RUMFORD — Hadley Prewitt and Andrew Christie skied better than the rest at the first day of the Class A Alpine ski state championships at Black Mountain of Maine on Thursday.
They added to their 2022 postseason success with dominant performances in the giant slalom.
Prewitt, a sophomore at Marshwood, is the girls GS state champion, and Christie, a senior at Falmouth, claimed the boys giant slalom state title.
“It’s pretty good,” Christie said. “I was kind of expecting it — not expecting, but I was hoping to win. I don’t know, just experience, as a senior, I guess.”
Prewitt and Christie both swept the giant slalom and the slalom races at last week’s SMAA championships. They then left little doubt at the first day of the state championships Thursday, skiing the fastest times in each of their two runs.
Prewitt was the only girls skier to break 54 seconds in the first run, notching a 53.64. She improved her time to 52.19 seconds in the second run.
“I thought I skied pretty well. I pushed it,” Prewitt said. “The courses were fun, they were fairly straight, so I felt like I could just push it and ski as fast as I could.”
Prewitt’s state championship highlighted a one-two finish for the Hawks. Junior teammate Lydia Phipps had the second-best times in each run, 54.25 seconds and 52.95.
“They both ran really well,” Marshwood coach Rich Luciano said. “They’ve been working hard … and they ran great races.”
Falmouth’s Celia Geci placed third in the girls race, followed by Mt. Blue’s Sadie McDonough, then Greely’s Ruth Weeks.
Mt. Blue, which won the girls team state championship in 2020, has six skiers in the top 20: McDonough, Khloe Dean (seventh), Katie Yeaton (10th), Abbie Goodspeed (14th), Vivan Cormier (15th) and Molly Kearing (20th).
Christie skied the first boys run in 51.21 seconds and the second in 50.71.
“I skied the top a lot cleaner and I kind of carried momentum onto the pitch. First run, I was a little choppy, like I wasn’t super smooth, but then second run, it was much better,” Christie said.
His combined time of 1 minute, 42.92 seconds was nearly eight-tenths of a second faster than runner-up Quinn Maguire of Marshwood.
Following Christie and Maguire in the boys GS were Isleboro’s Jett Lindelof in third, Mt. Blue’s Josh Smith in fourth and Windham’s Nolan Dries in fifth.
The Falmouth boys have won the past four state championships (2017-20), and are one of three teams with three top finishers, along with Mt. Blue and Freeport.
Christie and Prewitt enter Friday’s races, also at Black Mountain, among the favorites in the slalom. They both said that they prefer slalom to the GS. But Christie acknowledges that their preference isn’t unique.
“I definitely like slalom more, but there’s a lot of people who are also better at slalom, so the competition’s going to be pretty good,” Christie said.
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