Skiing Slips at Dartmouth

It was more of the same for the Harvard skiing teams this weekend, despite many steps in the right direction. Harvard finished in 11th place out of the 12 schools attending the Dartmouth carnival.

The Crimson finished with 197 team points, to Vermont’s 753.5 first-place finish. In the overall standings Harvard managed to defeat just one school, Green Mountain College, who did not race in the nordic portion.

Harvard did, however, manage to close its gap with 10th-place Bowdoin down to just 26.5 points. The Crimson has been creeping up on Bowdoin the entire year, going from 75 points behind in the first carnival to this weekend’s narrow margin.

“It’s a team goal to take down Bowdoin,” sophomore alpine skier Matt Perone said.

The Harvard team was led once again by sophomore Anna McLoon who pushed Harvard out to a strong start. McLoon, who races for the nordic team, finished tenth both days of the weekend’s events. McLoon picked up 55 of the women’s team’s combined day total of 88 points.

Other contributors to the women’s nordic point total include co-captain Julia Silvis who managed a 45th place finish on Friday in the women’s 10k and a 44th place spot in the next day’s 10k pursuit. Silvis racked up 19 team points with her finishing positions.

The rest of the points for the women’s nordic team came from co-captain Kate Damon who finished with 14 points to round out the Harvard scoring.

On the men’s side of the nordic events, senior Boris Granovskiy followed up his seven-point effort on Friday with another seven point finish on Saturday to lead the men’s team with 14 team points.

Other contributors for the men’s team included freshman Ross Feller and sophomore Ross MacDonald who picked up a combined 20 points to allow the men to finish up with 34 on the weekend.

After the nordic portion, Harvard sat just ahead of 11th-place Saint Michael’s College with 122 points, needing a strong showing from the alpine team to move up in the standings.

The alpine team gave what it could. Despite not being able to catch Bowdoin or hold off Saint Michael’s, the Crimson still had a strong showing.

The men’s alpine team was led by Perone who skied into a 51st place finish and seven team points in the giant slalom on Friday and then picked up nine points in Saturday’s slalom.

His team-leading 16 points equaled that of senior Ryan Myers who had six the first day and 10 the second.

“Matt Perone had a really good weekend,” co-captain Kenan Stern said. “He had solid slalom and giant slalom runs.”

Harvard was helped by the fact that every member of the squad was able to complete the entire course, not missing a single gate or taking any falls.

“Everyone finished, which was really good,” freshman Carrie Baizer said. “We had great weather and the races went off really smoothly.”

The men’s alpine team picked up a combined two-day total of 43 points, easily outpacing Bowdoin’s 13.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” Perone said.

The women’s alpine team was led by Baizer and her 44th-place finish in the giant slalom and a 40th-place finish in the next day’s slalom. Baizer ended up with a total of 19 team points, more than half of the team’s two-day total of 32.

Looking ahead, Harvard has two carnivals remaining in its attempt to catch Bowdoin. No Harvard skier is giving up as each looks to get better with experience.

“There are some girls I have been finishing around that I would like to beat,” Baizer said.

The Crimson skiing teams are back in action next weekend when they travel to the Williams Carnival.