The conditions on Saturday were not pleasant and the course deteriorated quickly. The first racer to ski the course, Brian Mclaughlin from Dartmouth, took advantage of the opportunity and won the first carnival race of his career. Mclaughlin was followed by Guillaume Grand, from Saint Michael’s College and Griffin Brown, from UVM. Grand was 0.30 second behind and Brown 0.79 off the pace.
“It’s kind of awesome, because it was tough conditions and bib one was definitely helpful first run and then I just needed to fight all the way down to the bottom second run,” Mclaughlin said of his day. He had been in fourth place after the first run of the GS but failed to finish the second run.
At the end of the day Dartmouth finished with three men in the top 10, in collegiate scoring. Tanguy Nef came in seventh and Tomas Woolson came in eighth. By the end of the men’s race the team had heard of their team’s nordic success in which they won each event of the day, as well as all events throughout the weekend, and all they had to do was wait for their girls to finish the day strong.
The girls certainly did finish strong, putting three athletes in the top five. However Paula Moltzan, from the University of Vermont won the race. Dartmouth’s Alexa Dlouhy finished 0.29 seconds behind Moltzan and Freydis Halla Einarsdottir finished in third 0.68 back.
Along with Dlouhy, Kelly Moore and Meg Currie finished just off of the podium and although Stephanie Currie did not score for her team, she finished eighth. Foreste Peterson failed to finish her second run again on Saturday after posting a top first run.
Moltzan was very happy with her first win in the EISA. She said that the transition from the U.S. team is a great change of pace. Skiing on the college circuit comes with a new type of atmosphere as well as different forms of pressure that most skiers aren’t used to, and Moltzan is not immune to them. “This isn’t just me anymore, this is for my whole team. To be able to pull out the win and for myself is pretty awesome,” she said.
She will also patiently wait for her teammate Lawrence St. Germain to return to the Carnival circuit. St. Germain only started two carnivals last season and won one slalom while taking silver in the other.
Moltzan said that she generally doesn’t excel in the types of conditions that she skied in on Saturday and after the first run she sat off of the podium in fourth place. “I realized second run that I really have to attack or else this is not going to end up how I want it to be,” she said, “I didn’t cross block that many gates second run but I definitely sent it and I am pretty stoked with my win today.”