Wolcott, Ludington Lead Saints in First Carnival of 2010

Jan. 15: The St. Lawrence University men's and women's Nordic ski teams opened the 2010 season on Friday morning, as the Saints hosted the first carnival of the EISA season in Lake Placid, NY.  The Scarlet and Brown were led by a pair of career-best finishes by seniors Eric Wolcott and Johannah Ludington, who finished 5^th and 7^th in their respective races.

Wolcott, whose career best finish heading into Friday was an 11^th place showing at Bates last year, raced the men's 10K Classic in a time of 28:27.7 to shatter his previous best showing.  The Concord, NH native logged 39.0 points for the Saints in the carnival and picked up 45 points towards a bid to NCAA's.

Seniors Ben Knowles and Zach Wetherell rounded out the scoring for the men's team at 88.0 points to land in 5^th place as a trio, only six points shy of a podium finish.  Knowles clocked in at 29:33.2 to land in 17^th place while Wetherell was five spots behind in 22^nd (29:48.0).

Also represented St. Lawrence in the men's race were junior Kyle Marvinney (44^th, 31:25.5), sophomore Teo Jackson (49^th, 31:46.0), junior Steven Vargo (51^st, 31:54.9), sophomores Adam Terko (32:44.3) and Ben Ogden (71^st, 33:55.1) and first-year student Connor Hunt (75^th, 35:23.8).

Meanwhile, Ludington, who is fresh off of an All-America campaign with the women's cross country team, picked up her first collegiate top-10 with her 7^th place finish.  The Morrisville, VT native raced the women's 5K Classic in 16:27.6 to collect 39.0 points for the Scarlet and Brown's total and 36 points towards an NCAA Championship berth.

Ludington was followed in the scoring by sophomores Caroline Carpenter and Leah Hart, who brought the Saints' total to 73.0 points to finish in 6^th place overall.  Carpenter raced in 17:06.0 for 22^nd position overall out of 93 competitors while Hart was six spots back in 28^th place (17:29.8).

Rounding out St. Lawrence's women's roster on Friday in the classic race were rookie Kelsey Nichols (57^th, 18:18.0), juniors Hannah James (68^th, 18:52.5), Sophie Allen (75^th, 19:07.6) and Elizabeth Hayden (82^nd, 19:49.6) and first-year students Margaret Fellows (85^th, 20:39.8) and Allison Hall (89^th, 21:29.3).

Dartmouth's Ida Sargent won the women's race in 15:10.2, over 16 seconds ahead of teammate Rosie Brennan, while Nils Koons of Dartmouth took the men's race in 27:32.7.  The Big Green were victorious in the team standings in both the men's and women's races as well.

The Saints will be in action again tomorrow, Saturday, January 16^th in Day 2 of the SLU Carnival at Mt. Hoevenberg.  Both squads will compete in the Freestyle races starting at 10:00am.