Pittsfield's Michael Mansfield Seventh in GS at State Alpine Meet

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires.com Sports
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CHARLEMONT, Mass. -- Pittsfield's Michael Mansfield won a medal and posted a pair of top 20 finishes Tuesday to lead the Generals to a fifth-place finish at the State Alpine Ski Championships at Berkshire East.
 
Mansfield finished seventh in the morning's giant slalom with a time of 38.77 seconds, 1.24 seconds behind GS champion Jason Denoncourt of Andover.
 
Mansfield then placed 19th in the slalom to anchor Pittsfield, which also got a pair of top 20s from his brother David, a 20th-place finisher in the GS and a 12th-place finisher in the slalom.
 
"I felt like we did really well, especially since we only had three athletes," Michael Mansfield said. "A lot of these teams had a lot more than us. I felt like it was a good spot. We all did our best today."
 
The third Mansfield brother for PHS, Joshua, finished in the top half of the field in the GS.
 
The team title in the boys race went to Marblehead, which also finsihed second in the girls team standgins.
 
Hingham won the girls race.
 
The top team out of Western Mass was the Mohawk Trail boys, who placed third.
 
Michael Mansfield's seventh-place GS finish was the best finish -- and only medal -- among the 10 boys and 10 girls from Berkshire County who took on the Route 2 venue.
 
Mansfield, who practices at Berkshire East every week with his club team, said he thought local knowledge helped his performance on Tuesday.
 
And he was happy with how his morning went even before he knew where he ended up in the standings.
 
"I felt like it was a really clean run," he said. "It was a fast course. I felt like it was a representative course. It was fast, I guess."
 
Drury student and Lenox Memorial racer Abby Kate Carproni just missed out on the podium in both the morning and afternoon. She finished 12th in both the GS (42.49) and the slalom (38.89).
 
Those races were won by Masconomet's Faith Stanton (40.67) and Weston's Stella Alphas (35.54).
 
Monument Mountain's Carly Terranova led the Spartans' contingent with a 56th place showing in the slalom. Wahconah's Aspen Burke was her team's top finisher, and Taconic's Morgan Schnauber competed as an individual.
 
Taconic's Andrew King and Lenox's Max DiGrigoli represented their respective teams as individuals.
 
King finished in the top 25 in both disciplines, placing 17th in the slalom (39.66) and 23rd in the GS (40.05). DiGrigoli's better run was in the slalom, where he placed 40th (41.94).
 
Monument Mountain's boys were led by Raphael Kummer-Landau, who placed 53rd in the slalom (42.71).
 
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