Our regular season is quickly coming to a close. This past weekend we were at the Williams Carnival, where our guys continued to move up the standings and our women put down some more historic finishes.

Alpine Report by Coach Mitchell

The Harvard Alpine Team competed in the last regular-season carnival of the year this past weekend, the Williams College Winter Carnival, hosted at Jiminy Peak. Conditions for Friday’s GS race were windy to say the least, with coaches needing to hold their athletes from getting blown out of the start gate. Nonetheless, our skiers skied agressively and had some good results to show for it. The women’s team matched its best-ever 6th place finish from the UVM Carnival with another 6th place on the strength of an outstanding race by Caroline McHugh in 18th place, supported by Catherine Sheils in 28th and Tess Wood in 38th. The women had another solid finish in Saturday’s SL, with the team in 8th place on the strength of another consistent SL performance by Catherine Sheils in 21st, with Tenley Malquist in 32nd, Caroline McHugh in 37th, and Tess Wood 43rd.

The men moved up a spot this week to finish 9th in the standings in both SL and GS. The team was anchored, as always, by solid skiing from Chris Kinner, 29th in GS and 27th in SL. The rest of the men pitched in with Andrew Spielvogel recording a 41st and 30th in GS and SL respectively, Sam Harrison with a 37th in SL, and Brad Alvarez and Alec Boardman going 46-47 in the GS. Up next, NCAA Eastern Regional Championships at Middlebury this Friday-Saturday. One more race to show our stuff, wish us luck!

Nordic Report by Coach City

The women have now beaten every team in the league except for Dartmouth at least once.

Senior Audrey Mangan had a career weekend with two top-20 finishes at Williams. On Friday, she led the team with a 13th-place finish in the 5km Classic. Esther Kennedy (17th), Alena Tofte (22nd), and Cara Sprague (29th) also finished in the top 30, giving us our third 5th place women’s finish of the year. In the 5km Skate on Saturday, Audrey finished 17th, followed by Esther (27th) and Alena (28th). Anika Petach (47th in the classic) and Clare Miller (45th in the skate) also had solid races this weekend.

In the 10km skate, senior Trevor Petach matched his season best placing of 37th–and was just 30 seconds out of the top 25. Kevin Sprague showed signs of returning to his early season form, tagging onto 7th place finisher Sam Tarling near the end of his second lap and skating to a 43rd place finish. Both Kevin and Trevor finished in the 40s in the classic race. Tor O’Brien had career bests both days, finishing 54th and 56th, and might well have cracked the top 50 except for a collision with an overtaking skier. Races both days were held under overcast skies, but in otherwise surprisingly good conditions. Cover was thin in Bennington, but Prospect Mountain had a couple of feet and seemed to be the sole exception to the recent drought of snow in New England. Fortunately, Middlebury and much of the rest of northern New England picked up a deep snowfall last night.

I’m very pleased to report that two of our skiers have been named to regional teams for the 2010 USSA Cross-Country Junior Olympics in Presque Isle, Maine. Kevin was named to the Mid-Atlantic team based on his performances in EISA racing this year. Tony Ryerson was named second-alternate for the New England team following his outstanding skiing in qualifying races this weekend in Gunstock and Holderness, New Hampshire.

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