Deerfield Academy lost its mountain mojo.

The Big Green saw its two-year reign as king – and queen – of the hill reach the finish line this winter, as both squads came up short in defending their crowns at the New England Prep School Athletic Conference Class A Alpine Skiing Championships, which were held at Okemo Mountain in Ludlow, Vt.

 Although it was unable to ring up a three-peat, the boys team still managed to collect a bronze medal on the day, giving the Big Green squad a pass to the medals podium for a fifth consecutive year.  Belmont Hill School knocked Deerfield from its pedestal by chalking up 42 points. Berkshire School then added to Deerfield’s woes by finishing second with a 58-point effort. The Big Green, meanwhile, was a distant third in the 16-team field with 77 points.

The girls ledger saw Deerfield wind up fifth with 89 points, as Kimball Union Academy paced a dozen schools to the gold medal with 50 points on the day. Noble and Greenough School won a tiebreaker with Northfield Mount Hermon School for the second and third spots respectively, as both finished with 59 points.  To show just how closely these races were contested and how – in just the blink of an eye – a team can go from winning gold to winning nothing at all, the total time for the top three finishers of each school was compared. The difference was nearly infinitesimal, but Nobles took second on the clock: 757.58 to 758.18.

“We just weren’t the dominating force that we’ve been over the past couple of years,” explained coach Jodi Tanguay. “We had to really work to get the results that we came up with this winter.”

Individually, the Big Green won three of the four races that were up for grabs during this winter’s prep school skiing summit.  Lauren Stobierski (14) once again not only paved the way for the Big Green girls, but led all 58 competitors from 12 schools in both races. She captured the slalom event for the third consecutive year, with a time of 94.62, while she took the giant slalom (138.55) for the second straight year and earned the team’s Brooke Gonzalez ’97 Cup as the girls team’s MVP. As a team, however, Deerfield’s overall lack of depth saw it finish fifth in both races. 

“The girls team was extremely small this season,” said Tanguay. “In fact, we had five skiers in total, and some of them were skiing for the first time this year. With so few skiers, we needed every one to start and everyone to finish their races … and they did.

“When you factor in the lack of depth and the lack of experience we were dealing with,” added Tanguay, “I feel the girls had a great season.”

“I’m very happy that I was able to repeat in both the slalom and giant slalom,” said Stobierski. “We all knew that we’d have a tough time defending our team championship this season, so I think that took a lot of pressure off everyone and allowed us to just go out there and ski the best we could. I feel fortunate that I didn’t miss any gates and was still standing when I got to the finish line in both the races. I knew if I could do that, then I’d be in pretty good shape.”

The boys ledger saw Dylan Alvarez (13), who won this year’s J. Scott Kelnberger ’79 Most Valuable Skier Award, improve on last year’s second-place finish in the slalom by scribbling his name atop its time sheet this winter.  He bested 76 other skiers to the finish line in a time of 83.24, helping give Deerfield a third-place finish in that event. The giant slalom, where Alvarez finished fourth last year, wasn’t as kind to the Deerfield senior this time around, as he fell and finished 42nd.

“Jack Paul (14) and Sam Armstrong (15) came to the rescue, however,” explained Tanguay. They both skied fantastic races … they had to … if they hadn’t had those clean runs, it would have been pretty hard for us to have finished any better than third.”

Both came through in fine style to secure top-10 finishes, however. Paul placed fourth in 138.72, while Armstrong was sixth at 138.85 to land the Big Green a fourth-place spot in race.

The boys slalom competition saw Deerfield place four of its skiers within the top 20 to get a leg up on a field of 77 competitors. In addition to Alvarez, Peter Stobierski (14), the recipient of this winter’s Doug Parker Trophy, placed ninth in 89.72, while Armstrong was 15th in 92.71 and Madison Baker (15) 19th at 95.52.

The results for the Deerfield girls in both the slalom and giant slalom were nearly identical. Stobierski finished first in both, while Alexa Murray (15) was 18th in both races, with times of 111.20 in the slalom and 153.18 in the giant slalom. Signe Ahl (15) meanwhile, was 25th in the slalom (115.98) and 26th in the giant slalom (1553.18).

