Their best skier fell on his first run of the day. One lost a pole. Two more missed a gate. But those circumstances didn’t define them.

Senior Harrison Wilson won the giant slalom in the morning, junior Merrick Chapin won the slalom in the afternoon and also finished second in the GS, and the Hopkinton boys’ Alpine team recovered from some potentially costly errors to capture the NHIAA Division III championship on Thursday at Gunstock.

Wilson’s two GS runs combined for a time of 1 minute, 12.79 seconds and the individual victory.

Chapin fell on his first run, but popped right back up to still finish with a respectable 38.35 second run and ripped the fastest GS run of the day – 35.78 seconds – to finish right behind Wilson in 1:14.13.

Senior Conrad Mollano finished sixth and freshman Coley Wells came in 11th to give the Hawks a 34-point lead, 384-350 over Kearsarge, heading into the afternoon slalom.

“Typically, if people are going to fall, more often than not it’s in slalom, so if you can get a lead in GS it lets you ski more like you want to (later in the slalom),” Hopkinton head coach Scott Zipke said. “About 50 percent of the field in slalom fell, did not finish, got disqualified, or had to hike up because they missed a gate.”

That may have applied to most of the field, but it certainly didn’t apply to Chapin, who posted “two crazy good slalom runs,” according to Zipke, winning the slalom in 1:10.27, 7.5 seconds ahead of Kearsarge’s Alex Spinney, who finished runner-up.

Wells finished 10th in the slalom, Mollano came in 14th and Wilson finished 17th.

Hopkinton also won the slalom portion of the championship to win the overall title, finishing with a final score of 746 points, improving on last year’s score of 727 that the Hawks scored when they finished second to Plymouth.

Plymouth (695), St. Thomas (655), White Mountains (630) and Kearsarge (612) were the other top five teams.

Hillsboro-Deering (ninth, 448), Belmont (10th, 377), John Stark (11th, 316.5) and Bishop Brady (12th, 220) were the other area teams in the 15-team field.

“What really won us the championship was Coley finishing 10th in the slalom,” Zipke said, highlighting that the freshman lost his pole in the middle of his run, but didn’t get rattled for the remainder of the course.

Both Mollano and Wilson missed gates on one of their slalom runs, but were able to efficiently and properly hike up and complete their runs, while executing well on their other attempts.

“A little bit of everything,” Zipke said, referring to his squad’s experience, poise, and ability to maintain their composure. “We talk about it all the time throughout the year. It doesn’t really matter who finishes where. We’re always talking about what to do if you miss a gate, how to properly go around it so you don’t get disqualified. They listened and it paid off. Conrad and Harrison both missed gates and had to hike, but were still coming in with good points, that’s what won the championship for us.”

A fire in town meant that the fire department wasn’t able to lead the traditional championship parade through town on Wednesday when the Hopkinton girls’ team claimed the D-III crown, but on Thursday night, the entire Alpine program was able to celebrate together.

Spinney finished third in the GS (1:14.64) in addition to this second-place performance in the slalom to qualify for the Meet of Champions. 

John Stark’s Austin Freeman (third slalom, fourth GS), Kearsarge’s Sam Mann (seventh slalom) and Bishop Brady’s Caleb Goldstein (ninth GS) also qualified for MOC by finishing in the top 10.

Spinney, Mann (13th GS), Braden Hurley (17th GS) and Grayson Wyman (23rd GS, 37th slalom) scored for fifth-place Kearsarge.

Gregory Leblanc (19th slalom, 28th GS), Logan Lane (52nd GS), Landon Lane (44th slalom, 53rd GS) and Cameron Leblanc (45th slalom, 58th GS) scored for ninth-place Hillsboro-Deering.

Mathias Krauchunas (11th slalom, 16th GS), Landon Bormes (27th slalom, 37th GS)  and Ryan Cribbie (48th GS) scored for Belmont; Goldstein, Boden Gendron (38th GS) and Logan Pelletier (47th GS) led Bishop Brady; and Freeman and Samuel Robinson (40th slalom, 54th GS) represented John Stark.