The St. Lawrence University Nordic ski teams competed in the freestyle races at the 2013 Middlebury Carnival on Saturday afternoon at the Rikert Touring Center. Senior Kelsey Nichols led the women's team behind a career-best 16th place finish in the women's 15k Free.

Nichols, whose previous best finish had been 21st place in three different races, had an outstanding day with a time of 42:45.8. The Pownal, ME native puts herself in contention for an NCAA Championship berth going into the final weekend and collected 26.0 points for her time.

Rookies Cassidy Cichowicz and Sienna Searles added to the women's team's scoring on Saturday in 35th and 40th place, respectively. The trio combined for 50.0 points to place ninth overall.

Erin Perryman (47th), Kate Mulcahy (48th) and Melanie Swick (51st) rounded out St. Lawrence's line-up in the women's 15k Free.

On the men's side, sophomore Austin Meng earned his fourth career top-20 finish with a time of 48:38.7 in the 20k Free. The Truckee, CA native was 20th overall, and was joined in the scoring by Kyle Curry (36th) and Will Frielinghaus (38th). They combined for a total of 49.0 points, also good for ninth place.

First-year students Phillip Marshall and Matt Dier also represented St. Lawrence in the men's event, finishing in 49th and 53rd place, respectively.

Both freestyle races were won by the University of Vermont narrowly ahead of Dartmouth College. Mary O'Connell of Dartmouth won the women's race, while Scott Patterson led the Catamounts to the team title on the men's side.

The St. Lawrence Nordic teams will race again for the final time as teams next weekend at the Bates Carnival/NCAA Regional at Black Mountain.