Chummy Broomhall Cup

Great day for our team yesterday at the Chummy Broomhall Cup. The Broomhall Cup is named for one of Maine's ski pioneers and serves as the Maine State Championship race for collegiate nordic skiing. Yesterday's race was a 10/15k skate, held in conjunction with a Junior National Qualifier - in other words, a huge field and a long day of racing. We saw some great individual efforts and a very encouraging overall team finish. As a team, we were third, same a last year, but we were in the mix. Our women are closing the gap on Bates and Colby - I'm looking forward to seeing how the team develops in the remaining carnivals. I'm kind of sad that this race wasn't a carnival - I think both teams would've scored really well.

Some of the highlights from a long day of racing: Courtney hammering the hills - best skiing I've seen from her all season. Sarah gaining 19 places on her second lap. Guys catching a ride from people who'd passed them, not letting go - Nick, Nat, Forrest. But the race of the day belonged to John B. Hall. He was ON FIRE yesterday - 17th place finish in a huge and deep field, ahead of Bates' 3rd skier, just seconds behind Walt. He was skiing so relaxed and smoothly that you might have thought he was just out for a cruise if you weren't paying attention to the splits - a pleasure to watch.

Hats off to Colby and coach Tracey Cote for their dominating win yesterday. Ten years ago, Bowdoin and Colby would fight it out for 8th or 9th place at carnivals. Now, they're challenging the best teams in the EISA every week. It's exciting to see a team make that kind of progress - for us, their success is part road map, part inspiration. I'm looking forward to the day when we beat Colby again - it'll take time, but I think that day's not so far off...

We do have Colby beaten in one important area, though - post-race tailgating. Our team parents put on another show yesterday - bagels, cakes, muffins, sloppy joes, soup, some ridiculously tasty cream puffy type things, and more. No other team can match the talent that our team parents bring to the table every weekend. Thanks to all of you!

Broomhall Cup results can be found here. Click the links to the left for overall results for both classic and skate.