GREENWOOD — Between the first and second slalom runs of the Class A Alpine state championships Wednesday, sophomore Gibson Scott told Falmouth Coach Tip Kimball he planned on winning the race.

At the time Scott stood in third place, a quarter of a second behind co-leaders Axel Lindsay of Greely and Devon Lathrop of Cape Elizabeth.

Was Kimball encouraging?

“No way,” he told Scott. “Take that right out of your head right now.”

Scott already knew all about Falmouth’s infamous 2012 collapse at the state meet because his older brother was on the team that snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Scott called it the team that choked. Kimball refers to it as “the meltdown team.”

“I’ve heard stories all about it,” Scott said. “One, two, three, four, they all went down.”

So on Wednesday afternoon at Mt. Abram, Scott eased back on the throttle and maintained his standing in third place. Freshman Angus Christie finished sixth and junior Owen White was eighth to help Falmouth clinch its first Alpine title since 2013. Freshman Nick Shapiro (20th) rounded out the scoring for Falmouth, which had a two-day total of 80 points.

Cape Elizabeth moved up from third to take runner-up honors at 144, followed by Greely (161), Oxford Hills (179) and 12 other teams.

“We all decided we were going to ski conservatively today because we knew other teams were going to be going all out to make it,” White said. “We decided to let them take the risks and we just would stay upright.”

The strategy proved wise on a balmy afternoon that saw 18 boys and 22 girls either fail to finish or miss a gate and be disqualified. With temperatures approaching 50 degrees, no wind and sunshine interspersed with clouds, conditions on the Boris Badenov trail resembled those of early spring rather than mid-February.

“That wasn’t an easy course,” said Lindsay, a Greely senior who the event with a two-run time of 1 minute, 19.79 seconds, to Lathrop’s 1:20.16. “We had a lot of weird turns. That hairpin, you had to come at it a little bit differently. The flush was almost set parallel. The fall line’s coming straight down and then all of a sudden, there’s a big jamming turn and it goes off this way. It’s pretty tough to do that.”

Christie said a thorough inspection of the course with Kimball prior to the second run made a difference.

“We took a long time at some of the key gates and I think that really helped us,” Christie said. “Tip kind of told us what to do and we all nailed them.”

Cheverus sophomore Annesley Black remained unbeaten this winter by winning the girls’ slalom. Her combined time of 1:24.40 was nearly three seconds better than that of runner-up Jeannette Cunningham, a Greely senior.

After forging a lead of nearly two seconds in the morning run, Black downshifted in the afternoon.

“I still wanted to go fast, but I didn’t go as hard on the second run,” she said. “It was a little bit softer and the snow was kind of spraying in the goggles, making it hard to see.”

Camden Hills won its first Class A Alpine title despite placing only one skier, junior Audrey Heriz-Smith, among the top 20. Heriz-Smith was fifth.

Seniors Ella Simon (25th), Renaissance Lyman (28th) and Zoe Zwecker (32nd) completed the Windjammers’ scoring for a two-day total of 164 points.

“The strength of our team is consistency,” said first-year Camden Hills coach Robin Payson. “We have girls who are able to put two solid runs together. We might not be taking up a lot of the individual podium spots, but because we have the depth, our fifth and sixth seed girls at states finish much higher up in the results than their start position.”

Greely, which started the day in fourth, leapfrogged Cape Elizabeth and Falmouth to earn runner-up honors with 182 points. Hampden Academy and Edward Little tied for third at 244.

Cape Elizabeth, which opened the day within nine points of the lead, tumbled to sixth and needed to use a ghost skier for a score of 285 after three girls missed gates or skied off course. Falmouth fell from third to fifth with 264.

There were no such implosions for the Falmouth boys. The ghosts of 2012 proved an effective warning.

“I think I put the fear of God into them about the meltdown team,” Kimball said. “We were not going to let that happen again, or try. I could tell they got it.”

CLASS B: Spruce Mountain came from fourth place after the giant slalom, winning the slalom at Black Mountain to edge Yarmouth for the girls’ championship, 90-91, with Maranacook finishing third at 106.

Fort Kent’s boys successfully defended their Alpine title, 87-94 over Mountain Valley. Maranacook, in first after Tuesday’s giant slalom, was third at 112 and Yarmouth was fourth at 162.

Nathan Delmar of Maranacook and Allison Acritelli of Spruce Mountain were individual slalom champions.

The Nordic championships are scheduled for Thursday and Friday, with Class B at Sugarloaf Outdoor Center, and Classes A and C at Quarry Road Trails in Waterville.

Glenn Jordan can be contacted at 791-6425 or:

Gjordan@pressherald.com

Twitter: GlennJordanPPH