FARMINGTON — As it was for everyone else, Saturday was a long day for Maranacook Nordic ski coach Steve DeAngelis. But after a little bit of racing and a lot of waiting around while the race organizers tabulated results, DeAngelis was the coach of two Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Nordic champions.
Maranacook swept the Nordic titles at the KVAC/Mountain Valley Conference championships, which were held Saturday at Titcomb Mountain. Maranacook also won the KVAC combined (Alpine and Nordic) girls title, while Mt. Blue won the KVAC Alpine and the KVAC combined boys championship. Monmouth won the girls Nordic title, while the Mt. Abram girls finished first in MVC Alpine and MVC combined. The giant slalom portion of the championships was held Wednesday.
Maranacook finished third in the KVAC girls alpine. Erin Guilmet was the individual champion in the slalom. Rachel Tooth was 13th, and freshman Janika Pakulski placed 20th.
“My first run felt pretty solid, but then my second run, I just really went for it, because I wanted to do really well,” Guilmet said. “Honestly, our girls team’s just really close, and we all support each other a lot.”
Maranacook had five skiers in the top 10 in the girls Nordic classical, with Abby and Hannah Despres finishing second and sixth, respectively. Abby and Hannah then went 2-3 in the Nordic freestyle.
“The girls, they just have incredible depth,” DeAngelis said. “We actually had a very different top four today than we did the last race. The two Despres girls were at the top, but then we had two girls who were not in the top four last time were in the top four this time. I think we had like 10 in the top 18 last race, so they’re so deep, and they just keep swapping around. If somebody has a bad race, somebody else picks up for them, so they have a great team ethic going there. They take care of each other, and they support each other.”
Mt. Blue’s boys Alpine championship came on the back of having three skiers (Mitchell Haines, Dylan Roberts and Anthony Franchetti) in the top six in the slalom, and eventual KVAC skimeister Miles Pelletier in 12th.
“We went in both days with an attitude that it’s a team event,” Mt. Blue coach Mark Cyr said. “I had one or two kids who could have finished on the podium, but the idea was to ski smart, ski solid, and make sure that we had two decent runs from every single skier.
“Every day, we talk about the fact that, yeah, you’re on the hill by yourself when you’re skiing the course, but when it comes down to it, it’s a team event — you’ve got to do what’s best for the team. Dylan Roberts, for example — today, I think he dialed it back on his first run. He even told me, ‘I was wicked conservative. What you said, Coach, meant a lot, that this was a team event.’ He had a decent first run, but second run, he went a little harder, and got even higher.”
The Alpine skiers actually had to ski their two runs on different courses, and the differences weren’t minor, either.
“The first course, I think, for the boys was a little harder, because the hill kind of fell to the side,” Cyr said. “Every one of their — we call them a right-footer, because it’s a turn to the left — every one of those was a fallaway, which makes it really hard to maintain control. So the first run, they had to really keep that in mind. Second run was a little more in the middle of the trail, so it was a flatter course, and it was easier for the boys.”
On the boys Nordic side, Maranacook edged out Mt. Blue, 51-56. Ethan Harriman won both the classical and freestyle for the Black Bears, while Luca DeAngelis and Colby Watts also ended up in the top 10 in both events.
“I would say for the boys, it happened because we have a really experienced crew,” DeAngelis said. “We have two seniors and two juniors leading the pack there, and they know what they’re doing. They know what it takes to win. They know how hard they have to work, and they’ve been working incredibly hard. ”
The MVC meet is combined with the KVAC meet because of the small number of MVC skiers. Still, Mt. Abram didn’t expect to be a factor in the girls alpine. The Roadrunners have only four girls on their roster this season, and lost Rebekah Howard to an injury at Wednesday’s giant slalom. But among MVC girls skiers in the slalom, Kenzie Tyler finished fourth, Emma Berube took fifth, and Denesha Begin was seventh — and that was enough.
“We thought we wouldn’t qualify as a team,” Tyler said. “Also, we were in second when we did giant slalom, so it was quite a surprise.”
“Overall, we were just consistent,” first-year Mt. Abram coach Leah Danala said. “The playing field’s getting a little bit smaller (but) it is a little bit of a surprise. But we’re excited. I mean, the kids have worked their tails off all year. We’ve been battling freezing cold weather this year, and it’s been awesome to see that our hard work’s paid off.”
The MVC girls slalom champion was Winthrop’s Annie Guerette, who finisher her two runs in 1 minute, 17.36 seconds, barely edging out KVAC champion Guilmet at 1:18.58.
“The first (course) had a lot of combinations, so it was really technical, and you really had to pay attention,” Guerette said. “The second one, you could just kind of like let your ski go.”
On the boys Alpine side, Skowhegan’s Mike Miller posed atop the podium twice on Saturday — once for his giant slalom win on Wednesday, and again for winning the slalom on Saturday.
“His first run was a little slow, and then the second run, I think he held onto it and had a very consistent run,” Skowhegan coach Bill Finley said. “It probably put a little pressure on the other skiers. That’s the thing about Mike — he’s just a great, consistent skier. That puts him in the top, frequently.”
“First run, not the right kind of wax, I guess,” Miller said. “So the second run, I had to hammer down. A couple kids didn’t finish, and somehow I moved into that top spot, but that’s just how ski racing goes sometimes.”
Matt DiFilippo — 861-9243
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