During the Mount Institute Ski League season, or what serves as the regular season for Deerfield’s skiers, the Big Green boys captured the league crown for the third straight year and finished atop the final standings for the ninth time in the past decade. The boys earned 59 points on the season to outlast Northfield Mount Hermon School, which placed second with 55 points and Eaglebrook School, the third-place finisher with 52 points.

The girls, meanwhile, finished second in the final standings, marking the first time since 2001 that they failed clinch the crown. Northfield Mount Hermon School led the charge with 59 points, while Deerfield finished second with 38, one point better than Miss Hall’s School (37).

On the individual ledger, Deerfield boasted the blue-ribbon winners in both campaigns. Alverez captured the boys competition for the second straight season by knocking off 68 other competitors with 420 points.  Lauren Stobierski is also well versed in medaling in the MISL, besting all comers to take the girls competition for the third consecutive winter with 315 points.

Baker helped the boys’ cause by placing fifth, just five points shy of a visit to the medals podium, while Armstrong slipped into the top 10 as well with an eighth-place finish. Two other teammates, Reilly Simmons (14) and Peter Stobierski made it into the top 20, with stops at 16 and 18 respectively.

In addition to Stobierski, whose first-place MISL finish earned her the Amy Spencer Cup for the third straight year, Ahl finished 10th in a field of 39, which was good enough for 272 points, while Murray was 11th to add 270 points to the Big Green’s cause. Cara Kennedy Cuomo (13), who won this year’s Philip H. Ball Jr. Ski Trophy, wound up 16th on the final ledger, while Bea Madersbacher Elde (15) was 19th.

When it comes to prep school sports in this neck of the woods, there are no three words that have a nicer ring to them than “New England champs!” After this past winter, however, the Big Green ski teams came up with a close second: “Man-made snow.”

“Those snow guns really saved us this winter,” said Deerfield Academy ski coach Jodi Tanguay of a season that saw Mother Nature drop the ball as far as snowfall was concerned.  “And the people up there at Proctor Academy … which hosted this year’s championships … did an outstanding job in preparing the slopes.”

Indeed they did. By the time the hosts had completed manicuring the ski area in a carpet of white, it looked more like a red carpet to the Big Green, and both its boys and girls squads followed it all the way to the medals podium as they successfully defended their Division I titles at New England Prep School Alpine Skiing Championships.

For the Big Green, snatching up medals has become as commonplace at these New England summit meetings as snapping on ski boots. Over the past decade, the boys have now earned medals on eight occasions: three gold, three silver and a pair of bronze. The girls, meanwhile, have rung up five medals during that same span, collecting four gold and one silver while they have placed fourth on three other occasions.

“I knew we had the talent to win it all again,” said Tanguay, “but getting that talent down the hill without making a mistake is easier said than done.” Fortunately for the Deerfield skipper, it wasn’t. Everyone in Green who went to the top, made it to the bottom – and not on their bottoms. And when the final tally was taken, the word DEERFIELD had been placed atop both fields of competition. The boys led the way with 38 points, while Kimball Union Academy was second with 54, and Belmont Hill was third with 69. The Big Green topped the girls’ listings with 34 points, as Northfield Mount Hermon School and St. Paul’s School registered 52 and 58 points respectively.

And while we’re on the subject of championships, it was status quo for both teams during the Mount Institute Ski League this season, as the Deerfield girls captured their 12^th consecutive title, while the boys finished up with their eighth crown in the past nine years.

As expected, the name Stobierski once again stole the show at this year’s New England championships. Last year, as a junior, Jack Stobierski won both the slalom and giant slalom races and as a sophomore, he placed first in the slalom and third in the giant slalom. This year, however, the elder Stobierski opted to take his skiing talents to the Mt. Mansfield Winter Academy, a ski school in Stowe, Vt. And so, it was Stobierski’s little sister, Lauren (14), who kept her family’s name in the headlines this year, as she finished first in both the slalom (63.05) and the giant slalom (75.29).

“I was really nervous in the slalom, which was our first event,” admitted Stobierski. “I knew if we were to have any shot at defending our championship, I’d have to have a good day.”

