Slalom at Smuggs!

The girls wait for the awards ceremony after day 2.

This past weekend, we took the majority of the team up to Smuggler's Notch to race a slalom series. The girls competed against other Vermont schools such as SMS, GMVS and even St. Michael's College. On Saturday, we raced in abnormally warm weather for Smuggler's Notch. The track was soft, but the girls made the best of it. Even when it started to rain for second run!
Our better conditions and results came on Sunday. The surface firmed up, so the track held up much better than the day before. Kristie Ryan raced down first run to finish in 3rd place. Ryan was having an awesome 2nd run, but came into the flush (that Stags set!) too straight. She straddled the combo, then hiked. Our top KMS athlete was Jessie McNeill. McNeill finished 9th overall (6th for j2s). Our rookie, Alyce Ritchey was right behind her after first run, finishing 11th, then straddled a gate towards the bottom of 2nd run, (once again, on Stags course).
Rounding out the top 20 were Jocelyn Werle (14th), Kelly Rowland (15th), Michelle Martin (19th) and Heather Desino (20th). The girls agreed that they had an alright race series, but are hoping to podium and round out the top ten later in the season.
This week, Kristie Ryan will be competing in a 4 day Tech Eastern Cup series in Stratton. The rest of the team will be training and shifting gears to focus on speed events. The team is in to compete at the Eastern Cup Super G series at Okemo on Jan. 15th and 16th. There will be a lot of super g skis to prep and wax in the near future!