Marquette girls skiers who pulled off a top-five sweep of the slalom event at the Houghton Invitational on Tuesday are, from left, Sophie Coxon, Jillian Starr, Madalyn Croney, Lyla Isaacson and Estelle Dehlin. (Photo courtesy Christy Provost)

RIPLEY — The Marquette girls downhill ski team pulled off a dramatic 1-2-3-4-5 sweep of the slalom event as both girls and boys teams posted dominating victories at the Houghton Invitational on Tuesday.

Skiing at Mont Ripley in nearby Ripley, conditions proved difficult for all competitors, dragging down times.

“It was a challenging day with variable snow conditions, but both the Marquette boys and girls ski teams came home with the win,” Sentinels head coach Christy Provost said in an email detailing the result.

In the girls meet, Marquette scored a near-perfect 23 points as Norway was runner-up with 65, Ironwood had 110 and the host Gremlins 111.

For the boys, the Sentinels were just as good with 24 points as Ironwood took second with 66, Norway 86 and Houghton 119.

Marquette hosts an invitational at Marquette Mountain on Monday.

Girls meet

In the big slalom sweep, the top five finishers from Marquette each were more than four seconds ahead of all other competitors, a huge difference in this lightning-fast sport.

Scores are the two-run total times for each skier.

Estelle Dehlin won in 1 minute, 18.97 seconds, putting together two of the only three sub-40-second runs of 39.04 and 39.93 seconds.

Teammate Lyla Isaacson was runner-up in 1:24.10 on runs of 41.78 and 42.32, while the Sentinels’ Madalyn Croney was third in 1:25.47 with runs of 42.32 and 43.15.

In fourth was Marquette’s Jillian Starr in 1:25.67 and runs of 42.04 and 43.63, while teammate Sophie Coxon rounded out the top five in 1:26.98 after runs of 41.92 and 45.06.

The next fastest finisher was Norway’s Sofia Wentramini in 1:31.00.

Another Sentinels’ skier, Sydney Kuhl, had some bad luck, as after the second-fastest opening run of 39.73 seconds, she was unable to complete a second run.

And interestingly, one of Marquette’s skiers designated as a JV racer would’ve also cracked the top five, really making it a Sentinels’ 1-6 sweep. Anna Bernard totaled 1:26.38, which would’ve slotted her fifth in the varsity race, with runs of 43.25 and 43.13.

Teammate Armina Weinrick came in at 1:41.33 for the JVs, which would just been outside the top 10, and Elin Betz totaled 2:00.26, faster than three other racers who posted two-run times.

Marquette wasn’t quite as dominant in the giant slalom, though it swept the top two spots.

Dehlin won again with two of the three fastest times, 41.18 and 41.42, for a 1:22.60 total.

Croney snuck in the second-fastest run of 41.39 to go with 42.88 to be runner-up in 1:24.27.

After Houghton’s Laura Lucak was third, Kuhl got in both her GS runs to finish fourth in 1:25.13 with runs of 43.64 and 41.49.

Coxon was sixth in 1:28.33, Bernard 10th with 1:29.73 and Isaacson 11th in 1:29.81.

For JVs, Weinrick led the way with 1:31.91, Betz came in at 1:36.60 and Starr in 1:47.73.

Boys meet

The Marquette boys were quite consistent, taking four of the top five places in GS and five of the top six in slalom.

The Sentinels’ Lake Skytta was also consistent — consistently good — with dominating victories in each discipline by almost a second and a half in slalom and nearly five full seconds in GS.

In GS, not surprisingly, he had the only two runs under 40 seconds, 39.42 and 39.33, to win in 1:18.75.

Teammate Jude Balding was a distant runner-up in 1:23.62 with runs of 41.94 and 41.68.

After Ironwood’s Adam Everson finished third, Marquette’s Brady Audette was fourth in 1:24.06 on runs of 41.83 and 42.23, while teammate Connor Dunn was fifth in 1:24.82 with runs of 43.21 and 41.61.

Two Sentinels weren’t able to get both runs completed, especially bad luck for Conner Henry, who had the third-fastest opening run of 40.90. Teammate Benjamin Kuhl had a 42.26 opener, too.

On the JV side, two Marquette skiers each would’ve been fifth in the varsity race. Danny Starr had runs of 42.75 and 43.04 for 1:25.79, while Chase Dehlin did 42.77 and 43.03 for 1:25.80.

The Sentinels’ Ethan Dehlin totaled 1:28.04 and Sam Uchytil 1:31.58 as JVs, both ahead of about half the varsity field.

In slalom, Skytta again had the two fastest times of 36.03 and 35.91 for a 1:11.94 total, beating out the second-place Kuhl, who had 37.16 and 36.27 for 1:13.43.

After Ironwood’s Logan Holm was third, Audette came in fourth in 1:17.40 with runs of 38.67 and 38.73, then Dunn fifth in 1:18.13 with 39.50 and 38.63, and Balding sixth in 1:20.12 with 40.20 and 39.92.

Chase Dehlin had the fastest Marquette JV time of 1:22.21, which would been seventh in the varsity race, on runs of 41.22 and 40.99.

Starr came in at 1:25.85 and Uchytil 1:34.72.

Story contents based on email received from MSHS head coach Christy Provost. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.