LYME CENTER, N.H./STOWE, Vt. - Freshman Fredrik Sandell's (Oslo, Norway/Donski Alpine) ninth-place giant slalom finish highlighted the Saint Michael's College skiing team's performance at the first day of the Dartmouth College Carnival on Friday. The Purple Knight men's alpine squad took seventh among 12 teams, with its 61 points just nine shy of fourth place. The carnival concludes tomorrow.
With its four combined scores, Saint Michael's is 10th out of 15 schools thanks to 156 points during a carnival occurring in two states. The Alpine portion is being held at the Dartmouth Skiway, while Nordic is being run at the Trapp Family Lodge in Vermont after conditions made the originally-scheduled Nordic venue unusable.
Behind the second-best second-run time in the competition (54.16), Sandell placed ninth among 75 varsity collegiate starters in the giant slalom, clocking in at 1:50.92 between his two trips down the mountain. He was merely 0.16 seconds short of a University of Vermont skier for the fastest second-run showing. Sophomore Tim Spangler (Summit, N.J./Summit) clocked in at 1:54.68 to take 32nd, trimming two seconds off of his opening run, and sophomore Carl-Oscar Bredengen (Reistad, Norway/Donski Alpine) was the third Saint Michael's scorer.
On the women's side, junior Gabbi Hall (San Anselmo, Calif./Forest Charter School) was 18th out of 70 in the giant slalom at 1:57.53, edging out classmate Christina Billotti (Massapequa, N.Y./Green Mountain Valley School) by less than a second. Billotti was 25th in 1:58.44, while sophomore Kerstin Middleton (Greenland, N.H./Proctor Academy) totaled the third-most points by a Purple Knight.
Junior Colin Delaney (Lake Placid, N.Y./National Sports Academy) paced Saint Michael's in the 10k freestyle, clocking in at 28:27.1, while senior Robert Sitzer (Lenox, Mass./Lenox Memorial) and freshman Brian Vargo (Shaftsbury, Vt./Mount Anthony Union) were the second and third finishers on their team, respectively.
In the women's 5k freestyle, sophomore Gabrielle Naranja (Fort Kent, Maine/Fort Kent Community) crossed the finish line in 16:06.7 as the fastest Purple Knight, while freshmen Chloe Boutelle (Saratoga Springs, N.Y./Saratoga Springs) and Emily Burns (North Creek, N.Y./Johnsburg Central) rounded out the top three.
