By Justin Pelletier,Staff Writer

AUBURN – The laughter from the cavernous hallway in the basement of the Lost Valley ski lodge echoed into the main lodge above.

Below, Dan Campbell, the head Nordic ski coach for Edward Little, walked through the door to meet his team wearing a wool cap in the shape of a Viking helmet.

“It was hat day at school,” explained Campbell.

The skiers gathered in the team’s tiny equipment room know better.

“This team, more than anything, is about fun,” said boys’ captain Matt Sonagere. “We work hard when it’s time to work hard, but we also know when it’s time to have fun.”

Fun works, apparently. Aside from finishing second to prep school Gould Academy at the recent Sassi Invitational (and that by less than 10 points), the EL boys have yet to suffer a loss in a head-to-head race, and the girls have fallen just twice.

“This kind of athlete, they like a challenge,” said Campbell. “Year in and year out, these kids want to work hard and get better, and it shows.”

It shows in the results, too. The girls are the defending state Nordic champs, and the boys and girls have both been in strong contention for years.

“I can only speak for the skiers at EL,” said Campbell, “but the kids we get that are drawn to cross country skiing are high achievers. They pay attention to detail and aren’t afraid to push themselves and motivate themselves to those standards.”

Sonagere has seen many people come and go in his four years as a skier for Campbell. In fact, aside from Sonagere and two new seniors, the majority of the team this season is made up of freshmen and sophomores.

“That really is why we are doing well this year, I think,” said Sonagere. “The freshmen and sophomores are really stepping up.”

For the girls, Carin Eisenstein and Laura Gardner seem to have assumed the roles of leaders. Gardner’s sister Sarah was a fixture on the team for four years, as well, and helped the team win its state title last season. She is the only skier missing from that team.

“We’re still confident we can do well,” said Laura Gardner. “We are going to have to have the race of our lives, I think, if we want to win states this year, but I think that it’s do-able.”

To do that, Edward Little will have to fight past a tough Leavitt team, which itself has gone unbeaten this season.

But despite the stiff competition, it is impossible to ever count out the Edward Little teams, even if they are, according to their coach, “lacking in talent.”

“I don’t think we have the most talented team at all,” said Campbell. “Honestly, we don’t. We have a team that is extremely motivated. They hang out together, have classes together. We go help out at the Special Olympics every year, we take a trip to Canada, we have a pasta dinner at one of the parents’ houses every week, and we all have to watch the O.C. (a television show on FOX). A team that plays together usually wins together.”

The tight-knit group is conscious of the fact that all of these team-building exercises help. They, too, encourage it in all of the new skiers.

“We all know each other well,” said Gardner. “We all have classes together, we all ski together. We never have to ski alone. You can always call someone else up on the weekend and they will always go skiing.”

Another reason for this particular team being so close is the traveling the team had to do last season.

“We had no snow,” said Gardner. “We had to travel so much just to go train, and we got closer having to be in the busses all the time. That just carried over.”

“Plus,” Sonagere added with a smirk, “I think Campbell might know what he’s doing a little bit.”

Campbell, Viking hat and all, did manage to calm the group down a bit before they all scattered to practice, telling them exactly how much to ski and in which direction, making sure the progression of the workout fit properly into the seasonal plan.

“We do a lot of long, slow distance to build up an aerobic base,” said Campbell. “After that we start integrating an interval here and there. In the last few weeks we go hard, and then hold off before states.”

Unwavering, the team marched out of the lodge, snapped into their skis and skated off into the distance.

“They’re nuts,” said Campbell, still smiling under a graying mustache. “When they take off, they’re not afraid to push their limits. That’s why they succeed.”