NEWRY – A little bit of practice, a little bit of patience and a little bit of luck left Mt. Blue in a familiar position Tuesday.

The Cougars, who have dominated girls’ alpine racing in recent years, did it again.

Four of the team’s skiers placed among the top 14 finishers Tuesday at Sunday River, lifting Mt. Blue to a convincing 43-point victory over Oxford Hills in the Class A alpine skiing championships.

“Unfortunately, it came down to a matter of survival on the course today,” Mt. Blue coach Mark Cyr said. “This event is about having the kids be able to ski as fast as they can, and today we just couldn’t do that.”

After seeing EL and Oxford Hills lose skiers in the first run, Cyr pulled the reins on his team a bit.

“I told them, ‘Just ski smart,'” Cyr said. “And some of them skied really cautiously.”

This despite an extra practice on that very hill.

After Monday’s giant slalom, Mt. Blue and Edward Little were tied, with Oxford Hills lurking eight points behind. The Cougars spent the rest of the afternoon on the hill, practicing on the icy, hard-packed snow on Tuesday’s slalom course.

“It definitely helped with some confidence, and we hadn’t practice slalom since last week,” Mt. Blue’s Emily Deane said.

Deane was Mt. Blue’s best finisher at No. 4, followed by Abbi Davis at No. 6. Davis, who had to leave after Monday’s GS for the Nordic race at Black Mountain, never got a chance to see the slalom course in practice. Still, she blazed the ninth-best time in the first run, and the eighth-best in the second.

“There were a lot of things that went into my run, because I’m also going to skimeister,” Davis said. “And for my team, I knew I needed to score well. I just needed to finish.”

Amanda Hall snuck into the top 10 at No. 9 for the Cougars, and Eliza Richard rounded out the scoring four at No. 14.

Oxford Hills, which always seems to come up a bit short of Mt. Blue in the alpine races, played second fiddle again Tuesday, passing Edward Little to earn silver.

“I really thought we had a chance this year against Mt. Blue,” Oxford Hills coach Mike Grace said. “I thought, if we skied solid today, we had the chance. I’m just tired of being the bridesmaid to them. But they’re well-coached, and their kids are great. They skied well today.”

The Vikings had a chance early, but lost a pair of skiers to falls over the course of the day.

EL succumbed to the crash bug, too. Phoebe Chamberlin, who posted the 10th-best time of the second run, was only 69th in the first run after hiking twice. Megan Howes and Brianna Lynch also stumbled in the first run, leaving Nika Faulkner as the second Eddies’ skier across the line in 24th position.

“My girls are so young,” EL coach Tara Eretzian said. “We have four freshmen, a sophomore and a junior, and mentally, it’s nerve-wracking at a big race. But they skied well, they just had a rough day today.”

One bright spot for Edward Little was Emily Blackwood. The junior took advantage of a couple of falls by girls ahead of her after the first run, skied well in both runs and placed second in the slalom event, completing the track in a combined time of 1:20.64. Kailey McKenna of Bangor took home the title at 1:18.94.

The favorite, Kennebunk’s Johanna Bjork, led easily after the first run, but fell and had to hike in the second. She still finished 10th.

Halie Gilman of Oxford Hills paced the Vikings in third position, followed by Kristin Lindstrom (13th), Jessica Brown (14th) and Abby Smith (40th).

Leavitt turned in a much better score Tuesday in the slalom, scoring 33 points better than Monday’s GS. The Hornets finished in 11th overall.