Two skiers from host Bates College take us on a video tour of the 5km loop at Black Mountain that will be used for the NCAA Championship 15/20km mass start event. Following the tour is a preview from the CCSAA division, the University of Colorado, and Denver University.
NCAA Nordic Ski Championships — Central Region Preview
by Matias Saari
The NCAA Central Region will be represented by six schools from the Central Collegiate Ski Association at the NCAA Nordic Ski Championships, with full squads from perennial powerhouse Northern Michigan University and Michigan Tech leading the way.
Longtime NMU coach Sten Fjeldheim said he has skiers capable of winning an NCAA title — which if accomplished would follow up the classic-technique championship Marius Korthauer of Alaska-Fairbanks won a year ago.
“We feel we have both men and women that can win a title,” Fjeldheim said after the Wildcats cruised to what he believed was their 12th Central Region championship in the last 15 years.
NMU has high aspirations as a Nordic team at NCAAs as well. An interval-start classic technique event (10 kilometers for men, 5K for women) will be Thursday while a mass-start freestyle races (20K for men, 15K for women) will be Saturday in Rumford, Maine.
“Our goal is to be in the top five,” said Fjeldheim, whose Wildcats were third in the Nordic standings last year but have no Alpine team to be competitive for the overall championship.
Leading the NMU men is junior Martin Banerud of Oslo, Norway. He has placed fourth in the NCAA freestyle the past two seasons and is looking to finally break onto the podium.
“He needs to have a flawless race because it is so competitive,” Fjeldheim said of Banerud. “If everything goes well, Martin is healthy and feels good, then he has a really good chance to be able to win a title.”
NMU’s men will also be represented by seniors Phil Violett (six podiums in NCAA-qualifying races this season) and Justin Singleton, who has been the odd man out on stacked NMU squads the past two seasons.
Junior Laura DeWitt and freshman Marie Helen Soderman have topped the CCSA this season and are NCAA threats as well.
The third Wildcat woman qualifier is Ingrid Fjeldheim, the older of Sten’s two daughters on the team. She landed her spot over teammate Christina Gillis by 0.1 points after a strong Central Regions freestyle race.
“At times I wanted to be her dad but I had to keep reminding myself to be her coach,” Sten said.
Michigan Tech University, which hosted the Central Region Championships Feb. 28 and March 1 in Houghton, Mich., also has qualified the maximum six skiers for the first time in program history.
“But we are not looking to end the season with this as our top accomplishment,” head coach Joe Haggenmiller said. “Now that we are here in Maine, we have to perform as a team.”
Last year the Huskies only qualified three skiers and were disappointed to have no result higher than 22nd at NCAAs. They plan to change that this year, and have plenty of capable horses.
Oskar Lund, Jesse Lang and Petter Sjulstad all finished in the top six in the CCSA points standings. Lund was runner-up by 0.4 seconds to Banerud at the Central Regions classic race while Lang was second to Wisconsin-Green Bay’s Santiago Ocariz in the freestyle event.
Lund, a junior, and Sjulstad, a freshman, are from Sweden and Norway, respectively. Both have high hopes in the 10K classic. Sjulstad also has an impressive NCAA pedigree, as two of his cousins are former NCAA skiing champions.
Lang is a junior from Minnesota who looks to excel in the 20K freestyle.
For the Huskies women, Jenna Klein is seeking solid results in both events. She and will joined by Elizabeth Quinley, a strong classic skier, and surprise qualifier Jill Smith, the final entrant from the Central Region.
Alaska-Fairbanks graduated Marius Korthauer and Vahur Teppan from last year; they led the team to seventh place in the NCAA Nordic standings. Oyvind Watterdal was the lone qualifier on the men’s side this year.
The Nanooks women, however, qualified twin sisters Julia Pierson and Anna Coulter, who each have 9th-place NCAA All-American certificates to their credit. Pierson also won her first Central Region title in the freestyle on March 1. Lanky German freshman Theresia Schnurr rounds out UAF’s trio as the third-ranked CCSA skier this season.
“All-American is certainly our goal, and the rest is gravy,” Nanooks coach Scott Jerome said.
Jerome may even have a little knowledge of the courses at Bates College because he skied there as a collegian.
Wisconsin-Green Bay is sending one guy and one girl, and each is capable of doing damage. Santiago Ocariz, a junior from Spooner, Wis., won three NCAA-qualifier freestyle races this season, the last one landing him a region title. Carolyn Freeman, a sophomore, also has a pair of NCAA-qualifier podium finishes on her resume.
“I’m just excited to get two skiers through,” UWGB coach Butch Reimer said. “We have an excellent group of qualifiers and I can’t wait to see how the Central Region does.”
