Eric Trinward and Amy Dyer sweep the individual alpine events.
NEWRY – The course setters at Sunday River opened the door Friday and the Yarmouth girls’ Alpine ski team slid right on through.
Defending girls’ Alpine champ Fryeburg Academy had three skiers have trouble with the winding course in the first slalom run of the day allowing Yarmouth to come from behind to claim the title as the Class B state skiing championships continued at Sunday River.
Fryeburg entered the day on top with 41 points to Yarmouth’s 46. Falmouth was third with 52.
The results of the two slalom runs dropped Fryeburg to third and bumped the other two schools up a notch.
On the boys’ side, it was Yarmouth and Falmouth each claiming a share of the Alpine title with 82 points apiece. Mountain Valley was third with 126 and Maranacook fourth at 139.
For the girls, what didn’t change was the top dog in Alpine skiing as Fryeburg’s Amy Dyer repeated as champion. The sophomore, who easily won the Giant Slalom on Thursday, posted the best times in both runs Friday. Her combined time of 1:11.76 was 4.46 seconds faster than the next competitor, Amy Gifford of Maranacook.
“I really like the slalom better than the GS,” said Dyer. “I love the speed. The second run today was much faster than the first.”
“The course was a lot more open for the second run,” said Gifford. “The first one was a little tight. My second run felt very smooth.”
Close to a dozen girls had trouble with the first course and it cost Fryeburg the most as the school’s fourth scoring skier was way down in 47th place.
“We had a few falls in the first run but I know my teammates will try their hardest in the second run,” said Dyer during the second run competition.
Yarmouth put three racers in the top five which more than offset Fryeburg’s troubles. Hilary Gross, Julia Jones, and Britney Sanders posted fast times for the Clippers.
“The girls skied pretty timid yesterday,” said Yarmouth Alpine coach Ryan Hurley. “I think they were a little worried that we had some issues in the GS last year. I also told them that they were defending state champs so they were really fired up to come back and have a strong showing today.”
Fryeburg also had Liz Atwood in ninth and Brooke Anderson in tenth.
Mountain Valley placed on skier in the top ten as Samm Johnson finished seventh.
For the boys’ Eric Trinward, a junior from Gray-New Gloucester, claimed both alpine individual titles but he had to work at it. After winning the Giant Slalom on Tuesday by a safe margin, he found stiffer competition Friday.
“About midweek last week I started realizing that I’ve haven’t had a good season,” said Trinward, “and that I needed to do something to wrap it up on a positive note. I kept it in the back of my head that I needed to pull through.”
Trinward led after the first slalom run with a time of 33.10, .82 seconds ahead of Falmouth’s Ryan Sage. Sage took his second run first and upped the bar by finishing in a time of 32.62.
He held the lead for a while before Trinward posted a time of 32:31 in his second run. His combined time of 1:05.41 was just about as second faster than Sage’s.
“Ryan, Ross (Bragg) and I are good friends and we’ve been training together for years,” said Trinward. “When I saw Ryan’s (second) run I didn’t know his time but I knew he had a good clean run and I thought ‘Oh God’.”
Bragg, from Maranacook, was third.
“We all train at Gould (Academy) together,” said Sage. “We’ve been skiing together for like seven years. The slalom isn’t my best event but I had a bad run yesterday (finished fifth in the GS) and did better today. It’s all mental.”
“This second course was must easier today,” said Sage. “It was very much old school. Really tight at the top and more open in the middle.”
Maranacook’s Mitch Riley placed fourth for the Black Bears.
While Trinward was the lone Patriot at the top, Falmouth placed a pair in the top five giving the team the opportunity to co-share the title. In addition to Sage, Zach Wescott was fifth.
Yarmouth claimed the eighth and ninth spots with the efforts of Ben Swardlick and Trevor Michaelson.
Mountain Valley’s Matt Papsadora was tenth.
“Our Alpine boys had a great season,” said Hurley. “They went undefeated.”
The meet concludes today at Black Mountain in Rumford with the 5K Classical cross-country race.
pmullen@sunjournal.com
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