Dartmouth Wins NCAA Ski Championship

Wednesday, March 7

Jackson/Bartlett, New Hampshire

All Day

Dartmouth College

NCAA Championship

3/10/2007 12:00:00 AM | Skiing

By: Dartmouth

Dartmouth Wins NCAA Ski Championship

BARTLETT, N.H. – Good things come to those who wait.

After a 31-year drought, Dartmouth won the 2007 NCAA
Ski Championship here Saturday, marking the
first NCAA team title for the College since 1976.

The Big Green had solid performances by both men's and women's teams
in the slalom event, besting the University of Denver by 50 points.
In the final team standings, the Big Green stood atop the heap with
698 points; Denver was second with 648; Colorado, the 2006 champion,
was third with 592.

"Just awesome ... great. I can't think of any other way to put it,"
said Director of Skiing Cami Thompson. "I'm so proud of every single
one of them. We knew coming in to [the championship] that there was
an outside chance we could do it, and every single one of them
performed as well as they possibly could."

The Big Green got All-America performances from junior Dave
Chodounsky (Crested Butte, Colo.) and senior Evan Weiss (Kenmore, Wash.) in the men's race, and senior
Lindsay Mann (Bedford, Mass.) and junior Michelanne Shields (Colorado Springs, Colo.) in the women's event.

Chodounsky, the 2005 men's slalom champion, was narrowly edged by
Denver's Adam Cole. Cole's two-run time of 1:43.36 was just .04
seconds better than Chodounsky. Middlebury's Andrew Wagner was third.
Weiss finished in eighth place.

It wasn't easy for Chodounsky, who was initially disqualified in the
first run when he appeared to straddle a gate. But video review of
the run showed the Chodounsky cleared the gate, keeping him in
contention.

"The snow changed consistency a bit," said Chodounsky, "and I slid,
then hooked up a bit, then got shot out. I'm not exactly sure what
happened, but it could have been worse."

In the women's race, Mann, in her final collegiate
race, took fourth place to nail down the Big Green team win. Mann
was .44 seconds off the winning pace of New Mexico's Malin
Hemmingson, who took the title in 1:45.77. Colorado's Lucie Zikova
was second; New Hampshire's Veronique Archambault-Leger was third.

Knowing that the title was there for the taking, Mann says she felt
little pressure. "This is my last race, and [women's alpine coach]
Christine [Booker] told me to just go for it and have fun."

"That's what I always tell Lindsay," said Booker after the race.
"When she's having fun, she skis fast."

Shields, a 2006 All-America, repeated
the honor this year by taking 10th in the slalom.

For Dartmouth, it is the first team title since 1976, and the
program's third title overall since 1958. In all, nine student-
athletes earned All-America honors: Mann, Shields, Chodounsky and
Weiss in Alpine skiing; and seniors Sara Studebaker (Boise, Idaho) and Michael
Sinnott (Sun Valley, Idaho) and juniors Susan Dunklee (Barton, Vt.), Elsa Sargent (Orleans, Vt.) and Ben True (North Yarmouth, Maine) in cross
country racing.

For complete race results, see http://www.eisaskiing.org/BART/ Results07/ncaa07.htm