HANOVER — Dartmouth College’s ski team has dominated the East Coast racing circuit this season as the Big Green prepares to host the NCAA ski championships next month.

“This is the best team we’ve had my entire time at Dartmouth, by a long shot,” Dartmouth Alpine racer Ollie Morgan said by phone recently.

Morgan, a senior from Hanover, attended Richmond Middle School and then Burke Mountain Academy in East Burke, Vt.

His teammate, Nordic racer Jack Lange echoed the feeling.

“We’re having a fabulous year,” he said. “The culture on our team is just amazing right now. Everyone’s really fired up each day at practice, and the energy is building on itself.”

Lange is a Lyme native and longtime Ford Sayre athlete who attended Hanover High School before transferring to the Stratton Mountain School.

The collegiate skiing championships will take place from March 5-8, with Alpine racing at the Dartmouth Skiway in Lyme. Nordic events will be held at the Oak Hill Outdoor Center in Hanover.

This year marks the first time since 2003 that Dartmouth has hosted NCAA skiing competition. The Big Green’s ski team last won an NCAA championship in 2007.

The University of Vermont prevailed in 2012. But for much of its history, the collegiate skiing championships have been dominated by western schools, including Utah, Denver and last year’s champions, the University of Colorado.

This year, Dartmouth is undefeated going into this weekend’s competition at Middlebury College, and excitement is building for a home-hill competition.

“We’re going to need all the support we can get to compete against those big western schools,” Lange said.

Although the Nordic and Alpine teams compete separately, the overall team score for each competition is the aggregate of the points earned by the men’s and women’s Alpine and men’s and women’s Nordic teams.

“It’s not unusual for one of the skiing program’s groups to have an off year,” director of skiing and head women’s Nordic coach Cami Thompson said by phone recently. “But that is not the case this season.”

This year, all four teams are strong, “so on a regular basis we’ve been able to win the day in all four disciplines. That’s made a difference,” she said.

Dartmouth took first place this season in races at Bates College, St. Lawrence and St. Michael’s before winning its own winter carnival races last weekend.

“I think my entire career before this time, we had won maybe one or two carnivals total over three years.” Morgan said. “It’s really exciting that, especially this year, we’re getting those kinds of results.”

Last weekend, spectators lined the Oak Hill course as Lange and a teammate pushed uphill during the 7.5-kilometer classic race amid a cacophony of cowbells and cries of “up, up!” Two Dartmouth Nordic Skiers, John Steele Hagenbuch and Luke Allen, won podium spots on their home course.

The Nordic team is enjoying the benefits of more than $5 million in improvements to Oak Hill, including snowmaking, lights, a warming hut and renovations to the course to align it with the International Ski and Snowboard Federation’s competition standards.

“I cannot emphasize enough how much the facility has made a difference in our ability to train productively every single day,” Lange said. “It improves our season. It improves the quality of each session.”

For Thompson, the facility upgrades have been a game-changer.

“For years, we waited for natural snow. We had to do shoveling to fill in bare patches,” she said. Skiers trained on old skis that could endure damage from the unpredictable surface.

“Now we can dial in and ski on our race skis,” she said. “It’s just fantastic.”

Last weekend was also a chance for competitors to get a feel for the course as they prepare for the NCAA races.

“I’m leaving the race with a bit more strategy in my back pocket,” Annie McColgen, a Nordic skier for the University of Vermont said after the 7.5K Dartmouth carnival race.

Over at the Skiway in Lyme, the slalom course has been moved to the Lyme Drop trail, which is visible from the base lodge.

“I think it’s more exciting that they’re coming down the face in full view” of spectators, Skiway general manager Mark Adamczyk said.

Previously, the slalom course had been on the Winslow side of the facility, behind the lodge. The change came about as a collaboration between the Skiway and the Dartmouth Alpine team as both worked to optimize training and racing conditions, Adamczyk said.

“The ski team expects a really high-quality surface to train on. They won’t say it’s ice,” he said with a wry smile. “I’ll say it’s a ‘firm surface.’ ”

Creating that surface requires a snowmaking strategy different from what the Skiway makes for recreational skiing.

For general skiers and riders, a ski area will normally allow piles of manmade snow to sit for days at a time to allow water to seep out and create softer conditions. But to create a race course, those piles are pushed onto the course within hours, to keep more moisture in the snow so that it can harden.

“When you’re going 60 miles per hour, if there’s a soft pocket of snow, that’s not a good thing,” Adamczyk said.

The Alpine competition consists of men’s and women’s giant slalom and men’s and women’s slalom.

The Nordic races include the 7.5K classic race, where the skiers race in groomed parallel tracks, and a 20K freestyle race with a mass start. The competition kicks off with giant slalom racing on March 5. Slalom racing will take place on March 7.

The first Nordic race is a 7.5K classic on March 6, with a mass-start freestyle race on March 8.

“It would be so cool if a bunch of the local community could pull up and cheer us on,” Lange said.

An opening ceremony will take place on March 4, with details still to be determined, Dartmouth Athletics spokesperson Rebecca Osowski said. Shuttles will run to the Skiway and Oak Hill Outdoor Center from Dartmouth’s Dewey Lot and the Garipay fields.

Information for spectators will be available on the ski program’s web page at www.dartmouthsports.com/sports/alpine-skiing.

Christina Dolan can be reached at cdolan@vnews.com or 603-727-3208.