At the Dartmouth carnival, Vermont gained a solid hold on second place in the EISA conference.Senior Carina Hamel finished first in the 15k freestyle event at Trapp Family Lodge. Freshman Jennie Bender and sopho-more Katrina Howe placed seventh and fourteenth, respectively. Junior Zac Brown finished in second place in the men’s slalom and was joined in the top 10 by sophomore Ethan Korpi in fourth, senior Greg Hardy in sixth, and freshmen Erik Gilbert and Colin Devore in seventh and ninth. For the women’s alpine competition, Vermont secured a sixth place finish by freshman Kara Crow in the slalom. The Cats rounded out their alpine per-formances with freshman Kate Bragg, who finished in twelfth place and junior Ashley Spina who ended in thirteeth.Sophomore Juergen Uhl finished third, the highest for the Catamounts, in the men’s nordic competition when he took third place in the 20k classic. Sophomore Anders Folleras followed Uhl in sixth and freshman Chris Ziegler added a seventh place finish. After an undefeated 2006 carnival sea-son, the Cats sloped to and have continued in second place, behind Dartmouth. The Big Green has secured themselves as the top contenders in the conference as they have won all their carnivals so far this season.”We were nervous coming into the sea-son with such a young team,” senior Ca-rina Hamel said. “We have had lots of strong under-classmen who have stepped up to the chal-lenge and all things considered it will be a good season.”Vermont skiing returns to action on Friday, Feb. 16 and Saturday, Feb. 17 at the Williams carnival.