Coming off a sixth-place finish in 2022 with a new coaching staff and a young lineup, you’d think Hopkinton would have some growing pains in 2023.

The Hawks shook those off pretty quickly.

Hopkinton placed all four scoring skiers in the top 11 of the morning giant slalom and topped that by placing all four in the top eight in the afternoon slalom, as the Hawks decisively claimed the Division III girls’ Alpine ski championship on Monday at Gunstock.

Hopkinton scored 380 points in the GS and 382 in the slalom for a total of 762, a comfortable margin over runner-up Plymouth (696). The defending champion Bobcats finished second in both the GS (344) and slalom (352).

“All our girls stood up for all of their runs, which is a pretty bananas thing to happen at a  championship meet,” first-year head coach Scott Zipke said. “They made it hard for anyone else to get even close to them. It was a great performance by the whole team to ski flawlessly.”

St. Thomas (684), Gilford (670) and Bishop Brady (632) claimerd third, fourth and fifth, respectively, while Belmont (10th, 450), Hillsboro-Deering (12th, 290), Kearsarge (14th, 199) and John Stark (15th, 188) were the other local teams that competed in the 16-team field.

Aly Latsilnik of St. Thomas won the GS (1:11.25) ahead of runner-up Maya Spiegel of Kearsarge (1:12.33), but Spiegel won the title in the afternoon slalom in 1:10.16, just .19 seconds ahead of Latsilnik.

Zipke spoke to Hopkinton’s youth and depth after the Hawks won the Capital Cup on Feb. 1, and both were clear when you look at Monday’s results.

Freshmen Anne Pearce (third, 1:12.86) and Marcella Guadagno (fourth, 1:12.88) led Hopkinton in the GS, with senior Clara Locke (sixth, 1:14.54) and freshman Avery Loew (11th) rounding out the scoring.

Locke led Hopkinton’s afternoon slalom runs, clocking a combined time of 1:10.63, with Pearce (fifth, 1:12.01), Guadagno (sixth, 1:14, 10) and Loew (eight, 1:16.91) completing the scoring.

“It’s certainly been neat to watch (Clara) take on that leadership role among those girls who scored for us,” Zipke said. “I wasn’t really sure with three freshmen how they would react, but they followed Clara’s lead and she was the steadying hand. Clara has been in a lot of big (Alpine and Nordic) meets and her experience paid off for all of them, not just for herself.”

Bishop Brady was led by T eresa Lavoie (11th in slalom; 16th in GS), Anna Beauchesne (13th GS; 23rd slalom), Rhea Ganchi (26th slalom; 27th GS) and Grace Tauscher (29th GS; 40th slalom).

Belmont was led by Riley Degange (25th in slalom; 31st in GS), Meg Souc  ie (36th GS), Cate McDonald (42nd slalom; 43rd GS) and Anna McDonald (52nd slalom; 62nd GS).

Courtney Ford (37th in slalom; 40th in GS), Katie Connarn (55th slalom; 59th GS) and Carys Guillou (66th GS) competed for Hillsboro-Deering. Stella Zampieri (27th in slalom; 45th in GS) and Sophie Gray (61st GS) competed for John Stark.

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