By DAVE DYER
While the Maranacook boys and girls Alpine teams did not take home Class B titles Tuesday, they didn’t leave Big Rock Mountain without making a mark.
The Black Bears left Mars Hill with a third place overall finish in girls Alpine, while the boys finished fourth. It was a solid two-day performance, coach Ronn Gifford said.
“Out of 48 total runs, we had 46 successful, and high quality skiing,” Gifford said. “We had two falls all of the two days. It was a great overall performance.”
Katie Ide had the performance of the day, finishing fourth in the slalom with a combined time of 1:21.32, less than two seconds behind event champion Shelby Cowin of Greely.
Two other female Black Bears finished in the top 20 in the slalom, including Janika Pakulski, who finished 12th (combined time of 1:25.36) and Dana Reynolds (1:28.21). Caroline Welch finished 23rd, with a combined time of 1:29.46.
Margaret Elder of York (1:20.56) finished second in the race, followed by Fork Kent’s Alicia Guimond (1:20.70) in third.
As a team, the Maranacook girls finished with 122 team points. Fort Kent (80 points) won the Class B title, in a tight contest with second place finisher Yarmouth (83 points).
On the boys side, Robbie McKee had another successful day, finishing sixth in the slalom with a combined time of 1:16.23. His first run — timed at 37.70 seconds — was the eighth-fastest run of all male competitors. It was a great follow-up to his performance Monday in the giant slalom, in which he placed third in the giant slalom with a combined time of 1:28.42.
Brian McNamara also had a solid performance for the Black Bears, finishing with a total time of 1:22.90. He was joined in the top 20 by teammate Corbin Howe (1:25.14).
Killian Lathrop of Cape Elizabeth won the event, finishing with a combined time of 1:13.76. He was followed by Jacob Roy of Wisdom in second (1:14.69) and Curtis Gauvin of Fort Kent in third (1:15.32).
The Black Bear boys finished fourth overall in Class B with 190 points. Cape Elizabeth won the state championship with 71 points, followed by Yarmouth (129 points) and Fort Kent (139 points).
Maranacook returns a solid nucleus of skiers next season, including McKee and Ide, who are both sophomores.
“I think we’ve got 28 on our roster, and I think 20 are freshmen and sophomores,” Gifford said. “Their learning curve throughout the year has been extreme and they’ve been working hard at it. It really paid off at the end of the season and it peaked at the right time, and brought all the technical aspects they’ve been working on together and finished the season really strongly. The next couple of years should be really exciting. I know we’ve got good skiers coming up from the middle school over the next couple of years.”
Dave Dyer — 621-5640
ddyer@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @Dave_Dyer
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