NEWRY — All Gus Kenworthy could do was keep his fingers crossed and hope his score was good enough.

Kenworthy was the next-to-last skier to go Saturday afternoon at the sixth annual Dumont Cup at Sunday River. When Kenworthy missed a rail early in his final run, it was up to his rival Nick Goepper to see whether Kenworthy’s first-place score would hold up.

“Any time that Nick goes, you know he has the ability to put down a pretty amazing run,” Kenworthy said. “I knew I had a really good (second) run and a really good score. So it was just seeing what Nick was going to bring to the table.”

Goepper’s final run was shortlived as well. He missed a rail early in his attempt and had to settle for second.

It was Kenworthy’s second Dumont Cup win overall. It is the fourth straight year that Kenworthy and Goepper have finished first and second. Goepper won last year and Kenworthy was the runner-up.

“I’m happy to have the win and we’ll keep going from there,” Kenworthy said. “We both, in the last four years, have gone first and second. We both have two wins and two seconds now. So I guess next year will be the big battle to see who wins the best out of five.”

This year’s event — the largest and only major freeskiing even in the East — took place on a different course than in past years. This year’s Dumont Cup showcased the T72 course, a new 15-acre terrain park trail that Bethel native and event creator, Simon Dumont, helped design along with Snow Park Technologies.

“It was pretty nice,” Kenworthy said. “The new course that they cut, it was pretty amazing. It definitely had more pitch. Where we were before, over by Barker’s Lodge, was fun, but the run itself was fairly flat. So speed was always an issue until this year. Being on a course where speed wasn’t an issue and to have three big jumps, people were able to do a lot of things and that was pretty cool.”

Saturday’s final round was highlighted by the fact that the final three skiers all finished with mistakes on the last run. Kenworthy led going into the third and final run. When he missed a rail, Goepper had the chance to move up, but he missed a rail as well.

Kenworthy finished with 94.7 points while Goepper was second with 93. Bobby Brown was third with 92. Two amateurs Evan McEachran (89.0) and Alex Bellemare (88.0) rounded out the top five. Joss Christiansen, the gold medalist in the recent Olympics in Sochi, finished 13th overall. He failed to complete all three of his runs.

“It was my second run that I won with,” Kenworthy said. “I had a pretty good first run. After that first run, it wasn’t quite good enough to be in the lead. The second run, what really separated me was my rails up top and the transfer in the middle, which not many other people were doing. I think that’s what really separated me because we all were doing some pretty good jumps.”

Kenworthy won the silver medal in slopestyle skiing at Sochi and also earned fame for his adoption of various stray puppies from Russia. He has also claimed three straight AFP overall world championships.

Christiansen needed a strong finish on his last run to give him any chance at the podium but he fell again on his final run. That left if up to Kenworthy and Goepper.

Kenworth was the next-to-last skier to take a third run. He missed a rail early in the course. He was the leader entering the final run but Goepper was second.

“It would have been hard for me to improve my score on that second run anyway,” Kenworthy said.

Goepper, an Indiana native who won bronze at the Olympics, was the final skier, but like Kenworthy, he missed a rail early in his final run.

Kenworthy won $12,000 for his efforts while Goepper earned $8,00 for second. Brown won $5,000 for third.

kmills@sunjournal.com

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