For Lafayette’s Ski Team, cutting your winter break short to start the season is a normal and looked forward to occurrence. Going into the first race on January 13th at Blue Mountain, Lafayette’s Ski Team got off to a blistering start to their season with the men’s team coming in 1st place out of the seven schools attending. This result was made more impressive by the fact that the team had not gone on their training trip yet, and had their most experienced young racers Tanner Flanigan and Kyle Brinkerhoff fall in the debut GS race of the season. Despite these mishaps, this 1st place result demonstrated the depth and quality of the men’s squad as strong performances from seniors Matt Bernhard (4th), Jake Dein (7th), and Steve Lowinger (10th) prevailed, showing the conference the talent that Lafayette had going into the 2012 season.
The Lafayette women’s team finished in 2nd place that day, with freshman sensation Meg Del Col making her presence felt with a 1st place finish overall in her first race for Lafayette, and experienced junior captain Julia Mason coming in 2nd overall. This lethal one-two punch would prove devastating throughout the early portion of the season, but unfortunately could not overcome the depth of the 1st place Fairfield squad that day. Behind experienced racers Meg and Julia, a strong youth movement has talented freshmen skiers Rebekah Scharfe and Jessica Horvath waiting in the wings learning the sport of ski racing for the first time. A breakout year from athletic-skiing sophomore Sam Ladell, making her A-team debut after a year of working on her racing technique on the B-team, has also contributed to the women’s team early success.
The following day, always relaxed and cool skiing sophomore Tanner Flanigan skied with a vengeance to make up for his first day DNF, coming in a blistering 2nd place in the slalom, reminding the conference that the kid from Sun Valley, Idaho was here to stay for the next three years. Despite being unable to overtake Lehigh’s prep school star Matt Krzywicki, Tanner received help from emerging conference star men’s captain Matt Bernhard, who in skiing at the highest level of his four year career, scorched the course with a 7th place finish. Along with always reliable team President Jake Dein (10th), they were able to help Tanner propel the Lafayette men’s team to a 2nd place podium finish in a classic duel for supremacy with the Lehigh men’s squad, but ultimately failing to overtake Lehigh’s slightly better 1st, 6th, 9th place runs that day.
The women’s team exacted their revenge on Fairfield by skiing to a 1st place finish in their second race, with always-consistent Meg Del Col (1st), Julia Mason (2nd), and Sam Ladell (15th) leading the charge. A breakout performance from powerful skiing freshman Jessica Horvath, skiing to a 16th place finish in only her second race ever contributed to the win.
After several days of training in Stowe, Vermont with expert coaches, the team traveled to their second race in Windham, NY on January 21st, hoping to continue their fast start to the season. The training trip allowed the freshmen new to racing to develop their rhythm and confidence on a racecourse. The women’s team picked up where they left off, skiing to another 1st place win behind Meg and Julia. This result was quite impressive considering 3 of the top 5 women racing on our A-team were freshmen filling in for upperclassmen unable to make the race. The men’s team meanwhile struggled with consistency that day, skiing to a 6th place finish. Top racers Tanner and Kyle took too tight of a line trying to go for gold, and crashed. Unfortunately, the rest of the men’s team was unable to rebound from Tanner and Kyle misfiring on their runs that day. The following day the women’s team continued their dominance coming in 1st again. Meanwhile, the men’s team rebounded and skied to a strong 2nd place finish with excellent runs from Tanner (3rd) Matt (8th) and Jake (12th) pacing the team. All this was accomplished before the semester even started. As the season continues, the team looks forward to adding even more depth with the return of powder skiing, west-coast sophomore phenom Suzanne Feutz, and experienced sophomore racer Catey Condit on the women’s side. Meanwhile the men eagerly await talented sophomore Reed Shapiro and experienced freshman racer Connor Kennedy to make their season debuts.
The team has more depth and talent this year that it has ever had since its inception at Lafayette more than 6 years ago, and has established itself as a powerhouse in the USCSA Mid-Atlantic conference. The team’s success can be attributed to strong marketing at the activities fair generating much interest in the club amongst skiers of all ability, having an influx of talented former high-school racers, good midweek coaching at our training mountain in the Poconos, as well as great upperclassmen leadership. Many of our athletes coming into the winter season were also in phenomenal shape from rowing together on the crew team in the fall. The freshmen have gained a lot of confidence in their racing due to the expert guidance of captains Julia and Matt explaining each course set up, how everyone should be approaching each section, and tactically showing the team where they can gain the most speed in inspections before each race. For a team to be successful it must run like a well- oiled machine. Lafayette has remained successful because of its ability to act as a single unit. Therefore, the upperclassmen have taught the freshmen how to tune their skis and maximize the effectiveness of their equipment to wring-out the most possible speed. Meanwhile on the hill, everyone helps to carry each other’s coats down the course when they aren’t racing, as well as splitting gate-keeping duties amongst one another. With these early four races under our belts we look forward to continued success in the conference, having a strong showing at the regional championships, and enjoying the growth and development of our new freshmen racers, but most of all we are glad to be back together with some of our closest friends and sharing our mutual enjoyment of skiing together.
– Adi