Representing Gustavus Adolphus College, which qualified three women a year ago, will be senior Kelly Chaudoin. She is making her second appearance at NCAAs.
“Skating is her stronger technique and she is capable of surprising some people as she did by winning the collegiate race at (Mount) Itasca by 56 seconds,” GAC coach Jed Friedrich said.
Chaudoin’s dedication to summer training is paying dividends now.
“I’m really proud of all the hard work she has put into skiing and she is certainly leaving her mark on our program,” Friedrich said. “She is one of the few Division III skiers who trains like the best skiers in the region, and it has showed in her results.”
Chaudoin joins Klein of Michigan Tech and Freeman of UWGB in hailing from the small town of Ely, Minn.
On the men’s side, the College of Saint Scholastica will send senior Tyler Kjorstad, who was the last man out a year ago.
The Central Region has a mission of doing well enough at NCAAs to increase the 20 berths (nine men, 11 women) it has this year.
“Basically as a region we try to work together at the national championships,” Fjeldheim said. “There’s not a lot of spots available so it’s real important to get as many skiers in the top 10 as we can to gain more spots.”
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BUFF SKIERS SET TO MAKE RUN at NCAA TITLE – University of Colorado NCAA Preview
BETHEL, Maine — The Sunday River Ski Area in this quiet west central Maine town has twice before hosted the NCAA Championships — in 1976 and 1999 — and the University of Colorado ski team is looking to accomplish what it did both previous trips here, and that’s return to Boulder with the winning trophy in hand.
The Buffaloes arrived here last Saturday to get in three full days of training ahead of the 56th NCAA Ski Championships, which begin here Wednesday and run through Saturday.
Colorado is looking for the school’s 18th national title in the sport of skiing, last winning in 2006; it shared the title with Dartmouth in 1976, the only time two schools have tied for the title, and bested rival Denver by 14 points in 1999 in the two previous championships held here and in Rumford, where the Nordic events take place. Seven of CU’s 17 titles in skiing have been won in the east.
This winter in the west, Colorado on the surface appeared to be the dominant team with wins in three of the five invitationals, but Alaska-Anchorage and New Mexico grabbed the other two wins proving to have very deep squads. Non-winners Denver and Utah both qualified full 12-skier teams for the NCAA Championships, despite finishing fourth and sixth, respectively in the RMISA Championships/NCAA West Regional. Alaska also qualified a full-team, yet an on-fire UNM after claiming just its second RMISA title ever, only qualified 10, as did Nevada.
CU qualified 11 of the maximum 12 skiers for this year’s championships; the Buffs became the first school win a title shorthanded in doing so in 2006, with Denver matching the feat last year. Twenty-two schools overall are participating in Maine this week, just four with full teams as Dartmouth was the only school from the east to send a dozen on to the national meet. The scoring format, tweaked for the first time since 1997, gives teams one skier short a legitimate shot to win the title, and those two short an outside chance.
All six schools have strengths in at least one if not two specific disciplines, so any of the six could emerge in the national meet. UAA opened the season with its first-ever invitational win, claiming its own Seawolf Invitational (by 16 points over Utah), a meet that replaced the Western State invite when the school dropped skiing as a sport last summer. Colorado won the next three meets, by 12½, 23½ and 48 points, with UNM closing the western season with a 26-point win over the Buffs as the Lobos led from wire-to-wire. It was the most balanced season in RMISA history since the sport went coed in 1983.
“You love the competition, it only makes you stronger,” head coach Richard Rokos said. “You could not take a single race off in any discipline this winter because if you did, you found yourself way down in the standings. But that’s good, the top dogs don’t get complacent knowing there is a razor thin margin for error. And that should help all of us at nationals.
Rokos is pleased with the mental and physical state of his team less than 48 hours before the championships commence.
“It’s all positive. Everybody is healthy, focused, pumped up and ready to roll,” he said. “We’ve had a very good year overall, and we’re encouraged about our chances despite qualifying one less skier than the maximum. We’ve proved mathematically that you can win with 11. We did it at Steamboat (in 2006) and won by a near-record margin. Skiing with 11 instead of 12 there is still more on the line and less room for error. Fortunately with everybody healthy, it comes down to skiing smart and eliminating mistakes.”
Colorado is always single-minded when it comes to the goal at NCAA’s.
