NEWRY, Maine -- The Bates alpine skiing team had perhaps its best day of the season thus far Saturday in the giant slalom races at the Bates Carnival at Sunday River, with sophomore
Arie van Vuuren leading the men's team to fourth place out of 12 teams and junior
Hannah West leading the Bates women to seventh place.
Van Vuuren (Boulder, Colo.) notched his first career top-10 carnival finish, placing ninth out of 70 men, with runs of 1:04.40 and 1:12.27 for a combined time of 2:16.67.
Junior Joe Gillis (Branford, Conn.) followed in 11th place, also a career-best finish amidst a breakout season, timing in at 2:16.79 for 29 team points and 24 NCAA Championship qualifying points. Completing Bates' team scoring in the GS was first-year Crawford Jones (Killington, Vt.), whose season-best 26th-place finish rounded out Bates' team scoring with 77 carnival points from men's alpine in the event, outscoring eight teams including Vermont (66). Senior captain Ryan Clermont (Lincoln, N.H.) was out of the scoring in 28th place (2:18.89).
West (Bend, Ore.) matched her career-best carnival finish for the second time, taking 11th place out of 72 competitors in the women's GS. Her runs of 1:07.71 and 1:13.67 combined for 2:21.38, good for 29 carnival points and 24 NCAA qualifying points.
Sophomore Tess Coutu (Foster, R.I.) placed 21st at 2:23.99 and sophomore Sarah Gillis (Branford, Conn.) took 33rd place (2:28.96) to put the Bates women in seventh place with 62 carnival points.
Bates' Nordic and alpine ski teams combined to place seventh out of 14 teams at the Bates Carnival, with 421 carnival points. Middlebury edged Vermont for first place at the carnival, 850-848.
Next up on the EISA carnival schedule is the Williams Carnival, with alpine races held at Jiminy Peak in Hancock, Mass., Feb. 14-15.
