Over the past weekend, the St. Lawrence Nordic team competed in the Colby College Carnival held at Quarry Road Trails.

The Saints faced a challenging 2.5 km course, along with single-digit temperatures in the morning. Friday’s 7.5 km individual skate race was highlighted with Emma Strack ’25, Amanda Vansant, ’24, and Lilli Thomas ’25 all cracking the top 50 to score for the Saints.

Strack led the scorers in fifth place. On the men’s side, Jax Lubkowitz ’24 led with a 47th place. The team then prepared for the first distance race of the season on Saturday.

The 2.5 km course at Quarry Road features several challenging climbs. Regardless of fitness or technique, the frequent ascents drain a skier’s energy. In turn, skiers can reach speeds of 30 mph on the descents at Quarry Road.

The cambered curves are difficult even on fresh legs. The 20 km entailed eight laps of the course in the classic technique. This meant that athletes needed to account for kick (traction) on the climbs and glide (speed) on the downhill sections, racing for just over an hour.

Lubkowitz delivered a career personal best of 41st. In a format where 80 athletes started at once, the field was fortunately largely unscathed by pileups or broken equipment, which is very infrequent.

Following the men’s race, Strack led the Saints in the women’s 20k. Strack particularly challenged the field on Quarry Roads climbs, putting in surges or maintaining contact with the lead pack.

In the end, Strack fin- ished in third place after chasing a tactical surge by Vermont’s Haley Brewster, followed by Dartmouth’s Jasmine Drolet.

Both of those athletes are on their national teams: Brewster on the USA team, and Drolet representing the Canadian team. In short, Strack had been racing with some of North America’s best prospects. Vansant and Thomas delivered results in the top 40 and 50, respectively.

Last year, Strack qualified for the 2023 NCAA Skiing Championships at Lake Placid, which was hosted by St. Lawrence. She finished 15th in the five-kilometer freestyle and 14th in the 20 kilometer classic, which were two very impressive performances.

This season, Strack will try to build on her very successful 2023 campaign with another strong season in 2024, and thus far she has done just that, with her performance at Colby cementing her as being one of the top nordic skiers in the entire NCAA.

On the day, the women placed sixth overall, exhibiting depth despite several hangups over the race’s duration.

This weekend, the Saints will rest up during the EISA’s off weekend. They will be back in Craftsbury on Feb. 2 and 3 at Harvard’s Carnival. Then, the weekend after that they will travel to Hanover, New Hampshire to compete at the Dartmouth College Carnival.