Middlebury College Ski Team

This years pile

shbartle — Tue, 08 May 2012 13:50:07 +0000

We conquered the New Haven River banks this weekend on Green Up Day. The Alpine Team and New Haven River Anglers scoured and picked the banks for trash and debris. Plenty of barbed wire, cans, bottles and broken glass. Item of the day was a nice modern coffee maker found by Katelyn. Coffee fanatic Hig was not present for katelyn to make him a cup. Schoz declined the offer too.

thanks ski team for a valiant effort. The river thanks you too.

GREEN UP DAY

acopeland — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:47:13 +0000

On May 5th the New Haven River Anglers and the Middlebury Alpine Team will be hosting a Green Up Day event at the old Dog Team Tavern in Middlebury that coincides with Vermont Green Up Day.

Come on out and help us clean up the New Haven River and the surrounding area to make Vermont look nice this spring or just head out on your own and make a difference!

We will be meeting in the old Dog Team Tavern parking lot at 8am. Coffee and breakfast foods will be provided by the New Haven River Anglers.

Resolute: Middlebury Ski Team Goes to Montpelier

AG — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 19:24:49 +0000

Members of the 2011-2012 NCAA Alpine and Nordic Ski Teams Traveled to the State House in
Montpelier on Friday to be read a Resolution congratulating them on their successful season. Patrick
Johnson and fellow Nordic skier Annie Pokorny earned All-American honors at NCAAs out in Bozeman
Montana , as did Alpine skiers Andrew McNealus and Hig Roberts who led the Alpine men’s team to
a National Championship in the team Slalom event. Getting an opportunity to visit the State House is
very special – being honored at the State House is something else entirely! A huge thank you goes out
to all of the Middlebury Skiing community for their continued support throughout the season especially
Willem Jewett and our other local state representatives for giving us this great honor at the State
House. On to next year!

Ski Team Community Service: Tree Planting on the New Haven River-Join us if you can!

shbartle — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 19:09:02 +0000

Hi Ski Teamers and others,-

One of our community service events this year is planting trees on a tributary of the New Haven River. This particular tributary of the New Haven River contributes brown, murky sediment laden water to the main branch of the New Haven River. In the summer this section also heats up due to a lack of shade, and it dumps hot water into the main branch of the river. The combination of sediment, nutrients and thermal pollution can adversely affect aquatic life, fish and overall water quality. By planting trees to stabilize the banks and provide shade, we can reduce the levels of sediment and lower the water temperature in the long term. Last year we planted over 500 trees over 500 plus ft of river. This year we will plant and fence off another 1,000 ft of the river with over 1500 trees and shrubs.

For those of you that did it last year it is a fun project. Bagels, doughnuts, juice and coffee will be provided.

See you all on Saturday!

Pass the info below on to anyone outside the team who would like to join us. The more the better!

Saturday April 7^th- 8 am Team Community Service Project for The New Haven River Anglers conservation group. Tree planting on the New Haven River. Probably take about 2-3 hours. Some shoveling, some playing in the mud and good times.

The address is:

1848 Halpin Road

New Haven, VT

05472

Look for the house with a red roof and apple trees in the front yard on the east side of the road.

Feel free to bring:

-shovel or planting bar

-hip boots, waders, or rubber boots

-work gloves

-hammer or light mal

Check the weather and dress wisely, we will be on a somewhat remote stretch so you will want to be prepared. This planting shouldn’t take more than a few hours so come spend the morning with us.

Stever

shbartle@middlebury.edu

802 282 2880

Liam and Bryan make NESCAC WINTER 2012 ALL-ACADEMIC TEAM

shbartle — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 17:34:20 +0000

NESCAC ALL ACADEMIC TEAM is awarded to winter sport athletes that achieve a 3.5 point GPA or higher in the fall semester. Nice studying skills boys.

Panther Fans are AWESOME

acopeland — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 17:51:10 +0000

Panther Fans are awesome! These young Panther Fans just happen to be Head Coach Stever Bartlett’s niece, Julia and his nephew, Kellan! To celebrate the NCAA win by the men’s team, Julia and Kellan skied every trail at the Middlebury College Snow Bowl. How AWESOME is that!!??! Thanks Julia and Kellan for getting psyched on Middlebury Skiing!

Middlebury Men are National Slalom Champions

shbartle — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 00:58:05 +0000

Congrats to the guys today. For winning the NCAA Slalom Championship! National Champions!

Hig Roberts 5^th,

Andrew McNealus 6^th

Bryans Shpall 12^th

Incredible performance. Proud of the guys and proud to be a part of the Middlebury Skiing Community!

