GREENWOOD — For fun, the girls on the Falmouth High Alpine ski team taped purple plastic tiaras to the tops of their helmets before competing in the Class B state championships.
After two days of racing, however, it was the Falmouth boys who were crowned state champions.
On a tight and tricky course on Mt. Abram’s steep Boris Badenov trail, the Yachtsmen stood tall to win an Alpine title that all but assured them a successful defense of the overall championship as well.
Yarmouth, last year’s Alpine champion, had only three of its six slalom racers complete two runs Wednesday, knocking the Clippers down to sixth in Alpine and putting them in a 122-point hole entering today’s concluding Nordic classic race. Ben Woodbury was the only Yarmouth boy to ski two runs without a fall or a missed gate.
“That was carnage,” said Bob Grout, Yarmouth’s Alpine coach. “This is my third year coaching and this is the first time we’ve suffered this kind of devastation.
“We pride ourselves on our consistency and, boy, (Wednesday) just wasn’t our day.”
With such an enormous cushion, if four Falmouth boys complete the course through the woods of Black Mountain in today’s classic race, the Yachtsmen will take home their second straight overall Class B title.
Alexander Gowen (third), Joe Lesniak (fourth), Weston Scott (seventh) and Austin Couch (13th) gave Falmouth a 26-55 victory over slalom runner-up Camden Hills, with Mountain Valley, (71), Cape Elizabeth (75) and Maranacook (77) all coming in ahead of Yarmouth.
Falmouth’s two-day Alpine total of 62 points easily outdistanced Mountain Valley’s 128. Camden Hills was third at 138, with Cape Elizabeth edging Maranacook for fourth, 153-154.
“Both courses were very tough, tight sets,” said Falmouth Coach Tip Kimball. “Much tighter than they’re used to. The course today was roughly an eight- to nine-meter set. Our normal courses are roughly 11 to 12 meters. It’s quite a bit.”
So was it fair?
“They’re always fair because everybody has to ski them,” Kimball said. “Everybody has to ski the same course.”
Sam Barber, a Cape Elizabeth junior, won the individual title with a combined time of 1 minute, 12.67 seconds. Tuesday’s giant slalom champion, Jack Tragert of Lake Region, was second in 1:14.68.
Barber said he only had one glitch, on his second run.
“They set an under gate that was way too swingy for everyone,” he said. “I slowed down a lot there. It didn’t feel good. But it was a good course. It was fun and it was really good snow.”
While Yarmouth’s boys had trouble, Yarmouth’s girls had none. The Clippers cruised to their fifth consecutive Alpine championship with a two-day victory of 71-94 over runner-up Falmouth. Smythe Eddy (third), Claudia Lockwood (seventh) and Becca Bell (10th) led the charge Wednesday and sent the Clippers into today’s classic finale with a 43-point lead in the overall standings.
“They’re just a very cohesive, nice group of women,” Grout said. “They’re really united.”
Bell, the defending Class B skimeister, leads that competition as well, 21-35 over Falmouth freshman Leika Scott, with Laura Collins of Caribou at 39.
Scott placed second in slalom Wednesday to a Luce girl for the second day in a row. On Tuesday, it was Mt. Abram freshman Elise Luce who won the giant slalom. On Wednesday, despite a painful hamstring pull suffered two thirds of the way through Tuesday’s first GS run, Mt. Abram junior Erin Luce won her first individual state title with a combined time of 1:24.06 to Scott’s 1:24.97.
Elise Luce, who had to hike back up the course after missing a gate in Wednesday’s first run, put down a second run three seconds faster than anyone else to take third overall.
“I wasn’t out there to win,” said Erin Luce, who needed assistance from her younger sister to climb the wooden crates that served as a podium for the awards ceremony.
“I knew I just had to stand and that I couldn’t straddle or miss a gate, because hiking – it would have been horrible. I had to just stand and have solid runs.”
Staff Writer Glenn Jordan can be contacted at 791-6425 or at:
gjordan@pressherald.com
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