Last year, Hopkinton High nearly won the Division III title in its inaugural season after moving up from D-IV, but some costly errors gave the title to Plymouth. The Hawks vowed not to make those mistakes again.
This Hopkinton boys’ Alpine ski team was already the most talented group that coach Bob Berliner had seen in 20 years of coaching at the high school level, but it was the Hawks’ maturity that led them to the D-III Alpine title on Tuesday at Mount Sunapee – the program’s first since 1999.
Hopkinton placed all four scoring skiers in the top nine of the slalom and top 10 of the giant slalom to easily win both events for a combined score of 756 points, a comfortable margin over runner-up Plymouth (711) and third-place Kearsarge (704).
Gilford (654), St. Thomas (623) and Bishop Brady (569) rounded out the top six team scores, while Belmont (481) and Hillsboro-Deering (380) placed ninth and 10th, respectively, out of the 13 teams that competed.
“(In 2021), they were going for it and ended up straddling gates, and someone else stumbled coming out the gate. That cost us last year,” said Berliner, who has been the head coach for Hopkinton for the last five years. “This is a really mature team. Most of these guys I coach in USSA racing as well. They’re focused in their discipline.”
The Hawks set the tone early, winning the morning GS by 15 points (379-364 over second-place Plymouth). That gave Hopkinton a nice cushion heading into the afternoon slalom event, typically the stronger of the two disciplines for this squad.
“Will (Chapin) said, ‘Let’s not take chances in this first run; let’s lay one down, and then go for it on the second run,’ ” Berliner said. “We race (at Sunapee) quite a bit. We knew the hill very well. We knew if we skied our game, we would do alright. It’s not a difficult hill, but the snow was really hard and icy.”
Chapin, a junior, finished fourth in the GS with a combined time of 58.83 seconds. His brother, freshman Merrick Chapin, finished fifth in 58.98, while sophomore Harrison Wilson and senior Ben Berliner finished sixth and 10th, respectively.
“Slalom is the team’s stronger suit,” coach Berliner said. “It’s easier to prepare for with limited hill space and terrain, so I was really happy that we took the GS as well.”
Plymouth’s Dylan Welch won in 55.65 – more than two seconds ahead of runner-up Ryan Stailey of St. Thomas – and Belmont senior Mitchell Berry finished third in 58.54.
The Hawks pulled away in the afternoon slalom, scoring 377 points, while Plymouth finished third with 347.
Kearsarge, which finished fourth in the GS, took second in the slalom with 359, but no team was close to challenging Hopkinton. Welch (52.85 seconds) and Berry (55.31) went 1-2 and easily outpaced the rest of the field. Wilson (fifth in 59.27), Merrick Chapin (sixth in 59.79), Will Chapin (seventh) and senior Andrew Zankel (ninth) were consistently strong enough to stay near the top.
“There’s some teams that have really good talent, but (the leaders) were spread out among several different teams. That surprised me,” coach Berliner said. “We had so much depth in the top tier. I thought it might have been closer. I felt confident that even if one of two guys went down we’d have the depth to do alright.”
Ben Berliner (12th slalom), sophomore Conrad Mollano (11th GS) and Zankel (13th GS) all had excellent runs in non-scoring efforts, nearly cracking the top 10 to qualify for the Meet of Champions.
“On any given day, I could have three or four different people be the top skier,” coach Berliner said. “They’re pushing each other. My experience is that if you have a team that is experienced and deep, they push each other collectively.”
Ty Bears (eighth slalom) had the best finish of the day for the third-place Cougars and will join the Chapin brothers, Wilson, Zankel, Berliner and Berry at the Feb. 24 Meet of Champions at Cannon Mountain.
Alex Spinney (11th slalom, 12th GS), Augie Zock (13th slalom, 20th GS), Sam Mann (15th slalom), Braden Hurley (16th GS) and Thomas Shepard (18th GS) were the other scoring skiers for Kearsarge.
Liam Masner (25th GS and slalom), Max Brooks (24th slalom, 31st GS), Alex Miller (41st slalom), Jack Beauchesne (44th GS), Nic Brown (45th slalom) and Colby Van Kannewurff (49th GS) scored for Bishop Brady.
Tanner McKim (28th GS), Landon Bormes (31st slalom, 41st GS) and Mathias Krauchuna (43rd GS) joined Berry as the other scoring skiers for Belmont, while Logan Lane (35th slalom, 45th GS), David Prentiss (34th slalom, 54th GS) and Greg Leblanc (43rd slalom 55th GS) competed for H-D.
Concord had a less-experienced group of skiers take the hill this year, but the Tide competed well in a deep field at Gunstock, finishing fifth at the D-I championship. Bedford defended its title in a tiebreaker over Bishop Guertin.
Both teams scored 736 points, but Bedford had a slightly faster combined time of all eight scoring runs. Keene (691), Pinkerton (636) and Concord (610) rounded out the top five team scores.
Junior Read Merrill – the only skier for the Tide with racing experience prior to high school – placed fifth in the slalom and sixth in the GS to qualify for the Meet of Champions.
Davis Foley (18th GS, 42nd slalom), Jacob Ryder (31st GS), Carter Pratt (33rd slalom, 41st GS) and Pablo Winn (40th slalom) also scored for Concord, which matched last year’s fifth-place finish.
“It was another great day of ski racing with a lot of really good competition,” coach George Golden said. “We lost one of our top skiers with an injury early in the season, but the rest of the team stepped up and stayed competitive in a tough group of Division I skiers. All of our boys will be returning next year and we are excited to improve.”
Bow (647.5 points) finished fifth at Cranmore Mountain, with Kennett (758) winning its third consecutive D-II title.
Hanover (715), Souhegan (7o7.5) and ConVal (661) took second through fourth place. Pembroke (461) finished ninth.
Olivia Selleck (20th slalom, 22nd GS), Sophia Coombs (21st slalom, 24th GS), Ava Gadbois (19th slalom, 29th GS), Sarah Lavigne (21st GS) and Meredith Ryan (22nd slalom) led the Falcons. Mackenzie Hawkins (36th GS), Elizabeth Duchesne (39th slalom, 47th GS), Maggie Bowes (34th slalom, 49th GS) and Emma Parsons (42nd slalom, 46th GS) scored for Pembroke.
Alyson Kenney (24th slalom, 34th GS) was the only skier for John Stark, and Violet Webb (41st GS) was the lone skier for Merrimack Valley.