Sunday, January 17, 2016

First Carnival ups and downs

The Weekend:
So in all honesty I'd really hoped to be able to write this blog post telling everyone that we had won the Chummy Cup. As most of you probably already know, I can't do that. For the first time in four years, we did not bring home the cup, and I have to say that it wasn't a fun drive back.

That being said, I'm reminding myself that the Colby skiers earned their turn at the cup, and we'll have another chance in only a year. Ya, I will never be able to say that I held the cup for my whole time at Bates, but it helps the remember that the Colby team is made up of our friends, and for all of them, this is their first time taking home the victory. Their first-year skier Zane Fields had an amazing day, finishing 6th, and any day a Mainer finishes in the top 10 is a good day in my book. So I might be bummed we cant put "Bates" under the 2016 winner, but at least I can be happy that we lost it fair and square, to a team that put out an amazing effort.

But enough about Colby, let's get back to how we did. We finished 7th overall for the weekend (including our alpiners), which considering the loss of Hallie Grossman is a decent improvement from most of last-years places. Our girls team had a solid weekend, finishing 8th in the sprint and 6th in the 10k, while on the men's side a disappointing 10th in the sprint gave way to a much improved 7th in the 10k. I asked Gracie (our resident math major) about trend lines in data sets, and at our current trend we will be finishing first by the first weekend of the UVM carnival.

Some fun results:

Sadie, Halie, and Connor all qualified for the sprints, and put out some super solid efforts.

Parker had a wicked fast 10k, finishing 22nd

Our Girls packed the 20s in the 10k, with Laurel 20th, Sadie 22nd, Halie 26th, and Britta 29th

Freshmen Hadley Moreau and Samantha Pierce (plus sophomore transfer Henry Colt!) debuted to stellar performances across the board. I'm sure that there will be a lot more awesome results coming out of our newest members in the days to come.

Becky had some words of encouragement for us, pointing out that compared to last year we are off to a strong start, and that we will just be getting stronger as the season goes. So even if I (and maybe some of my teammates) were disappointed with the weekend, we can be happy with our efforts and look forward to improvements in the weeks to come.

Here are some photos, shamelessly stolen from Steve Fuller's Facebook. (You should check out his website at flyingpointroad.com for more amazing pictures, and maybe even buy one of your favorite Bobcat.)
Haile Charging
Coach Upham "encouraging" us
Why the weightroom is important: that bib is not filled out
Sadie demonstrating a dope tuck (notice the glitter and bobtat)
Britta hitting the sprint hard, and proving that with the right camera even Waterville can look like Soldier Hollow
Haile putting the hammer down in the quarterfinal

So I know I promised that I would post our sophomore biographies today, but I'm tired, and this post is already getting long, so I'll save them for sometime tomorrow. So until tomorrow I'll be doing what nordies do best, laying in bed, watching Netflix, and calling it recovery.

-Max


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