Stowe, Vermont —
Saturday, February 6
On a perfect winter day at Trapp Family Lodge, the Stowe Nordic Outing Club hosted the region’s very best cross country skiers for the TD Bank Eastern Cup and University of Vermont Winter Carnival. The collegiate skiers proved themselves against the Eastern Cup field today with Dartmouth’s Ida Sargent winning the women’s race and UVM’s Franz Bernstein taking the men’s victory. Heather Mooney (Stratton) was the top non-collegiate finisher for women, grabbing 4th place overall behind UVM’s Caitlin Patterson in 2nd, and Dartmouth’s Rosie Brennan in 3rd.
For men, the top non-collegiate skier was Andrew Stewart Jones from Chelsea, Quebec who led a large contingency of skiers from Quebec taking part in today’s events. Third place overall went to Dartmouth skier Nils Koons.
For the J2 Boys, Jack Hegman (Mount Mansfield Nordic) had his season-long winning streak snapped by Ford Sayre’s Patrick Caldwell who too the win by 14 seconds. Eli Hoenig (CSU) was third. The J2 Girls race head to head with the women with the top three finishers Heather Mooney, Corey Stock (CSU) and Maddy Pfeiffer (Proctor Academy)
Sunday, February 7
Today’s events were freestyle, with the J2s going 5 kilometers and the men and women each going 10 kilometers around the John Morton designed race course.
Collegiate skiers dominated the day, taking almost all of the top-ten places. For men Tim Reynolds in 5th (Green Racing Project) was the top skier not competing for an EISA collegiate team. The top four were Patrick Johnson (Middlebury), yesterday’s winner Franz Bernstein (UVM), Dylan McGuffin (UNH) and Eric Wolcott (SLU).
The women’s side had the EISA streak broken only by former Olympic medalist Nina Gavryluk (Gunstock) in 4th and Canadian Megan McTavish in 6th. UVM’s Caitlin Patterson grabbed the win over Dartmouth’s Rosie Brennan and yesterday’s winner Ida Sargent (Dartmouth.) 5th went to their Dartmouth teammate Sophie Caldwell who regained the 2010 Eastern Cup lead with her performance.
The J2 Boys podium looked the same at the top with Ford Sayre’s Patrick Caldwell earning a narrow victory over Mount Mansfield Nordic’s Jack Hegman. Devlin Shea from GMVS earned his first podium in a distance race this season, grabbing 3rd. For J2 Girls, Heather Mooney (Stratton) skied away with the victory with her close rival Corey Stock taking the day off. Maddy Pfeiffer (Proctor Academy) continued her strong season and earned 2nd with Heidi Halvorsen (GMVS) just behind in 3rd.
(Article excerpts by Pat Cote for Nensa)