Stever

NCAAs

AG — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 17:20:11 +0000

And like that, it’s done – the season, the racing, the preparation. Yes there are a few late season races left. Yes there is skiing to be had…but the big shows, the big focus is done for this year and the coming late March races are every bit a preview to next season, preparation for 2013 as they are the end of 2012. Here in Montana, we are deep in the come-down. Alpine races today will cement our final position at these championships, but after yesterday, everything feels relieving.
The NCAA championships may be the country’s most underrated race. Events like Junior Nationals, Senior Nationals and European trips take firm hold in the imagination of many young American skiers. But no where else in the ski world are racers bound to coaches, to team alpine athletes, to program tradition, expectation and history. Chatting with fellow coaches yesterday, we agreed that very few races hold the same sway, the same ability to make us nervous and off guard. (These are peoples who have been to hundreds and hundreds of ski races…)
There also isn’t a single race series in the country with the same consequences for a bad day. Everyone at NCAAs is good- not proficient, not participatory, but at the very least, good. This year’s Middlebury contingent felt those consequences thoroughly on Wednesday when we didn’t have the day we’d hoped for in the skate race. Both Chase and Annie turned in respectable efforts and held the pleased-but-not content feeling for the team. Ben, Sophie and most visibly, given his clear position as a skier who had the ability to win the race, Patrick, struggled on Wednesday. That was hard.
I’ve thought a lot about what separates the people who have the best races they are capable of at NCAAs versus those who can be cowed by the event and leave frustrated. It’s pretty evident in our team here. This crowd, regardless of the times I’ve given them skis that were out of it, never complains about skis. These skiers don’t make predictions or boast. These skiers don’t fixate on single people to beat or teams or mistakes. They don’t worry about details that don’t matter to make them better. All of them, though very differently, have slowly improved their skiing, carefully picked off bits of training and racing experience and built themselves into better racers.
“I just want to get to Friday so I can forget Wednesday.” Patrick said as we were driving up to test skis on Thursday, something I felt also through the day as we tested. Patty Ross and I talked through the anticipation, ski prep and last bits of readiness for the final race of the season.

I’ve written on these pages and told many folks that my favorite time of coaching is in the hours before the first race of each day. I love the coffee, the drive to the venue, the calculated possibility of the day. There’s very few pleasures like testing wax with a handful of coaches on a perfectly prepped track. In the hours leading up to Friday’s races, alpine glow lit up the mountains behind Bohart, the tracks were flawless and the scene was really, really beautiful.
When the gun went off for the men’s races, I felt confident in the skis- a klister combination similar to wax we’d been on all year. Patrick and Ben found their way to the front of the pack early and Chase took a more steadied effort in starting. The course in Bozeman is tough- long climbs and twisting corners punctuated by a couple unpleasant walls. For the first two of the four laps, the groups stayed clustered together and focused. Patrick skied well within himself and Ben looked relaxed. (I’ll admit that I missed seeing Chase during this lap..)
Through the calm and metered efforts, the men skied further and further forward in the group. Patrick moved from roughly 12th place into a fifth place finish. Ben jumped from just inside the top twenty to a sprint for 12th, in which he was bested by a toe and Chase recovered from a tough third lap to pass three people in the final kilometers of the race to ensure he was in scoring position for the team. It was a proud effort for all of them. To see Chase close out his college career with a confident effort, to see Ben make the jump from fear to knowing in his skiing and to watch Patrick, compose himself after a tough race on Wednesday to finish in a great position, a great race. It shouldn’t go without saying that the race for the winner was one of the best seen in recent memory. Miles Havlick skied a brilliant race- taking the group out hard before settling behind a powerful David Norris. When the two outpaced the rest of the field and it came to a sprint, Miles closed it out with a strong double pole. Impressive.

Impressive also was the number of All-Americans that were…American. Six of the ten of them to be exact. An impressive day.

If the men’s race was exciting, then the women’s race was spectacular. Conditions continued to warm on the course but the tracks held well. Annie and Sophie arrived just as the melee of the men’s finish was dying down and it was clear that both of them were calm and relaxed. Annie waited for her skis while dancing to the music Peter Graves played (“It’s Raining Men” to be exact.). Sophie returned from ski testing to explain, “They are good. Don’t change them.” We didn’t and Annie and Sophie headed to the start with an open klister ski and conditions still warming.

Both of our women were well placed before the first kilometer. Impressive since neither were seeded particularly well. By the second climb, the both hovered around the top twenty mark with a comfortable rhythm to their skiing. Up in the front of the pack, the Dartmouth women led the first lap.
What happened next was really impressive, or maybe lucky, or a bit of both. Over the next lap, UVM and Dartmouth slowly moved to the front of the pack- as in all of their skiers. The race favorites, slowly were pushed to the back of the front pack and Annie found herself just outside the top ten.
Suddenly the days and days of klister racing we’ve seen on the east coast came in handy. Many people struggled with skis, the easterners didn’t and when the top six women came through from Eastern schools, when seven of the top ten were from the east- it was clear that a spectacular day had happened.

Sophie skied a brilliant race moving from the high twenties to a 20th place finish. Annie notched an All-American finish in 9th.
To see Annie ski her best race of the season at the most important race of the season, to see Sophie close out her career with an impressive effort on the biggest stage in college skiing, to enjoy the sun and snow – including a piñata to celebrate Patty’s birthday purchased by Sophie the day before, to watch our best NCAA results since 2009 was a really great day.

NCAA Skiing Events Live on Webcast

shbartle — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 14:00:51 +0000

Click here to go to the NCAA Skiing Webcast

Nordic events on Wednesday and Friday

Alpine events on Thursday and Saturday

Best of Luck to the Middlebury Crew at Junior Nationals Tomorrow.

AG — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 05:34:26 +0000

The classic sprint kicks off the JN’s in Soldier Hollow tomorrow. Game on, Midd crew! Best of luck.