Alex Huesgen’s college ski racing career got off to a bruising start. A few months ago, he aspired to make the 12-man Nordic team at Saint Michael’s College but didn’t. Now he’s trying to prove that he’s good enough to join that highly competitive Vermont squad next season. And he’s shining.
Last Thursday, Huesgen, of Westford, Massachusetts, glided to an easy victory in the five-kilometer Headlamp Hustle race at Dublin School, dusting 40 other skiers and finishing in 15:23. He was more than a minute ahead of runner-up Liam Sullivan, a 24-year-old Dublin-based writer, but his race experience – which involved speeding through the dark over Dublin’s hilly, narrow, twisting wooded trails, on icy snow – was still harrowing.
“This was my first time racing at night,” Huesgen said. “It was scary, especially this one 180-degree downhill turn. It wasn’t lit up at all, and I just had this little headlamp on. I kind of hockey stopped around it, then stepped through the turn and prayed.”
For Huesgen, the frights of Dublin at night were good-scary, though – and akin to, say, riding a roller coaster. “The whole race,” he said, aglow with thrill after his first-ever ski race win, “was really fun.”
Fun was the theme of the entire evening at the Dublin School Outdoor Center, actually. As racers warmed up, the trails were a happy human obstacle course packed with dozens of small children, ages 5 to 13, on hand for the first 2026 session of Dublin XC’s youth program. At every turn in the trails, some ambitious youngster was either mastering the snowplow or tumbling through a dramatic but harmless wipeout.
During the race itself, Ben Clough, a 2025 Kearsarge High grad and Nordic ski star, wore a bright pink tutu and also a frilly pink cowboy hat, a nod to his new life as a skier for the University of Wyoming Cowboys. He reached the starting line fashionably late, three minutes into the race, and sandbagged his way to a ho-hum eighth-place finish.
Meanwhile, Westford Academy, a Massachusetts high school, brought 20 racers to the line, many of them skiing novices there for a taste of something new. “Usually we race on a golf course,” Westford’s coach, Andy Norander, said of his charges as he stood near the finish, post-race. “But here we were skiing in the woods and in the hills, in the dark. It’s the way Nordic skiing should be.”
Soon, Huesgen turned to a half dozen Westford skiers lingering beside him. “Are we coming back?” he asked.
“Yes!” the kids responded, shouting. “Yes! Yes!”
This was the second in the six-race Headlamp Hustle Series.
Full results are here.
Races are held every other Thursday at 6:15 p.m. at the Dublin School Nordic Center. The next one will be Jan. 22.
To register, visit dublinxc.com.
Editor’s note: This article has been changed to reflect a new race starting time, that Westford Academy is a public, not private, high school and that St. Michael’s College Nordic team has 12 members. We have also clarified that Huesgen aspired to make the St. Michael’s Nordic team but didn’t.