Green Skiers Win Carnival Meet
COACH Walter Prager's Dartmouth ski team won the 38th annual invitational ski meet over seven other competing colleges at the annual Dartmouth Winter Carnival on the weekend of February 5-6. The Indians had little difficulty in successfully defending the Carnival Cup, which they took from Denver University in 1952. Dartmouth men won each event as Bill Beck captured the slalom, Captain Brooks Dodge the downhill, and sophomore ace Ralph Miller both the cross-country and jump. Miller placed high in the Alpine events also to win the Skimeister title as best all-around skier in the meet.
Final tabulations for all events plus combined standings put Dartmouth in front with 588.7 points, while the top contender for Carnival honors, Middlebury, ranked second with 575.1 points. The University of Vermont was third with a 523.0 score, while the other teams, in order, were New Hampshire, 521.8; St. Lawrence, 508.1; McGill, 487.0; Syracuse, 474.9 and Williams, 441.5.
Friday's events included the morning slalom race, which because of poor snow cover had been moved from Hanover's Oak Hill to Suicide Six at Woodstock, Vt., and the afternoon cross-country trek on the Hanover golf course. The 35-gate course at Woodstock was difficult with a hard, icy and chattery surface causing many spills. As if this wasn't difficult enough, the race officials decided to try a new starting system with the result that many of the competitors including Brooks Dodge got away to false starts and had to be called back with resultant loss of time. However, for the second run the officials reverted to the old style of counting off the last five seconds before the start and the round went off without a hitch. Final tabulations of both runs put Dartmouth's Bill Beck on top with a combined time of 108.4, while Doug Burden of Middlebury, who had fallen on his second run, was in second place at 112.2 and there was a three-way split for third place between Dartmouth's Captain Brooks Dodge and Verne Good win and Dick Shaw of Middlebury. Middlebury's Dick Ireland took sixth place, while Ralph Miller finished 7th for the Big Green. The afternoon cross- country race over an eight-mile course caused another snafu to embarrass officials and competitors. Claude Richer of St. Lawrence was the first contestant to cross the finish line with a winning time of 59 minutes and 51 seconds, but it was later proved that he and another entrant had gone off the course and the two men were disqualified. This put the Big Green's Ralph Miller in the top spot with a time of 64:20, while Dick Snow of New Hampshire was second, Wally Ashnault of Dartmouth third and Owen Owens of McGill fourth.
Thus at the end of the Friday events slalom and cross-country Dartmouth led Middlebury by the narrow margin of 195.0 to 192.1, while Vermont was in third place with a 176.5 score.
The Saturday morning downhill race at nearby Moose Mountain in Etna, N. H., saw the competitors once again bucking icy snow conditions which coupled with driving rain and tricky turns, made a hazardous course. Fastest time for the run was turned in by Dartmouth's Captain Brooks Dodge who negotiated the treacherous course in 71.8 seconds. However. Middlebury cut the Dartmouth team lead by placing Verne Goodwin second, Dick Ireland third and Doug Burden fifth, while the only other Dartmouth point winner was Ralph Miller who finished fourth.
History was repeating itself now, for just as in 1952 the outcome of the meet hinged on the jumping event, which was held Saturday afternoon on the Dartmouth 40-meter hill. Crews of volunteers had been working feverishly to keep the jump in shape and combat the losses caused by the rain. However, by jump time the rain had let up and the jump was in passable condition. The Big Green was not supposedly strong in the jump, but went all out before a Carnival throng of some 3500 to prove the experts wrong. Ralph Miller soared 126 and 125 feet in perfect form to win the event with a 217.8 total, while John Bassette put together the longest leaps of the afternoon - 130 and 131 feet for 217.1 points and second place honors for Dartmouth. Middlebury's Verne Goodwin, displaying near perfect form, jumped 115 and 119 feet for third place, with Skip Carey of Dartmouth taking fourth and Dick Ireland of Middlebury fifth.
As the jump results became known, it was apparent that Dartmouth had once again successfully defended the Carnival Ski Meet Cup and that Ralph Miller's firsts in the jump and cross-country, coupled with his high rankings in downhill and slalom, had won the Hanover sophomore the highly prized Skimeister award. It was a fitting climax to the Winter Carnival at Dartmouth and Coach Walter Prager's team took on added luster by their fine performances during the four-event meet. For the record, it was the 19th time in 38 years that Dartmouth has won the Carnival meet.
CARNIVAL VICTORS: The Dartmouth ski team that took top honors in the annual invitational meet included (I to r) Gus Hullman, Jake Stewart, Wally Ashnault, Ralph Miller, Captain Brooks Dodge, Bill Beck, John Bassette, Bill Tibbits, and Tom Corcoran.
WINNING FORM: Bill Beck of Dartmouth nearing the end of one of the two runs that gave him first place in the Dartmouth Carnival slalom held at Suicide Six, in Woodstock, Vt.
COACH WALTER PRAGER HELPS JAKE STEWART WAX UP FOR THE CARNIVAL CROSS-COUNTRY
