WOMEN'S ALPINE LEADS SKI TEAM TO 3RD PLACE AFTER DAY 1 AT UVM CARNIVAL

MARIE-ELAINE LEPINE

STOWE, Vt. – Marie-Elaine Lepine (Mont-Tremblant, Quebec) led three top-10 University of New Hampshire women’s alpine skiers in the giant slalom with a fourth-place finish and the UNH ski team amassed 201 points on Friday’s opening day of the UVM Winter Carnival.

The Wildcats are in third place behind the host school, University of Vermont (275 points) and Dartmouth College (209).

With those three top-10 finishes in the women’s giant slalom, the Wildcats recorded the second-best team score of 111 points.

Lepine raced to a time of 1 minute, 4.04 seconds in the first run to record the fifth-fastest time, and then she climbed into fourth place with a second-run mark of 1:02.77 for an aggregate time of 2:06.81.

Aileen Farrell (Ottawa, Ontario) tallied the seventh-best time of 1:04.17 in the first run and held that position following her second-run time of 1:03.11 that produced an overall mark of 2:07.28. Veronique Achambault-Leger (Verdun, Quebec) completed the second run of the giant slalom with the fastest time of 1:01.86 to climb into ninth place with a combined time of 2:07.5.

Although she didn’t point in the event Cynthia Tessier (Rawdon, Quebec) earned NCAA points by finishing in 17th place at 2:09.01.

The UNH men’s alpine squad compiled 90 points, which was the fourth-highest team score. Willie Ford (Plymouth, N.H.) overcame a first-run time of 1:03.04 – he was in 25th place following that mark – to record the second-fastest time of 59.59 seconds in the second run and ascend to 12th place overall at 2:02.63.

Paul Atkinson (Toronto, Ontario) and Ethan Weibrecht (Lake Placid, N.Y.) both followed Ford’s overall time by less than .5-of-a-second to finish in 13th and 14th place, respectively. Atkinson completed his runs in 2:02.80 while Weibrecht finished his two runs in 2:02.92.

The UVM Winter Carnival continues Feb. 6 with the slalom at Stowe and the Nordic classic races at Trapp Family Lodge. The event concludes Feb. 7 with the Nordic freestyle competition.