QUEENSBURY, N.Y.—The Babson College men's and women's alpine ski teams opened the United States Collegiate Ski & Snowboard (USCSA) Eastern Regional Championships with a trio of strong performances in the slalom on Saturday at West Mountain. Making their eighth consecutive regional championship appearance, the men finished fourth in the slalom, while the women had two of the top five skiers and came in fifth overall.
First-years Tatum Alkier (Collingwood, Ontario) and Michelle Martin (Belmont, Mass.) each put together a pair of tremendous runs to finish second and fifth, respectively, in the slalom. Alkier had the fourth-best time of each run to post a total time of 1:49.82, while Martin had the second-best second run of any skier to post her second top-five result of the season.
Fellow first-year Kathleen Sheppard (Woodstock, Vt.) came in 34th in her regional debut, while sophomore Molly Danzig (Allendale, N.J.) finished 35th, and first-year Alexis Kane(North Syracuse, N.Y.) was 36th for the Beavers.
The women, who are making their first regional appearance since 1997, came in just under two seconds behind fourth-place Saint Anselm. Brown finished first in the slalom, followed by second-place Castleton and third-place Clarkson. The top four teams in the combined standings following Sunday's giant slalom will advance to nationals.
The Babson men, who have won back-to-back regional titles, were led by first-year T.J. Pope (Bountiful, Utah), who came in 10th with a time of 1:46.84. Senior Kevin Dachos (Northampton, Mass.) finished 18th, junior Sam Barber (Cape Elizabeth, Maine) was just 0.13 seconds behind in the 19th position, and classmate Graham Quisenberry (Farmington, Conn.) came in 23rd.
Standout junior Carter Dowd (Salk Lake City, Utah) sat in the second position after his first run but was unable to complete his second run.
Clarkson narrowly edged out runner-up Castleton, while UConn came in third and UMass was fifth, over three seconds behind the Beavers.
Both teams return to action on Sunday in the giant slalom beginning at 10 a.m.
