Locals shine in Class A State competition

FARMINGTON - - The Farmington Ski Club and the entire Farmington community embraced middle school Nordic and Alpine skiers in the Class A State Ski Championships and put on an awesome event.

Sugarloaf Area Nordic and Alpine teams came to the Class A event for the first time ever having competed in Class B in past years. The enhanced competition did not hinder SAST's or SANT's success.

The State A competition started with alpine Giant Slalom and Freestyle competitions at Mt. Abram and Sunny Croft Farm on Feb. 11 and continued at Titcomb Mountain in Farmington on Feb. 14. The culmination of events concluded in a Spaghetti Banquet at Mt. Blue High School on Saturday night.

Giant Slalom

MT. ABRAM — Under warning skies and heavy snow, the Sugarloaf alpine ladies delivered a powerful blast by filling the podium with our local skiers. Sugarloaf racers took the 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 spots on the race finish.

Jenie Rowland, after putting down a third place finish in her first run at 32.93, came back on fire in the second with the fastest time of the day at 30.94. The combined times put her a half second ahead for the gold followed by Czari Cochrane and Elise Luce.

Meghan McCormack was the fourth scorer finishing fifth followed by teammate Lexi Bullen who was right behind her.

This gave the ladies 11 points heading to the slalom competition in Farmington.

The boy's had a scare when local favorite Sam Morse clipped a gate disqualifying him from GS and Skimeister contention. Morse's second run was the fastest time on the day. Teammate Matt Beauregard picked up the slack combining his times at 59.68 almost five seconds ahead of the pack for a top spot on the podium.

Scoring for SAST was Austin Couch who finished third, Jared Clukey sixth and John Theriault to round out the top four scorers. In Alpine combined, SAST found themselves in second place trailing Telstar by

two-points 36-38.

Nordic Freestyle

SUNNY CROFT FARM - - The fastest ladies' time went out to Farmington's Sarah Wade who had a 42- second lead over SANT's Sadie James who finished second in the freestyle event. Also scoring for SAST was Hattie Rosenberg and Emma Houston who had top-25 finishes. In team scoring, the ladies had to use a ghost, a term applied when a team does not have a fourth scorer. The ghost is the placement of what would have been a last place finish. With that, the SANT girls were standing in fourth in overall Nordic competition.

Same Morse finished second for Sugarloaf behind Ike Dorion of Farmington by 30 seconds. Also scoring for SANT was Jay Chenard who placed seventh and Skimeister Thomas Faraday, 21st on the chart. With a ghost scoring, the boys of Sugarloaf were sitting fourth in combined Nordic with 72 points.

Girls' Slalom

FARMINGTON — Rowland, Cochrane and Luce once again hogged the podium finishing 1, 2 and 3 respectively. Bullen rounded out the team scoring with a seventh place finish giving the team 13 points for the combined alpine events.

McCormack and Emily Listowich provided team depth finishing 8th and 11th that day.

With the 13 points in slalom and the nearly perfect score in GS, the ladies were penciled in at 24, enough to take the alpine Class A championship plaque home. The closest to them in combined scoring was Farmington with 94 and Auburn with 104.

The boys were trailing by two in combined alpine and needed a strong day on the slopes of Titcomb. This is where Morse gapped the competition by two seconds in the first run and one in the second to take the top podium spot in Class A slalom. Beauregard joined Morse on the podium finishing second. Scoring for SAST were also Couch who had a fourth place finish and Patrick Banahan in seventh.

Mitchell Gray was right behind Banahan on the charts and Faraday finished the event with a top-12 finish.

When the alpine numbers were combined, a SAST score of 31 iced the Class A championships with a first place finish. Telstar (79) and Spruce Mountain (129) took the combined alpine second and third spots that day.

Nordic Classical

FARMINGTON - - A combination of Sugarloaf's Jay Chenard and Sadie James did what they've been doing all season and that's winning classic races. Both James and Chenard have won every classic race they've competed in and last Saturday they took the Class A championship plaque home with first place finishes that day.

Houston and Rosenberg had a strong outing finishing the race in the middle of the pack and the ghost was used again in team scoring. Morse took a sixth place finish that day followed by Faraday 17th. The lack of the fourth scorer led SANT to a fourth place finish in combined Nordic. The Ladies also finished fourth in the combined Freestyle and Classic events.

Skimeister

In girl's racing, Sadie James combined scores in Nordic and Alpine was strong enough to take home the Class A Skimeister plaque and be crowned Skimeister. Her 47 points in all four events was first followed by sixgrader Hattie Rosenberg who finished second. Emma Dipompo of Spruce Mountain finished third in Skimeister competition.

In boy's Skimeister, Sugarloaf's Thomas Faraday missed the podium by one point finishing fourth in Skimeister competition. Ike Doiron of Farmington was the top contender followed by Alex Hartford of Spruce and Kyler Walker of Telstar.

Overall Team Standing

FARMINGTON -- When the snow spray settled, Sugarloaf teams finished second.

The SAST girls with 141 points were just behind Farmington with 131. Spruce finished third with 396.

The boys of Sugarloaf finished second with 179, just 20-points behind Telstar, the Boys' Overall (four events) winners. Farmington was third just one point behind Sugarloaf.