Sise Cup Champions Crowned at SugarbushBy Brian Irwin After a long season of Masters Ski racing, the much-coveted SISE Cups were awarded this past weekend at Sugarbush. In the end, it was a familiar name who claimed yet another crown and a first time winner who will get their names engraved on the trophies and have their names added to the list of past champions. Carolyn Beckedorff took advantage of a mid-season injury to Jessie McAleer to win the season long battle for the ladies and on the men’s side, Mark George bested all comers to claim his first overall title. If we were to look back on the season, a couple of observations could be made. On the women’s side it was a two-person race with Jessie and Carolyn waging another epic battle for supremacy. Jessie looked to be well on her way to repeating as overall champion, but was undone by a knee injury the first week on February. Carolyn was able to close the gap after Jessie’s injury and run away from the rest of the field of ladies. While both women won seven times, it was the two second place finishes that Carolyn had that proved to be the difference in the end. Lisa Densmore, herself victorious twice, ended up third on the season with Kim Wolff in fourth and Abigail Lefebvre rounding out the top five for the year. Over in the men’s field the theme seemed to be parity. With no fewer than twelve different winners in the 17 scheduled races, anybody could win on any given day and that’s usually what happened. Overall winner, Mark George took advantage of his slalom ability and won three of the first four slaloms to build a sizable lead and then held off a multitude of challengers to claim his first SISE Cup crown. After a weekend sweep of three races in early February, Canadian Maxine Masse looked to be ready to mount a charge against George, but alas it never came to be and he wound up forth on the year. Steve Ouellete was extremely consistent, but an absence of more than one win and a late season injury stalled his quest at second overall. Past SISE Cup champion Matt Aeschliman could do no better than third overall after a late season DNF derailed his quest for another title. Brian Irwin mounted a late charge, after his win at Pico to climb into fifth overall, but proved to be too little too late. Sixth through tenth in the overall went to Alex Gabois, Bob Hill, Tip Kimball, Dave Wolff (the 2006 SISE Cup Champion) and Bryan Reimer rounded out the top ten. It is safe to assume that all of these men will be back in the year to come to try and pry the title away from our newly crowned champion. A few other notes and accolades: The season saw several first time winners. Tracy Beckerman got her first Master’s win at the Loon GS in February. The Pico/Okemo weekend in mid-February produced two first timers: Brian Irwin in the Pico GS and Scott Berube the following day at the Okemo GS. The previous week, also at Okemo, young Maxine Masse got his first win in SG (of three on the long weekend) and Luke Heibert claimed the title at the slalom hosted at Cannon. Two other first timers getting wins were Randy Detrick, who got two (Killington GS and Stratton GS) and Tim Mitchell, who took time off from his “day job” as Harvard ski coach to smoke the field in the slalom at Wildcat. A great season was had by all who participated. One last “major” weekend of racing remains for those not going to the Nationals in Montana; the Eastern Championships will be contested at Sunday River, Maine March 23-25. Hope to see you all there. |