Middlebury makes history with victory in Colby Winter Carnival

Middlebury makes history with victory in Colby Winter Carnival{mosimage}The Middlebury College ski team won its first-ever Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association winter carnival on Saturday at Sugarloaf/USA in Maine, upsetting the University of Vermont in the season-opening Colby Winter Carnival.

Colin Rodgers’ anchor leg in the men’s cross-country relay was the last step in the Panthers’ 716-710 victory over the University of Vermont — Middlebury’s first win since the EISA circuit began combining men’s and women’s scores in 1983.

Rodgers held off UVM’s Ethan Foster by 1.9 seconds and gave the Middlebury men’s nordic team a 0.3-second victory over the Catamounts — 41 minutes, 13.7 seconds to 41:14.0. The resulting 86 points for first place were seven more than UVM earned for second in the event, delivering Middlebury the carnival title.

UVM took a one-point edge into Saturday’s competition, and a sweep of the men’s and women’s slalom events positioned the Catamounts for the season-opening triumph.

Amy Cochran rebounded from a DNF in the GS with a runner-up finish behind Dartmouth’s Courtney Calise, with UVM’s Jamie Kingsbury in third place and Erin Mascolino seventh.

The Catamount men echoed that result, with Hunter Kaltas placing fourth, Matt Knittle, sixth and Justin Hart, ninth.

Middlebury answered with a brilliant cross-country performance, highlighted by Rodgers’ dramatics but built on another dominant effort by the Panther women. Kate Whitcomb, Kate Newick and Claire Anderson — Friday’s freestyle champion — combined for a 56.2-second win over New Hampshire in the 3×5 kilometer relay. Vermont’s team of Molly Gray, Emily Klemp and Kate Crawford finished fourth.

Lowell Bailey gave the Catamount men a slim lead after the first leg of the men’s race, a margin Middlebury’s Marshall Greene closed in the second leg to set up the Rodgers-Foster duel.

The circuit goes to Lake Placid and Whiteface Mountain this week for the St. Lawrence Carnival.