Three days after winning the Mountain Valley Conference Nordic combined championship, the Winthrop High School boys continued their impressive run, stunning powerful Waynflete on opening day in the Class C state ski championship meet.

Winthrop placed four skiers in the top ten to take a 23-28 lead in the boys Nordic competition. Skiers will line up for a 5k classical race at 10:45 a.m. Wednesday at Black Mountain that will determine the boys Nordic combined champion.

On the slopes at Sunday River in Bethel, the Rangeley boys team also pulled off an upset, narrowly defeating Freeport in the giant slalom race, 43-45. Rangeley returns today to Sunday River for the final day of Alpine racing with a slalom event.

"We are really happy, we are trying to hold in our excitement because there is another day to race," Winthrop Nordic coach Ed Van Tassel said. "Now we have got to double our effort for Wednesday."

Less than one minute separated the top nine skiers in the freestyle race at Black Mountain leaving the Nordic title championship up for grabs. Danny Soltan paced the Ramblers effort finishing third in 12 minutes, 13.2 seconds, while teammates Justin Carpenter (12:45.4), Alex Cottrell (12:54.4) and Tor O'Brien (13:10.8) were fifth, sixth and ninth, respectively.

"They were pumped," Van Tassel said. "I just told them to ski as fast as they could."

Waynflete's Tom Reagan claimed top honors turning in a 12:10.9, while Fort Kent's Nicholas Michaud was second in 12:12.6.

Rangeley, which did not participate in a conference championship last week, trained hard for the Class C Alpine events. That paid dividends for the Lakers on opening day. Luke Hammond challenged for first place, eventually settling into second with a combined two-run time of 1:23.57. Freeport's Tommaso Rondi was first in 1:21.04.

"We had Luke run a little conservative today," Rangeley Alpine coach Dustin Duchesne said. "We went for the team aspect, so hopefully Tuesday we can hold onto the lead."

Devin Duchesne (the coach's brother) finished ninth, followed by Nicholas Bridges in 14th and Cody Brooks 18th.

"I was thinking we could probably have a shot at the runner-up spot coming into today's race," Coach Duchesne said. "Now we have a shot at the gold."

Winthrop's Colby Laflamme finished 16th, while Winthrop's Lauren McHatten and Monmouth's Brittany Rogers claimed 12th and 13th, respectively, in the girls giant slalom race.