RUMFORD – Maranacook Alpine ski coach Ronn Gifford poured over the unofficial results of the girls’ Class B classical cross country race at Black Mountain on Saturday morning, trying to do math as he went.
Six, plus seven, plus 11, plus 14. Thirty-eight.
His eyes lit up.
“I think we did it,” said Gifford. “Wow.”
Gifford started slowly toward the main lodge, where nearby Nordic coach Steve DeAngelis was helping the boys get ready for their race. His pace quickened as the ground became sturdier, and by the time Gifford was in the parking lot, he was in a half-jog, half-sprint.
The Black Bears, trailing Yarmouth by just seven points in the overall standings through three events, smoked the Clippers 38-56 in Saturday’s race, catapulting them to their second consecutive Class B overall title.
“We didn’t say, Girls, we have to beat Yarmouth,'” said DeAngelis. “You can never tell how they’re going to ski, and you can’t play good defense in skiing, so we just said that we needed to go out there and ski with all our hearts and don’t leave anything out there.”
The win reinforced the success of the symbiotic relationship Gifford and DeAngelis have created between the Alpine and Nordic Teams at Maranacook.
“Steve and I go way back, and one of the things I wanted to try to bring in when I came in to coach the Alpine squad was to get the Alpine and the Nordic teams working together again,” said Gifford. “We do workouts together and dry-land training. Unfortunately we don’t get to see each other race too often, but when we do, we cheer each other on. It’s a great team effort all the way around.”
The race itself was full of drama, too. Sophomore Jen Monsulick, the team’s top finisher at No. 6, finally, in her mind at least, started to realize she could, in fact, ski well in a classical race.
“I never really thought that I had the arm strength to do it,” said Monsulick, “but at KVACs I had a really bad skate race, so I went out there and hammered it, and now I know I can do it.”
Senior Katie Evans finished right behind Monsulick in seventh place.
Freshman Emily Perkins, meanwhile, survived a fall on the back side of the dreaded “High School Hill” to come in at No. 11.
“I was really frustrated with it, actually,” said Perkins. “I just figured I could get up come back, not worry about it and finish strong.”
The Clippers had posted a 10-point win over Maranacook in the freestyle event Thursday, and despite losing the Alpine title to the Black Bears on Friday still held a seven-point edge at the start of the day.
“I think sometimes it’s easier to chase someone than to be chased,” said Yarmouth coach Bob Morse. “Our girls were flat today. Molly Hallweaver had an awesome race. She came to the state meet, her goal was to podium and she did it. The other girls skied well, but didn’t ski the tempo they could have.”
Cape Elizabeth, behind the 1-3 finish of Clare Egan and Dana Riker, won the Class B Nordic title with 83 points, nine better than Maranacook, which overtook Greely for second. The Rangers led the Nordic events after the first day with 32 points, but took 65 Saturday to finish with 97.
Paced by a strong finish in the Alpine events, Fryeburg took third overall in Class B, followed by Greely and Mt. Abram.
Yarmouth’s Julianna Lord came from behind to top Maranacook’s Emma Prysunka for the skimeister title, Saturday, taking 15th in the classical race to Prysunka’s 30th. Lord finished with 66 points to win by 10.
Yarmouth hangs on
Sixteen points might seem like a lot, but to the Yarmouth boys’ Nordic team those 16 points between themselves and Fryeburg Academy in the overall standings felt like nothing.
“We haven’t beaten them in a classical race all year,” said Yarmouth coach Bob Morse. “They are just so strong. We finished something like 17 points behind them at the conference championships. We figured if we gave them 10, we’d still be O.K. today.”
Had the Clippers again fallen to the Raiders by 20, Fryeburg would have slithered into the top position.
Not this time.
Gordon Woodworth led the Clippers with a seventh-place finish and the rest of the team stayed inside the top 25 to help Yarmouth stay within a point of Fryeburg and claim the Class B state overall title by 15 points, 209-224.
“We figured that this year would be to our advantage,” said Morse. “We have a young team, and our Alpine team did a great job. We had four skiers stand in the GS and four skiers stand in the slalom.”
Fryeburg’s Stephen Barker finished in ninth overall, and had two teammates in the top 18, but the Raiders’ fourth skier managed just a 37th-place finish.
Defending overall champ Mountain Valley had an outside chance to repeat this week, but could only manage 87 points Saturday. The Falcons took third overall, 49 points back of Fryeburg. Greely and Caribou rounded out the top five.
“(Saturday) we didn’t ski as well as we typically do,” said Mountain Valley coach Al Cayer. “I can’t say it’s because we didn’t practice, because no one else has, either, so that’s not it. We thought the wax was O.K., we just have to take our hats off to Yarmouth and Cape and all of those teams. They skied great.”
Cape Elizabeth doubled up on its Nordic titles, taking the boys’ title by 20 points over Caribou, whose No. 1 skier, Russ Currier, won the classical event by 16 seconds over Sam Tarling of Greely.
Casey Spencer of Maranacook took home the skimeister title by four points over Caleb Swanberg of Caribou, 85-89. Jack Gross of Yarmouth was third at 99 points.
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