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Morning Sentinel
HIGH SCHOOL SKIING: Bears take 3rd place at KVACs
By DAVID McLAUGHLIN Correspondent Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel 02/15/2008

RUMFORD -- The Mt. Blue High School boys and girls teams won overall titles at the weather plagued Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference ski championships Thursday at Black Mountain.

Two days of competition had been moved after snowstorms and cold weather. Thursday, however, Nordic skiers enjoyed the warm, sunny course that generated fast times and extremely close races.

Mt. Blue boys won all four events (freestyle, classic, slalom and giant slalom) to easily outscore Oxford Hills, 125-240 and win the title. Maranacook finished third with 286 points. In the girls competition, Mt. Blue outscored second-place Leavitt 109-210. Maranacook was third with 252 points.

Maranacook's Emily Harriman won the girls 5k freestyle race, narrowly beating Leavitt's Jessie Hinckley. Lauren Turner of Leavitt won the boys freestyle title, edging Mt. Blue's Welly Ramsey.

In a pursuit style race, Harriman started fourth, where she finished in last week's classical race. The Maranacook junior took the lead during the final stretch heading into the stadium area to win the freestyle and overall Nordic individual title.

"It was a really exciting race," Harriman said. "I tried to keep everybody in sight during the race and was able to take the lead heading down toward the stadium. It felt pretty good because the competition was so good."

Ramsey, who claimed the classical title last Saturday at Titcomb Mountain in Farmington, garnered enough points from his second place finish in the freestyle race to claim the boys Skimeister title by outdistancing teammate Peter Smith, 49-88. Ramsey, in his first high school effort on the Alpine slopes, finished 25th in the slalom and 21st in the giant slalom.

"I tried to focus on each individual race," Ramsey said. "I liked the downhill, it was a different type of skiing that was fun."

Maranacook's Jen Monsulick collected the girls Skimeister title, edging Hannah Vigue of Camden Hills 63-69.

Monsulick had consistent efforts in the Nordic races with two eighth-place finishes.

She also finished 22nd in the giant slalom and 25th in the slalom.

"We had a very good day," Maranacook Nordic coach Steve DeAngelis said. "We have been working on pacing ourselves during the races, so we have the legs at the end and today we did that."

The Mt. Blue boys had three skiers finish in the top six in the freestyle competition Thursday. Following Ramsey's second place were Derek Rowe (4th), Adam Fissette (6th) and Kelton Cullenberg (14th) rounding out the Cougars scoring.

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