McLoon Carries Skiing To 20th at NCAAs

Save for a pre-Christmas training trip to Aspen, Col., the Harvard alpine squad didn’t get to practice heading into last season.

The nordic unit, which doesn’t recruit and lacks a full-time coach, made a similar one-time excursion to train in Utah, but missed the season’s first carnival due to finals and was largely prevented from practicing on even the nearby Weston Ski Track by this year’s mild winter.

Still, Harvard’s ski teams fought all season to turn in competitive times and managed to finish 11th out of 18 schools at the Middlebury Carnival, the final team event of the year.

Given the less-than-ideal circumstances, the skiers were happy with their perseverance, if not satisfied with their performances.

“In terms of Harvard skiing, our season was a success,” said nordic co-captain Kate Damon. “Our team is always at a disadvantage compared to our competitors because we don’t get a lot of funding, we don’t do any recruiting and we don’t have the facilities that other schools have.”

Despite those obstacles, sophomore Anna McLoon, who is also a Radcliffe rower, qualified for the NCAA Championships for the second consecutive year. There, she literally carried Harvard single-handedly to a 20th-place finish overall, placing 21st out of 39 competitors in the five-kilometer classic and finishing 20th in the 15-kilometer freestyle.

But it wasn’t just there that the methodical McLoon carried the nordic squad. She figured in 61 of the team’s 73 points at the Bates Carnival in January and registered better than three-fifths of its point total at the Dartmouth Carnival the following month. A week later, she was the only Crimson athlete to finish in the top 30 in any event at the Williams Carnival.

As next year’s female captain, McLoon will be hard-pressed to replace the leadership provided by Damon and co-captain Julia Silvis.

“The captains definitely did a lot for the team in terms of inspiration and making sure everything got done,” McLoon said. “We definitely couldn’t have been as successful without [them].”

Next year’s team should benefit from the return of freshman Emily Osgood, who struggled this season with an injured hip flexor.

McLoon has modest goals for the coming season.

“We can’t expect to be champions when we don’t even have a raceable course to train on,” she said. “But we can still work hard and race as well as possible.”

McLoon’s fellow captain will be freshman Ross Feller, who succeeds Boris Granovskiy and Misha Lipatov. Granovskiy was the team’s best skier in the 10-kilometer classical, while Lipatov may be remembered for wandering off course during the 20-kilometer freestyle at the University of Vermont Carnival and sustaining a gash on his head that required stitches. Lipatov had already tallied five points the previous day in the 10-kilometer classical.

On the alpine side, freshman Carrie Baizer didn’t waste any time making her mark on Crimson skiing, notching a team-high 15 points in her first collegiate race. And Baizer didn’t let up, recording 19 of the team’s 32 points at Dartmouth.

Baizer, also a talented golfer, will replace the graduating Sarah Luskin as captain next year and hopes to help institute significant changes in the program, including renting a house in Hanover, N.H., that will allow the team to train. Baizer is also counting on the continued improvement of sophomore Rachel Wagner, who made great strides after skiing through gates for the first time this season.

For the men, junior Ryan Myers takes over for graduating captain Kenan Stern. With junior Bryan Bellmare and sophomore Matt Perone also returning, Harvard will have several experienced, talented skiers next year.

And though the Crimson skiers must contend with unfavorable conditions as well as their opponents, they show no signs of getting discouraged. In fact—as evidenced by Baizer’s lofty plans—they see building a program as just one more challenge to undertake.

SKIING

RESULTS 11th/18 at EISA championships

COACHES Lisa Smyth, Sarah Cushman ’91

CAPTAINS Kenan Stern and Sarah Luskin (Alpine), Katherine Damon and Julia Silvis (Nordic)

HIGHLIGHTS Sophomore nordic skier Anna McLoon qualifies for her second straight NCAA Championships and carries Harvard to a 20th-place finish at nationals with a 21st-place finish in the five-kilometer classic and a 20th-place finish in the 15-kilometer freestyle.