Sylvan Ellefson '09

Haleigh Armstrong '09

SLEEPY HOLLOW, Vt. -- The Bates College Nordic ski teams placed seventh on the women's side and sixth on the men's side in Saturday's 3x3 sprint relays, helping the Bobcat ski teams to place fifth overall at the St. Michael's Winter Carnival.

The Bates men had trios placing eighth, 10th and 18th among 30 teams on Saturday, while the women had trios placing 13th, 15th and 16th.

Bates finished the Carnival in fifth place overall out of 12 teams with 512 points, beating out rivals Williams (486), St. Lawrence (427) and Colby (387) and trailing only Dartmouth, Vermont, Middlebury and New Hampshire.

Bates sophomore Sylvan Ellefson (Vail, Colo.) finished fourth out of 96 skiers in the Men's 10K Free Technique race on Friday. Ellefson's time of 28:22.0 was only two seconds behind Vermont's Anders Folleras for third place, and 1.6 seconds ahead of Middlebury's Tim Reynolds. Also finishing among the top 29 competitors in the race were Bates senior Martin Benes (Oakland, Calif.) in 22nd, first-year Dylan McGuffin (Northfield, N.H.) in 26th, senior Steve Monsulick (Kents Hill, Maine) in 27th and junior Matt Dunlap (Farmington, Maine) in 29th.

Sophomore Haleigh Armstrong (Vail, Colo.) led the women's Nordic team to seventh place in the Women's 5K Free, with a 27th-place finish out of 81 skiers in 17:16.6. Not far behind her were senior Emily Poole (Yarmouth, Maine), sophomore Nicole Ritchie (East Dummerston, Vt.), senior Erin Bougie (New Sweden, Maine), first-year Abby Samuelson (Freeport, Maine) and senior Lauren Jacobs (Winthrop, Maine), in 30th, 31st, 33rd, 35th and 36th places, respectively.

Bates competes at the UNH Carnival next weekend in Jackson, N.H.

Click here for Carnival results.