Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Long Awaited Update

Our apologies for the lack of updates this blog has seen lately. Preparations for NCAA's have kept everyone quite busy. As quick as it seems, the regular season is already 2/3's over. We have two remaining carnivals, Middlebury this coming weekend and Colby the following weekend before we will be back at Bates for NCAA's. That being the case, we are already through with four Carnivals, all of which we have to update you on. We will cover them in order, Bates, UNH, UVM, and Dartmouth.

Bates:
We were happy to start off the season with our home carnival, however the first weekend didn't end exactly how we wanted it to.
Girls GS:
After the first run of the GS, Megan Papineau was in 5th place, poised for a great season opening result. Liz Thompson, Micaela Holland, and Kristin Waddle were not exactly where they wanted to be, Liz sitting in 29th, Micaela and Kristin tied for 30th place. The girls' second runs went a bit better for most with Liz, Micaela, and Kristin moving up to 21st, 24th and 25th. Megan, however, didn't have the same fortune. She instead treated the spectators with a scary crash through the netting into the woods (eventually resting her head about 1 foot from a large tree), but luckily walked away with little more than a small bruise on her neck. It was unfortunate to see the chance at that first great result go away, but great to see her walk away healthy.
Guys GS:
The mens GS started out with similar first run results, Bump Heldman was in 11th after the first run, followed by Alex Jones in 16th, and Ben Manter in 38th. There were great moments in all of these runs, though there were costly mistakes (Ben hipping out on the 3rd to last gate) in some. John Canney was on his way to a fast first run, before putting it on his hip on the upper flat section. August Felix thought about mimicking Megan's second run by heading straight for the fence, only to pull off a last minute recovery and turn back towards the course.
Second run was much like the first, with some good skiing and some not so good skiing. Bump finished the day 11th, a great first carnival result. Alex's second run was not as good, moving him back to 21st for college athletes. Ben had a mediocre second run, but kept it on his feet this time to end the day in 27th.
Guys SL:
The second morning of the Bates Carnival things seemed to be going our way. Ben took advantage of and early start and threw down a fast first run time, finishing 5th for college, despite coming down with a serious case of the flu early that morning. Ross Brockman had some first run mistakes and came down in 19th, while Bump moved from the 40th start position to 21st. Second run Bump and Ross both posted fast runs, finishing 9th and 7th on the run respectively, Bump moving up to 18th and Ross to 15th. Unfortunately before the second run Ben's battle with the flu took a turn for the worse. On his second run there may have been some focus shifted from the course to how he was feeling and there was certainly a lack of energy necessary for pulling off a typical Manter-like athletic move to keep things going. Regardless of the reason, Ben ended up hiking second run, losing a shot at the podium and an easy top 10.
Girls SL:
The girls were also looking to have a solid day after the first run. Micaela came down in 11th, with Waddle and Emily following up in 27th and 28th. Megan was in 36th and Brit was in 46th. The second run had mixed results, Micaela's second run was not quite as good, finishing 16th this time around, Waddle didn't finish the second run, and Emily was 21st on the second run. Megan had a better 2nd run, finishing 18th, and Brit also moved up with a 44th place second run. Micaela finished the day in 11th for college, while Emily ended up 18th followed by Megan and Brit finishing 23rd and 35th respectively.
Overall:
The team ended up finishing 7th overall. Not exactly the result we were looking for, but there were some good individual results and several good runs which the team needs to build off of as the season progresses.

UNH:
Women's GS:
The women's GS started out very well, with 5 girls finishing in the flip 30. The second run was great also, with Megan and Liz really stepping it up finishing 4th and 5th on the run and moving up to 6th and 13th overall. Emily also had a solid second run, not quite as good as her first, but finished the day in 14th overall and had her best GS ever.
Men's GS:
The men had a decent showing first run, we had 3 guys in the flip, all looking to take advantage of early starts and move up after the second run. They did a good job with the early start, Bump, Jones, and Ben finished 12th, 14th, and 15th on the run and moved up to 15th, 19th and 17th overall.
Men's SL:
After the first run, the men were not exactly pleased with their standings, we had 3 guys in the flip (Ben, Ross, and Jones), who were looking to charge 2nd run and move up. After the second run was over, they had done exactly that. Jones did a great job and won the run, while Ross was 7th on the run and Ben followed up in 11th. Overall they moved up to 8th, 13th, and 15th.
Girl's SL:
The women did a good job on the 1st run, putting 4 in the flip. Micaela and Liz had great second run's, finishing 7th and 14th on the run and moving up to 9th and 12th overall.



The next post was taken from the Bates Student, because it had just been too difficult finding the time to catch up on old results. Sorry, but we will keep it updated more often in the future (Sorry that there is only one remaining carnival before NCAA's).

UVM Women:
Women's alpine finished seventh out of 11 teams at the UVM Carnival this weekend. Bates came in seventh out of nine teams in Friday's giant slalom with 72 points and seventh out of 11 teams in Saturday's slalom with 69 points.
Senior Co-Captain Megan Papineau finished in the top 25 in both races, taking 15th in the giant slalom with a combined time of 2:01.89. Papineau came in 21st in the slalom with a combined time of 2:05.86.
Sophomore Micaela Holland finished 13th overall in the giant slalom in a combined time of 2:01.81.
Senior Co-Captains Liz Thompson and Emily Sampson led the way in Saturday's slalom, finishing 15th (2:02.37) and 18th (2:04.68) respectively.
Bates' Nordic and alpine teams combined for a seventh place finish out of 11 teams. Bates tallied 586 points, trailing Colby's score of 596 by only 10.
Next weekend, the Bobcats ski at Dartmouth Skiway in Dartmouth's Winter Carnival.

UVM Men:
On Saturday, the men's alpine team competed in the slalom event at the UVM Carnival in Stowe, VT. Sophomores Ben Manter and Ross Brockman placed 14th and 15th respectively with only .14 seconds between them. The next finisher was Bump Heldman '12 - one of the team's top scorers this season.
The other three men on the team fell short of expectations. Two did not finish and one missed a gate and had to hike both runs. Despite these blunders, the men finished fifth as a team, ahead of both Middlebury College and rival Colby College.
Friday's giant slalom did not bode as well for the Bobcats since their first finisher was Heldman in the 21st position. Behind him was another first-year, Alex Jones, in 25th, followed by Manter in 35th. The men placed seventh as a team, falling below where they had hoped to be.
This middling performance could be due to the change in race trail that UVM made this year. In the past, the race has been held on one of the most challenging hills in the circuit, but this season the race was moved to a less demanding venue.
For a team composed entirely of first-years and sophomores, the men are producing impressive results. When asked to comment on the future of this young team, Coach Rogan Connell said that he is not thinking about the future that much, but instead is concentrated on the season at hand.
"Right now the only thing we are focused on is getting guys qualified for NCAAs," said Connell. In March, Bates will host the Division I NCAA National Championships.


Dartmouth and Middlebury posts will be coming soon.

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