Andover, NH - Sophomore Austin Florian (Southington, CT) had the top times in each of the two slalom runs on Saturday to help lead the Clarkson University Men's Alpine Ski team to a first-place finish in the Brown Invitational, held at the Blackwater Ski Area.

The Golden Knights' men finished first among 12 qualifying teams, while the women took second out of 11 teams. The Knights will be back in action next weekend when they host the Clarkson Invitational in Lake Placid, NY.

No difficult math was required for Florian's final finish among the 71 skiers in Saturday's slalom event as he had the best time in each run, racing down the mountain in 43.29 seconds in the opener and 45.42 in his second chance for a combined 1:28.71 time. Hayes Lowth (Meredith, NH) finished fifth in 1:31.71 and Alex Slemp (Clifton Park, NY) came in seventh in 1:32.36 to round out Clarkson's scoring. The performances from Lowth and Slemp were key for Clarkson's chances on Saturday as Sean Donohue (Bolton Landing, NY) did not finish his run after taking second place in the opening run down the mountain. Christian Avery (Lyme, NH) was disqualified on his second run after racing to 18th in the first run.

Several others had good showings for the Knights as well as sophomore Ian Williams (Fleischmanns, NY) took 17th and classmate Eli Greenwald (Manhattan, NY) came in 19th. Freshman Bryce Recer (Ballston Spa, NY) was just outside the top half of Saturday's skiers, coming in 37th out of 71 participants.

While the women didn't come home with a first-place showing on Saturday, all six skiers finished in the top 20 among the 68 participants. Freshman Kara Van Herwarde (Killington, VT) took eighth in 1:46.01 while sophomore Taylor Manderson (Ballston Spa, NY) placed 10th with a time of 1:46.25. Senior Sarah Shafer (Petoskey, MI) finished Clarkson's scoring times by coming in 16th in 1:48.14, while Ashley Yoviene (Boston, NY) and Kelly Rowland (West Windsor, NJ) rounded out the top 20 in 19th and 20th, respectively. Freshman Sierra Spring (Saratoga Springs, NY) came in 13th overall in 1:47.19 as an individual racer, but even had she been in Clarkson's team scoring, the Knights still would have fell short of first.