca Nadler, who took advantage of a great second run start position, putting down one of the faster runs of the afternoon for a 10th place result, her best collegiate slalom result. Catherine Sheils was on the verge of a top-10 result after a fast first run, but was caught out by a tight flush-gate in the second run, costing her a bunch of time, but a heads-up move by her in skiing the combination gate backwards saved some time and saved some team points in the process. She ended up 14th on the day. Caroline McHugh had a solid first run, but was forced out of the course after getting her pole stuck in the second run, ripping her pole and glove off of her hand completely. Cate Kistler had a very solid top section of the first run going, but was caught out on the side hill section and Liz Strong diced the hardest part of the pitch and posted a split time that would have had her threatening the top-10, but hit a rut funny a few gates before the finish, costing her a chance at the second run.
The men put down some better skiing on Saturday, with Kevin McNamara and Andrew Spilevogel both skiing runs that would have qualified them for the second run, but both ran into trouble at the transition coming off the steep pitch. Ian Anderson was linking together a fast run, but a straddle took him out of contention. All in all, there were some great things to come out of the weekend, but the team is primed to take it up a notch for next weekend’s UNH carnival.
Nordic Race Report by Coach City
New snow – 6-8″ of it – fell as light dry powder in Rumford on Thursday night. Winter, finally! The new snow altered the course from the hard and fast manmade snow we’ve been skiing on since early December to something more familiar to the West. The 5km skate used a variation of the national championship course with well-spaced climbs and very skiable downhills. Alena Tofte led the team with a career-best 7th place finish. Clare Miller and Esther Kennedy were neck-and-neck in the mid-30s. The men skied 10km, which meant
3 trips up the fabled “High School Hill.” Chris Stock rallied in the third lap to move from the mid-20s up into 19th. Akeo Maifeld-Carucci, Tanner Wiegand and Tor O’Brien also moved up in the standings as the race progressed, which indicates good fitness.
The mass start classic races went off on Saturday under lightly falling new snow. Alena and Esther skied near each other for most of the race and led the team with 22nd and 28th place finishes respectively. It was Esther’s best finish since her freshman year. Jen Rolfes rounded out the scoring in 43rd. With a relatively short race distance, a deep field, and a mass start, the men’s race skied in a series of pulsing charges that alternately slimmed the pack and let it re-constitute. Chris, Akeo and Tanner were all in the main pack for most of the race. Chris repeated his 19th place finish with another late-race charge. With Tanner and Akeo also finishing in the top 40 (about 40 seconds behind Chris), the men’s team placed 7th for the day, up from 9th in the skate race.
Junior Tony Ryerson suffered a season-ending broken arm after falling in practice on Tuesday. He had surgery to repair it on Friday and was in our thoughts throughout the weekend. We wish him a quick recovery!












