Carrabassett Valley, Maine - After the Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association opened their 2026 campaign with Nordic races just over a week ago in Lake Placid, the league kicked off their Alpine segments Friday at Sugarloaf, hosted by Colby College.  With several spectacular performances, highlighted by Carissa Cassidy (headline photo) winning the women's slalom, Colby's women's team placed fourth and the men's team placed seventh in the 13-team field. 

Cassidy, a senior, won three of the six slalom events a season ago to be named EISA Slalom Champion and carried that momentum to All-America Second Team honors at the NCAA Championships.  Wearing her familiar leader bib, Cassidy won the first run by 0.24 and cruised through the second run to win the race by almost two seconds ahead of Cydnie Timmerman of the University of Vermont.  First-year Kate McKenney had an incredible collegiate debut, moving all the way from bib 45 to finish 13th.  With challenging snow conditions and severe wind that dropped the real feel close to zero, there were only 36 female finishers out of the 83 who started the race.

On the men's side, first-year Brady Malboeuf (photo left) used a great first run to jump from bib 66 into 20th position, and then was third on the second run to finish 7th overall.  Sophomore Townsend Mikell collected his first career top-30 carnival finish, cruising into 22nd place.  Espen Hunt was Colby's third finisher placing 30th.  The finish rate for the men's field nearly matched the women's field as only 42 racers completed two runs out of the 94 starters. 

The Colby Carnival concludes on Saturday with the Giant Slalom event.