March 01, 2016 (Middlebury, Vermont) – After a season where all but one carnival were hosted at a reserve venue, the 2016 EISA Championship/Middlebury Carnival was held at Middlebury’s Rikert Nordic Center. During a week which brought nearly two inches of rain to the venue, a valiant effort by the Rikert snowmaking crew allowed the races to go off using the center’s full 5km Tormondsen Family Race Course.

Saturday’s racing kicked off with the men’s 10km Freestyle on a cold and fast track. Temperatures on the previous night dipped into the low teens, freezing the saturated snow into a sheet of ice, which was covered by light snow showers the day before the race. This led to some washing out of the more technical descents on the course, and many athletes fell during warmups and races alike.

“The Saturday course was definitely challenging, especially on the downhills,” said University of Vermont skier Jorgen Grav. “But as the commentators on Norwegian TV say every time there is a fall on the World Cup circuit: ‘You have to be able to ski the downhills well too if you want to win any race’. Having said that, I think the guys were pretty nice about sharing information about the best/safest lines on the middle descent.”

The early pace was set by the second starter of the day, Dartmouth College’s Peter Mamrol, whose time of 22:54.6 would be good enough to place 15^th in the 65-man field. His time would remain unmatched until UVM’s Remi Salacroup, starting 18^th, managed to find another 12 seconds out on course to take the lead.

In the end, though, it was Salacroup’s three senior teammates who would steal the show, with Grav, followed by Jack Hegman and Cole Morgan taking the top three places – Grav and Hegman were the only two to finish in under 23 minutes.

“It felt awesome to finally get the sweep after having Jorgen and Jack go 1-2 so many times with me in 4th and 5th most times,” said Morgan after completing the podium of the men’s race.

For the women’s 5k, conditions were much the same, with the race crew grooming out the technical descent in between races. Again, it was an early bib setting the pace, with Middlebury’s Cate Brams taking the initial lead from bib 8, not to be outdone until UVM senior Stephanie Kirk dropped 35 seconds to take the lead as the 25^th starter. Brams would finish 15^th out of 67.

Kirk’s lead would hold until her rookie teammate Iris Pessey took the lead by six seconds. Another Catamount, Mary-Kate Cirelli would find the gap between the two, while the host’s own Annie Pokorny took over a commanding race lead. This left Alayna Sonnesyn, the final Catamount finisher and Freestyle leader, to settle for second place ahead of her three other teammates.

“Our A-climb (descent) can definitely be sketchy,” said Pokorny by email. “I have some experience ending up on the wrong side of a botched downhill, but after getting feedback from the men’s race, the crew at Rikert re-groomed that section of the course to make it safer for the women’s field.” Pokorny took a fall on this course during the 5k Classic race at the NCAA Championships in 2013.

Temperatures did not drop in between the two days of racing, and on Sunday, coaches and athletes were greeted with rapidly increasing temperatures as they raced to find the correct wax for the day’s distance classic races. With the hard descent still on peoples minds, race organizers made the race-day decision to forgo that section of the course for the first lap of the mass starts, to avoid sending the large fields down in one pack.

In the men’s 20km, a lead group of ten quickly emerged, consisting of racers from Dartmouth, University of New Hampshire, UVM, and Williams College. Morgan would set the pace for the first two laps, where William’s Eli Hoenig took over, with Hegman and Grav joining him off the front for the final two laps. Grav couldn’t match the other two in pacing the final climb, and it came down to a sprint finish between Hegman and Hoenig, with Grav crossing the line in third.

“The 20k was definitely the fastest 20k of the year,” said Hegman. “Cole took it out hard for the first two laps and was able to break up the field pretty quickly. Eli led the final two laps and by the last lap it was Jorgen, Eli, and I together. On the last hill I pushed the pace a little and Eli and I were able to get a small gap on Jorgen. From there we came into the stadium together and sprinted for the line.”

After the snow settled, Hegman had beaten out Hoenig by just over a toe, with the final results showing a gap of 0.3 seconds between the two.

The women’s 15k proved to be just as exciting, but for a different reason. From the gun, it was a race controlled solely by the Catamount women, with a breakaway consisting of Pessey, Sonnesyn, and Cirelli forming after only the first lap. These three would hold a lead of no fewer than 15 seconds until the finish, where Iris Pessey would cross the line for her first collegiate win. Cirelli finished right behind for second, followed by Sonnesyn, completing the second UVM sweep of the weekend. To cap it off, Kirk, battling it out in the second pack, would be the next finisher, giving UVM the top four spots at Kirk and Cirelli’s final carnival.

“Leading the charge with Alayna and Iris is something I will always remember,” said Cirelli. “I honestly am not 100% sure when Iris and I got ahead of Alayna. We all had skis with very different speeds so it made it hard for us to stick together tightly when we were not climbing. Overall, SUCH an exciting day! I will never forget going 1,2,3,4!”

“I was so happy for both of us,” said Pessey after her win. “And when Alaynna and Steph crossed the line right after us we just fell into each others arms. It was Steph and MK’s last carnival, I’m so glad we had such a wonderful day as a team for their last one.”

And the accolades for UVM did not end there. Pessey, less than an hour after her first win, was named the female EISA Rookie of the Year, alongside Dartmouth’s Callan Deline for the men.

“I’m very glad I got the rookie bib,” said Pessey. “I’m glad I did it for the UVM coaches. They’ve been supportive this whole season, even though I had my ups and downs.”

Hegman, being the only male on the circuit to have two wins in both classic and skate events, came home with the overall leader’s bib for both disciplines, taking the classic bib away from his teammate, Grav. “It was bittersweet to see Jack take home both the classic and freestyle overall bib,” said Grav. “But at least he is my teammate and not someone elses.”

Sonnesyn would come home with the women’s freestyle bib, and Middlebury’s Kelsey Phinney, fresh off her time at the World U23 Championships in Romania, took the classic.

UVM finished the weekend with their 6^th consecutive EISA Championship, and their 36^th victory overall.