The Bobcats were led by Aidan Ripp who garnered a top-20 finish in the classic race despite challenging waxing conditions. His performance moved him to 10th overall in the 5K skate pursuit.

Timothy Ziegler and first-year athlete Phil Matthews both tallied top-50 finishes in the competition. While Jessie Church had two great races, finishing in the top 75 on both days.

The Bobcat Biathlon team traveled to Craftsbury Outdoor Center in Vermont to compete in the U.S. Biathlon IBU trials. The competition is used to choose athletes for international competitions including IBU Cups and open European championships among other events. Five athletes from Paul Smith’s competed to qualify for both a World University Games spot and a World Junior qualification spot.

The biathletes competed in three races over four days in the IBU Cup trials, with two individual sprint competitions and a short individual race.

Paul Smith’s Dolcie Tanguay had a strong weekend with an overall ranking in the top eight. She took seventh place in the sprint race and eighth in the short individual. Kaisa Bosek finished strong in her competition, shooting clean in the final sprint race while finishing in 11th place.

On the men’s side, Diego Schillaci and Logan Jensen had strong weekends for the first competition in the senior category. Incoming first-year athlete, Nate Livingood, also had a solid weekend in the youth category. He finished the weekend with a win in the sprint competition.

“Overall we had a good three days of racing, we just finished finals and are putting in solid training block so we were not super primed and rested for this competition,” Bobcats Nordic ski coach Matt Dougherty said in a statement. “However, we had some great performances and I feel really confident in this preparing us for our bigger trials combine in about 10 days in Alaska. While the rest of the team competing in the Eastern cup had a great start to the season competing against the best skiers from the East, NCAA D1 schools and more. We had several top-50 performances, a great start to what should be another great year for the team”

The biathletes will return to action Dec. 28-31 at the U.S. Biathlon Jr trails in Anchorage, Alaska. The competition will provide the athletes a chance to qualify for the FISU Winter World University Games team.