With four racers placing in the top 15, women's skiing finished first in the giant slalom for the second week in a row at the Colby-Sawyer Carnival in New Hampshire on Friday. The Bears also competed at the St. Anselm Carnival on Saturday.
The Bears are now gearing up for the Eastern Regional Championships after ending the regular season atop the MacConnell Division in the Eastern Collegiate Ski Conference by a large margin.
The Bears finished third in the slalom at the St. Anselm Carnival, with Kelly O'Hear '07 finishing first in the slalom for the first time this season, with a total time of 1:33.92. O'Hear placed fourth in the giant slalom on Friday.
"She smoked the slalom. In both events she's coming into her own and has picked a good point in the year to peak," said Head Coach Michael Leblanc.
"I really wanted to do well and I had a lot of confidence going into it," O'Hear said. "I wish our team could have done a lot better in the slalom, but we all have higher expectations for Regionals."
Co-captain Hilary Swaffield '06 put up a few impressive runs for the second week in a row, finishing third in the giant slalom on Friday and 10th in the slalom on Saturday.
"Hillary is really focused and intense, and she's right on top of her game," Leblanc said.
Other top competitors for the Bears on Friday were Sophie Elgort '08, who finished eighth in the giant slalom, and Janet Marley-Mauzy '07, who finished 13th in the giant slalom.
O'Hear and Swaffield finished the season fifth and sixth respectively in the MacConnell Division, statistically the most difficult division on the East Coast. Marley-Mauzy finished 15th and Elgort 20th overall. Nina Dibona '07 and co-captain Stephanie Breakstone '06, who are out for the season with injuries and have not competed for the last few weeks, still finished the season 18th and 23rd respectively.
This week the Bears head to back to New Hampshire to compete against 14 other squads in the ECSC Regional Championships.
"If the girls can keep it together, they should do really well at the Regionals," Leblanc said.
