Morse's surprise win puts Dartmouth in lead at UVM Carnival

Under mostly sunny skies on the Main Street trail at Stowe Mountain Resort, Ben Morse of Dartmouth College and Ashley-Kate Durham of St. Lawrence University scored their first wins of the season today (Feb. 3) in the giant slalom races of the UVM Carnival. Dartmouth leads in team scoring with 204 points, followed by the University of New Hampshire with 188 and Middlebury College with 174.

While Vermont dominated the alpine events in the first two carnivals of the year, their top guns Tim Kelley, Jonathan Nordbotten, Kate Ryley, and Elli Terwiel are off racing in the Vail NorAm series this week, leaving the door for glory wide open to podium newcomers. In the women’s race, Durham won both runs and increased her early lead to hold off Harvard’s Rebecca Nadler in second and Williams’ Geordie Lonza in third. The women’s podium was separated by less than a second in combined times from both runs.

Dartmouth’s Ben Morse, who had never before scored even a top-5 result in a carnival race, narrowly edged out UVM’s Kevin Drury for the win. Morse won the first run and harbored nervous excitement heading into the second. He noted, “Stowe has treated me well in the past, and it was so sunny. How can you not be excited when it’s sunny? Waterfall was definitely the section to nail. It had been tricky all day, but once I found my new ski on the steep section… it was all finish.”

UNH’s Sam Coffey completed the men’s podium in third. The UVM men did manage to tally 118 points and post a team win despite the noticeable absence of critical past contributors. Bibbo awards for the day went to Colby-Sawyer College’s Ryan Lawless who moved from start number 77 to finish 25th and Marley Pawlak of Plymouth State University who turned her starting bib of 46 into a 13th-place result.

Alpine competition continues tomorrow (Feb. 4) with slalom at Stowe Mountain Resort while the Nordic races at the Trapp Family Lodge begin with the women’s 5k and men’s 10k classic.

Team scores at the conclusion of Day 1 at the UVM Carnival:
Dartmouth College – 204
University of New Hampshire – 188
Middlebury College – 174
University of Vermont – 148
Bates College – 143
St. Lawrence University – 133
Williams College – 125
St. Michael’s College – 110
Colby College – 106
Plymouth State University – 100
Harvard University – 89
Colby-Sawyer College – 64
Boston College – 51

Photo of women’s giant slalom winner Ashley-Kate Durham by C.J. Feehan