Nordic Teams Shine on First Day of Colby Carnival

Friday, January 14

Waterville/Carrabassett Valley, Maine

Dartmouth College

Colby Day One

Rena Schwartz competing at the 2019 UNH Carnival

Rena Schwartz led the Big Green pack in the 20K freestyle on Friday to take second for her first career podium.

Photo by: flyingpointroad.com

Nordic Teams Shine on First Day of Colby Carnival

1/14/2022 9:27:00 PM | Skiing

Day One Results

The women's cross country team won its 20K freestyle while the men finished second

By: Rick Bender

WATERVILLE/CARRABASSETT VALLEY, Maine — The Dartmouth ski team, back in action for the first time in 22 months, wrapped up the first day of the Colby Carnival on Friday in third place overall with 367 points, 45 behind the leader, Vermont (412), while Middlebury finished right on the Catamounts' heels with 409.

The Big Green Nordic teams provided a hefty portion of those 367 points at the Quarry Road Trails, winning the women's 20K freestyle by a comfortable margin over UVM, 132-109, while the men took second in their 20K free behind the Catamounts, which swept the podium.

The women claimed the top team spot thanks to three of its skiers placing second, third and fourth in the race. Senior Rena Schwartz led the Dartmouth cluster, enjoying the first podium of her collegiate career. She battled with Vermont's Waverly Gebhardt the entire way as the two exchanged the lead four times throughout the checkpoints. But Gebhardt edged her way ahead of Schwartz at the finish line by a mere four-tenths of a second with the latter crossing the tape in 56:48.0. Her teammates were right behind with sophomore Garvee Tobin — in her first collegiate race — placing third in 56:50.2 and senior Molly Gellert less than three seconds behind her in 56:52.9. Junior Mara McCollor also had a top-10 finish, skating across the line in 57:19.1, good for seventh.

While Vermont swept the podium in the men's 20K, two Dartmouth freshmen stayed with the lead pack through the first three-quarters of the race. At the 15K mark, the top six were separated by just 1.4 seconds, but Luke Allen (49:35.7) and Wally Magill (49:36.1) eventually settled for fifth and sixth place, respectively, to help the Big Green produce 115 points. Also contributing to that total was junior Cameron Wolfe with a time of 51:05.2 that put him in ninth overall. Catamount Ben Ogden picked up the pace over the final 5K and handily won with a time of 48:41.6, nearly 30 seconds ahead of his teammate, Matias Oevrum.

Over at Sugarloaf Mountain, the Dartmouth alpine teams had a rougher go of things with the women placing sixth in the giant slalom with 61 points and the men landing in eighth with 57. The Big Green women were in position to win as a team with fifth-year senior Hannah Utter and senior Ellie Curtis zipping down the course with the second and third fastest times on the first run while junior Gwen Wattenmaker was tied for sixth with sophomore teammate Olivia Holm.

The second run was not kind to Dartmouth, however, as Holm was the only one of the four to finish. Skiing in her first collegiate race, she did well enough to grab a spot on the podium in third place with a combined time of 1:47.48 while Vermont's Marina Vilanova won with her time of 1:46.29. The Green's only other skier to race was fifth-year senior Mikaela O'Brien in 21st place (1:51.54). The team GS title went to Middlebury, which had skiers place second, fourth and sixth overall to earn 125 points, well ahead of Vermont's 91.

Not one team had more than three skiers finish among the top 27 in a more balanced race on the men's side as Middlebury edged out New Hampshire for bragging rights, 105-104. Dartmouth, which had a pair of racers fail to finish their first run leaving little margin for error, was led by fifth-year senior Kalle Wagner with a combined time of 1:43.83 to finish 18th. Junior Hunter Brayton (1:44.54) and sophomore Max Martin (1:44.82) placed 22nd and 23rd, respectively. Joachim Lindstoel gave Vermont a sweep of the individual winners on the day, besting the field by more than second in 1:40.28.

The carnival will conclude on Saturday with the 5K races and the slalom.