And the pressure and nerves quickly grew as her first run found Stobierski in second place, .45 of a second off the pace. Her second run put the nervousness out of the way for the day, however, as her time of 31.88 proved to be the best of the event to win by a whopping 3/100ths of a second.

“In the giant slalom. I just took Jack’s advice. He told me to ‘just ski fast and don’t worry about a thing.’” And sure enough, Stobierski’s first run of 37.61 proved the best time of the day, as she coasted to victory in just under a second.

Stobierski had plenty of help squashing the competition, as two other teammates finished in the top 10, while two others registered top 20 finishes in the slalom competition. In the giant slalom, meanwhile, the Deerfield girls had four skiers in the top 20. Annika Trapness (13) finished third in the slalom (64.83) and was ninth in the giant slalom in 77.50, while Beth Lawless wound up seventh in the slalom at 68.11 and 13^th in the giant slalom in 79.91. Signe Ahl (15) and Marly Morgus (12) rounded out the slalom finishes at 13^th and 17^th at 71.25 and 73.25 respectively. Finishing up in the giant slalom were Morgus in 18^th (80:56) and Ahl in 26^th (81.90).

“Lauren had an outstanding season for herself, even before she got to the New England meet,” said Tanguay of Stobierski, who finished atop the girls division of the Mount Institute Ski League for the second consecutive season and would later receive the Brooke Gonzalez Award as the team’s outstanding female skier for the second straight year. “And then she had the kind of championship meet every skier dreams about … sweeping both the slalom and giant slalom.”

Dylan Alvarez (13) was the leader for the Big Green boys squad at the New England meet  – and was later voted recipient of the Scott Kelnberger Award as the boys’ Most Valuable Skier – as he produced a second-place finish in the slalom in a clocking of 55.77 – just   1.02 seconds off the winning time – and a fourth spot in the giant slalom in 67.55 and a No.1 ranking in the boys’ standings of the MISL.

Oliver Hopkinson (12), who won this year’s Parker Award, placed seventh in the slalom (59.51) and sixth in the giant slalom at 67.97, while Peter Stobierski (14) was 10^th in the slalom at 60.20, while Reed Horton (14) wrapped things up for Deerfield, placing 47^th in 82.25.  Jack Paul (14) and Horton placed ninth and 10^th in the giant slalom with respective times of 68.62 and 68.90, as Stobierski pulled in 16^th in 70.11.

“I think the real key to our success this season was our depth,” said Tanguay, “and our finishes at the New England meet are a great example of that depth. “The boys placed three skiers in the top 10 in the slalom, while all five were among the first 16 racers to complete the giant slalom.

“As for the girls, all five of our competitors were among the top 17 finishers,” added the Big Green coach, “while the giant slalom saw four of our kids finish in the top 18.  That’s pretty good skiing, especially when you consider the pressure they’re under. Just one mistake and you’re walking across the finish line.”

Deerfield, which has tuned up for the New England meet by competing in the MISL, has dominated the league over the past decade. And this winter, the Big Green really flexed its muscles. The final individual standings saw Deerfield place six of its boys in the top seven slots, while five of its girls placed in the top nine.

Alvarez, Hopkinson, Horton and Stobierski finished in the top four respectively, while Sam Armstrong (15) was sixth and ZZ Salvador (14) was seventh. For the girls, Stobierski, Trapness and Lawless were one through three, Morgus was seventh, while Ahl was ninth.

Captains for next year’s teams will be selected at the beginning of the season.

In the afternoon events the girls and boys teams continued their winning ways.  Lauren Stobierski became the GS champion followed by Annika Trapness in 9th and Beth Lawless in 13th.  The boys team won a close slalom race with Dylan Alvarez again pacing the team in 2nd with support from Oliver Hopkinson in 7th and Peter Stobierski in 10th.  Rounding out the Deerfield championship squads were Captain Marly Morgus ’12 and Signe Ahl ’15.

Coaches for the teams are Jodi Tanguay, J.J. Tanguay, and Marc Dancer.

Full results can be found at prepskiing.org.