02/26/2026
2026 New England Class A Alpine Champions!
The alpine ski team had a highly successful day at the annual NEPSAC Championships, which NMH hosted at Berkshire East along with Deerfield Academy.
The NMH boys won their second New England championship title in the past three years, defeating the 13 other teams by a considerable margin with fast, clean skiing throughout the lineup of five racers. The girls fought hard, skied well, and came away with a second place finish, the fourth straight year they have finished 1 or 2 in New England.
The day started with the boys racing two runs of giant slalom, while simultaneously the girls raced slalom. In the boys' race, senior co-captain Sam Rotermund set the tone by taking the victory, a brilliant finish to what has been a highly successful career. Fellow seniors Cody Vassar and Porter Beaule were NMH's next two finishers (each team races five and counts the best three), farther back than they would like (9th and 21st) but strong enough to keep their team in contention. After the morning GS, St Pauls had the lead but NMH was six points behind in second, well within striking distance. The defending champion Cardigan boys were right on our heels, four points back. The NMH boys would have to deliver a strong performance in the afternoon slalom to take the title, and that's exactly what they did. Cody Vassar took the win, which was fitting given that Cody and Sam have traded victories in almost all races this season. Sam landed in 5th, while the full squad placed in the top 16 with strong, technically clean skiing on the course set by former NMH captain and current Cardigan Mountain School coach Zach Leeds '16. Porter was 12th, Oliver Newman '27 was 15th, and Ying Kay Leung '26 was 16th. With this team effort, the NMH boys crushed the opposition and emerged with a 30 point margin over second place St Pauls.
Meanwhile, the girls were putting on a great performance of their own. They won the morning slalom, led by defending New England champion and senior co-captain Ellie Pinkham, who became the only racer in NMH girls' alpine history to successfully win the an individual title for two consecutive years. Ellie ripped a pair of great runs with determination and aggressive, confident skiing. Her teammate Wylie Benedetti '27 had her best result, taking second place, and suddenly the girls were in business as it is quite unusual for teammates to capture the top two spots in the competitive field of the New England championships. Lydie Pinkham '29 turned in a gritty performance, battling illness to take 11th and help put her team in great position entering the afternoon giant slalom, with a four point margin over Deerfield.
In the afternoon race, the Gould and Deerfield girls were faster, and NMH settled for third. Ellie took 4th with yet another strong pair of runs, capping off a remarkable career where she has contributed solid results in 29 of 32 races. She has been absolutely stellar over the past two and a half seasons, with top finishes in 17 straight races.Wylie pitched in a pair of fast runs in the GS to take 9th, while our third scorer was Kathryn Werner '27 in 24th. The DA girls caught NMH and won the title, but NMH earned second in a tiebreaker with Gould. This was the 15th straight year that the NMH girls have finished in the top 5 at New Englands, by far the longest such streak of any school in NEPSAC history.
Hosting this event is an enormous endeavor and we had a large group of volunteers to help pull it off, and run so smoothly and successfully. Special thanks to all the parents who put together superb meals for the entire NMH team and who helped in other capacities. We are blessed with an amazing, supportive collection of families, and they put on a great show today. Thanks also to the hard working staff of the Berkshire East race department, to Shane Peters for the livestream broadcast, to Ross Damon for drone videography, to the non-racing NMH team members who helped in various capacities, and to so many others involved in the day. Finally, I'm enormously grateful to my team of hard-working coaches - Elizabeth Edwards, Ted Tirk, Dan Pinkham '92, Jim Hawkins, Gery Benedetti, and Shawn LeBlanc.
With that, the season of team racing is complete, although several team members will continue individual racing over the next few weeks.
The girls concluded the season as MISL champions and NEPSAC runners-up with a total record of 49-3. The boys were NEPSAC and MISL champions with a record of 55-1, the only loss being the second place finish in the NEPSAC giant slalom. The New England championship was the team's fifth (2003, 2005, 2018, 2024, 2026).
We sadly say goodbye to 12 seniors, tributes to whom will be forthcoming over the next three months.
Full results are available on the NEPSAC Skiing website: https://prepskiing.org/
More photos and video coming soon.
These photos courtesy Risley Sports Photography
