Men and Women Win Nordic Events on Second Day of UVM Carnival

Saturday, January 13

Craftsbury, Vt./Craftsbury Nordic Center

11:00 AM

Dartmouth College

Vermont Day Two

John Steel Hagenbuch

Photo by: flyingpointroad.com

Men and Women Win Nordic Events on Second Day of UVM Carnival

1/13/2024 4:12:00 PM | Skiing

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Hagenbuch and Lange finished 1-2 in the men’s 10K free while Drolet took second for the women

By: Rick Bender

CRAFTSBURY, Vt. — Both the Dartmouth men and women had three of the top seven skiers in their respective 10K freestyle races on the second day of the Vermont Carnival at the Craftsbury Nordic Center, allowing them to outdistance their Eastern Intercollegiate Skiing Association (EISA) competition on Saturday.

The elements caused the start of the women's interval start to be delayed until 11 a.m., and sophomore Ava Thurston (who reached the podium in the classic sprint yesterday) was first up for the Big Green and 13th to launch overall. But it was junior Jasmine Drolet, who started two skiers after Thurston, who led the Dartmouth contingency throughout the race, reaching the quarter mark in third place and the midpoint in fourth.

Senior Nina Seemann came on the scene wearing bib 34, and after posting the 10th-best time at the first checkpoint, she had picked up the pace into fifth after 5K, with Thurston on her heels in seventh. Drolet crept back into third with 2.5K remaining, before posting the fastest time on the final leg to surpass New Hampshire's Lucinda Anderson for second place by 13 seconds with a time of 28:17.1. Haley Brewster of Vermont led wire-to-wire and took the gold in 28:00.6.

Over the final half of the race, Seemann jockeyed for position with Middlebury's Shea Brams and eventually edged her out by three seconds for fifth in 29:05.8, while Thurston maintained her place in seventh, wrapping up the race in 29:12.7, more than seven seconds ahead of the next to cross the tape. The Big Green trio totaled 121 points, besting the UNH squad that had the third- and fourth-place finishers at 112.

When the men began at 12:30 p.m., it was junior John Steel Hagenbuch — fresh off a victory in the classic sprint yesterday — who was one of the first to launch, followed by sophomore Jack Lange (20th) and junior Luke Allan (31st). The last of those skiers set out at a blistering pace over the first quarter of the race as Allan led the field at 5:45.6; no other skier recorded a 2.5K time within five seconds of that time all day. Lange's pace had him about seven seconds behind in second with Hagenbuch biding his time in fifth at six minutes flat.

Although Allan fell back to third at the midpoint, he was only four seconds behind the leader, Harvard's Rémi Drolet. Hagenbuch was 11 seconds behind Allan in fourth, with Lange leading the Big Green trio in second. But Hagenbuch started to make his move over the next quarter, closing the gap between him and Lange (now in the lead) to just over six seconds, and Allan was right behind Hagenbuch in fourth.

Hagenbuch kicked it into high gear the rest of the way, beating every other skier by more than 11 seconds over the final 2.5K to claim the gold in 25:06.8. Lange made it a strong one-two combo on the podium by edging out Rémi Drolet by 2.7 seconds in 25:12.0 for the silver. With Allan crossing the finish line in 25:46.1 in sixth place, Dartmouth amassed 132 points, well ahead of Middlebury in second with 100 even.

With the conclusion of the Nordic events, Dartmouth leads the Vermont Carnival by more than 100 points with 490 to its credit while Middlebury is a distant second with 385 and Vermont is third with 367. The carnival will conclude in two weeks with the alpine events at Stowe on Jan. 26-27. But next weekend, the EISA schools will gather for the Colby Carnival at Sugarloaf and Quarry Road Trails in Maine on Jan. 19-20.

Notes: Hagenbuch, a first-team All-American in both classic and freestyle last year, has won four of his 10 career collegiate races and never finished lower than fourth with nine podiums … Thurston, a second-team All-American in the two styles as a rookie last year, has been in the top 10 of every one of her 12 collegiate races with three victories and eight podiums.