Clarkson
Last weekend the Cornell team traveled to Prospect Mountain in Vermont for Clarkson’s carnival. The weekend included a 15k classic race, 10k skate race, as well as the famed “3-legged race.” Also Cornell continued the tradition of making Valentine’s cards for the skiers on the other teams. This year’s cards were certainly just as original and no cleaner than years past.
The first race held Saturday afternoon was a grueling 15k (actually shortened to 12k) classic race. Due to several inches of snow falling throughout the day the conditions were soft and slow. The consensus from the team is that we waxed a little too warm for kick and had great “running skis,” but the glide was a bit too slow. On the men’s side Brian Macpherson had a good showing coming in 7th with Andrew Courtney following in 8th place. Owen Skinner came in 15th, Chris Mui in 17th, Robert Penney in 29th, Patrick Nadeau in 33rd, and Mike Blazejewski came back to ski racing with a 37th place finish.
Several of Cornell’s top female skiers took the weekend off, but Jess Marion skied well to finish 11th, Bridget Hass continued to improve with a 13th place finish, Dakota Stranik came in 15th, Julia Schoen in 17th, and Lisa Hollywood in 25th.
Sunday’s 10k skate race was a huge improvement over Saturday’s results with Cornell coming within 2 points of beating Clarkson(and would have won with skiing a total of 4 seconds faster) . Brian Macpherson had a huge race coming in 2nd place, 1 second behind winner Stefan Bibb. Andrew Courtney also had a great race coming in 4th place, 3 seconds behind Clarkson’s first skier. Owen Skinner skied well coming in 10th place, Chris Mui finished close behind in 12th, Patrick Nadeau came in 19th, Robert Penney was 28th, and Mike Blazejewski came in 35th. Mike’s dad helped the team wax the night before and gave them rocket-fast skis.
On the women’s side Bridget Hass finished strong in 9th place, Jess Marion in 11th, Dakota Stranik in 14th, Julia Schoen in 18th, and Lisa Hollywood in 24th.
In the 3-legged race Brian Macpherson and Clarkson skier Sarah Gardner dominated the competition. Andrew Courtney was really glad not to break a pole this year (of course Melinda wasn’t there to fall on it). The costumes for the 3-legged race were quite impressive, especially a Paul Smith’s skier as one of the “300″ characters wearing a cape and a speedo… he really froze.
Next weekend is the divisional championships at Notchview, MA, the last race of the seasonal before Regional championships.