Despite an unusually warm preseason, the alpine and nor-dic team is off to a good start.In the first carnival of the season, hosted by Saint Mi-chael’s College, Vermont fin-ished second with 686 points.”Second place was a bit disappointing but we have a good chance of being in the hunt every weekend,” Direc-tor of Skiing Bill Reichelt said. “There are more variables with a younger team rather than a more experienced one, but I’m encouraged by our performance this past week-end.”In the slalom, junior Zac Brown finished second, fol-lowed by sophomore Ethan Korpi and freshmen Marsh Gooding, Erik Gilbert and Colin Devore in sixth to ninth place. For the women’s side of the team, juniors Ashley Spi-na and Kate Bragg took third and thirteenth in the slalom as well.The 3×3 1k Nordic relay team of sophomores Juergen Uhl and Anders Folleras and freshman Jesse Kossiba for the men, and seniors Carina Hamel and Emilia DeMarchis and freshman Jennie Bender for the women both secured second place finishes.In the Jan. 26 and 27 New Hampshire carnival, Vermont went home with another sec-ond place finish.Freshman Kara Crow fin-ished second in the women’s giant slalom and senior Emil-ia DeMarchis finished third in the women’s 5k freestyle.Senior Carina Hamel fin-ished third in the women’s 5k freestyle. Sophomore Katrina Howe was 10th and senior Maile Wade had a 14th place finish.Sophomore Anders Folle-ras finished fifth in the 10k freestyle for men’s Nordic competition. Sophomore Juer-gen Uhl secured a seventh place finish and freshman Jesse Kosiba was 17th.Freshman Chelsea Lynch recorded a fifth place finish in the GS, while junior Ashley Spina added a 13th place fin-ish of her own.Sophomore Ethan Korpi finished in seventh place in the giant slalom. Freshman Erik Gilbert ended with an eighth place finish and junior Sam Beck was 14th.The team finished first in the EISA circuit last season, and hopes to continue such an upstanding performance with a relatively young team.”It is a building year,” ju-nior Greg Hardy said. “Yet our expectations of ending the season with a winning re-cord hasn’t changed.”Vermont continues their season next weekend when they will travel to compete in the Dartmouth carnival Feb. 2 and 3.