Banquet and Alumni/Parent Ski Race

We ended the season with what we are hoping will be a new tradition of a banquet and Alumni get together after the final race. We were pleased that the Sports Foundation was able to help us pull together and excellent event. Thanks to Matt Tsimikas the Assistant Athletic Director who came up to the event and helped organize everything. It was great to have the parents come together and for current athletes meet some of the ten or so alumni that made the trek to Wildcat to support the team.

Mike LeBlanc delivered a short speech on behalf of Hilary Swafield, a former ski teamer who died two years ago. We have created an award on her behalf to honor an individual who shares the passion for ski racing and hard work that Hilary had while she was on the team. This year the award was presented to senior Anna Bengtson. Congratulations Anna.

On Sunday we took again to the slopes of Wildcat, on the famed Cheetah trail for an alumni parent show down. The warm weather and sunny skies that we were hoping for turned quickly into high winds and snow. We were miraculously able to pull off a well run race with timing and everything! We saw some falls from John Van Slyke '01 and Griffin James '01 as they sought to win the first ever Alumni Classic. Kelly O'Hear '07 represented the only alumna present and laid down some times that put her in contention. There were some athletes that chose (and ultimately probably regretted) to go for the "big mountain ripper skis" like Captain Emeritus DR Richardson '08 and John Gillis '07. John Hastings '05, Douglas Allen '07, and Taylor Lloyd rounded out the alumni participants. Coach LeBlanc, and even Andy Salter (Alex Salter's '12 dad) got in on the mix. Ultimately, it was Charley Cummings '06 who won the cup and began what will hopefully be a longstanding tradition.

Hope to see you at Regionals at Waterville on Feb. 21 and 22! Best of luck to the team as we seek to make the trip out to Colorado for Nationals.