Sarah Fardal’s first run of the alpine ski season felt slow.

“Eh, whatever,” she approached it initially.

Making it down the Berkshire East race course in one piece felt like a worthy enough achievement for the PVCICS sophomore. She’d missed most of the previous two seasons rehabbing an injured left knee. Fardal tore her anterior cruciate ligament in a ski crash at Berkshire East two years ago and snapped her Achilles in the same knee a year ago doing soccer conditioning

Her injuries had healed to the point where she could ski on her knee as safely as someone who hadn’t injured anything, but Fardal still felt uneasy.

“There was this balance in my head of trying to balance skiing aggressively with trying to ski safely,” Fardal said. “You can’t ski well without skiing in an aggressive way. But that means you’re more likely to crash. I had a lot of fear this season that sometimes might have held me back a little bit. It was a mental struggle.”

She checked her time on her phone once she retrieved her bag and compared it to her peers. It wasn’t markedly slower than her averages from the previous year or anyone who raced at a similar time.

“I realized that I was still skiing well despite what my brain was telling me. That was kind of slow, you were holding back because you were scared,” Fardal said. “I realized I wasn’t actually holding back that much. That gave me a little bit more confidence. If this is my bottom line for how I can ski, I can ski well and keep up with the competition.”

And beat most of them down the hill. Fardal placed eighth in the PVIAC girls individual standings and led the Dragons to a third-place finish in the South Division. She ranked in the top 50 of both the slalom (44th) and GS (34th) at the MIAA state championship meet.

“You’re up against a lot of different conditions. Snow could be hard as a rock or soft. There’s always these ever-changing conditions, which is different than basketball where it’s the same court, the same net. Growing up in that environment, you have the awareness to make those adjustments,” PVCICS coach Mike Belanger said. “She just seems like she rises to the occasion, rises above her circumstances.”

Those circumstances sometimes included nightmares through the season where she’d dream she tore her ACL and was out for another year.

“A lot of it was I wasn’t confident,” Fardal said. “Part of it was just ignoring it. I had to ignore the fear a lot.”

She also strengthened her knees with agility training. Fardal executed jumping combinations to reinforce the muscles in her knees and acclimate them to being in slightly weird positions where they knew how to react to them without an injury.

“I like the feeling of going fast,” she said. “It’s one of those things I couldn’t imagine myself without, so I didn’t really want to give it up.”

Fardal began ski racing in the Berkshire East program at 12, later than some of her peers, but dreamed about racing for much longer. 

“I’d been looking at the racers for so long. Since the second I started skiing and saw the ski racers I thought, ‘I want to be one of them.’ I always thought they were so cool,” she said.

She worked at Berkshire East this winter as a ski instructor rather than participating in the weekend racing program. Fardal wants to return to it next season so she can improve even more. 

“That’s the most fun part about the sport for me. It’s feeling good in how well you ski because skiing well is fun,” Fardal said. “You get to go fast. I like going fast.”

FIRST TEAM ALL-STARS

Vivi Bernier, senior, Amherst Regional

Naomi Den Ouden, seventh grader, Mohawk Trail

Sarah Fardal, sophomore, PVCICS

Mae Hoff, junior, Mohawk Trail

Addie Loomis, freshman, Mohawk TrailI

Emmy Sisum, junior, Mohawk Trail

Sofiya Slocik-Gritzner, sophomore, Mohawk Trail

Dana Warren, freshman, Hampshire Regional

SECOND TEAM ALL-STARS

Hannah Burke, senior, Hampshire Regional

Talya Gilman, senior, Hampshire Regional

Myah Grant, senior, Mohawk Trail

Caroline Makosiej, sophomore, Mohawk Trail

Giselle Ohm, sophomore, Northampton

Simone Pagar, freshman, Northampton

Maisie Tuck, junior, Northampton

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