“The goal is always the same and it will never change,” Rokos said. “And that’s to win it, but also to have a positive experience. Sportsmanship, achieve it under honorable conditions. I would hate to win it because we didn’t ski our best, but it was because the others didn’t ski their best. But the bottom line is like we say every year, our goal never changes, it’s always the same, we’re going after the trophy. We don’t ever go into this thinking second place would be a great finish. The goal is to win, everybody knows it, and everyone will pursue it. We are stronger than we have been in a long time in men’s alpine, Nordic is solid and predictable. And as usual in alpine, it could come down to what team keeps falls and crashes to a minimum.
Rokos’ teams have won five national championships on his watch at CU, tied for the second most in CU history with current cross country coach Mark Wetmore, and trailing the seven won in skiing under Bill Marolt. Colorado has won 23 overall in its athletic history.
CU’s 11-skier roster breaks down by eligibility into two seniors, four juniors and five sophomores, with six of the 11 having skied previously in at least one NCAA championship. Seniors Maria Grevsgaard and Lisa Perricone lead the way, as this will be their fourth NCAA experience.
Grevsgaard is looking to close out a storybook career. CU’s all-time leader in individual wins with 24, she’s tied for the most podium finishes (top threes) with former teammate Lucie Zikova (34). Grevsgaard is the defending champion in both the Nordic classical and freestyle races, and if she can repeat her feat, she’ll tie a small handful of athletes at CU that have won four NCAA titles in any sport. She is the No. 1 seed across the board in Nordic. Joining her on the women’s cross country team for the Buffs is sophomore Alexa Turzian, the No. 6 seed in the west who transferred to CU from Middlebury after last season. This is the unit that is one short, qualifying just two of the maximum three skiers per discipline. With a weighted scoring format (50 team points for first, 47 for second, etc., through the top eight), the higher Grevsgaard and Turzian can finish, the more they can offset not having a third teammate.
One other Buffalo is a No. 1 seed, junior Matt Gelso, the leader of CU’s strongest discipline, the men’s Nordic squad. The unit racked up five wins, 24 top five and 33 top 10 performances this winter, including a pair of back-to-back 1-2-3 sweeps in Alaska, the first such sweeps by CU cross country skiers in 47 years. Sophomores Vegard Kjoelhamar (No. 2 seed) and Jesper Ostensen (No. 3 seed) round out likely the strongest Nordic program in the nation; three other Buffaloes also qualified but only three could advance to NCAA’s.
The Buffs did qualify a full alpine team for just the second time in the last six seasons, led by a pair of No. 3 overall seeds. Sophomore Carolina Nordh has skied well in both the giant slalom (No. 2 seed) and the slalom (No. 6), with junior Gabriel Rivas doing the same (No. 2 in the slalom and No. 8 in the GS).
The women’s team skied a little more consistent than the men’s this winter. Sophomore Katie Hartman is the No. 5 seed and Perricone a 10-seed, both a bit stronger in the slalom. JuniorsStefan Hughes (No. 10 seed, seventh in the slalom) and Drew Roberts (No. 12 overall, 10th in the slalom) round out the men’s unit. Hughes grew up in the east and is most familiar with the eastern snow, which often this time of year is more ice-like.
Individually, Colorado skiers won 14 of the 44 races in the western regular season, with New Mexico catching the Buffs at the end with its fine showing in the RMISA Championships. Colorado won three of the five western meets, sandwiched by Alaska-Anchorage’s first-ever win in its own Seawolf Invitational and the Lobos’ performance in the regional.
It was a different story in the east; Dartmouth, won all six carnivals as the Big Green has distanced themselves from Vermont and Middlebury as the dominant eastern program. Dartmouth has won 17 of the last 18 eastern competitions and is the only school from the east to win a national title since 1994 when it claimed the ’07 crown two years ago. Western schools have won 13 of the last 14 titles.
“We don’t know much about the east, other than Dartmouth won all the meets and skied well all season,” Rokos said. “We never get to race against them until the NCAA’s, so it’s always a wait-and-see deal. But it seems like they have emerged as the dominant force from the East and the only school that keeps qualifying a full team. The central schools are always a great unknown; they can displace some good racers and have an effect on the final standings even though they can’t win it, but that’s an element that can make things unpredictable. Northern Michigan always has a strong team and they can mess things up for everybody.”
The giant slalom races open the NCAA Championships on Wednesday, March 11, with the women’s first run at 7 a.m. MST, with the second run to follow immediately; the men’s first run is set for 10:30 a.m. MST, followed by its second run. Nordic competition takes center stage on Thursday, March 12, with the classical cross country races, the men’s 10-kilometer up first at 8 a.m. MST, with the women’s 5K to follow at 10 a.m. MST. The slalom races complete the alpine events on Friday, March 13, with the men’s first run at 7:30 a.m. MST followed by the women’s first run at 8:15; second runs follow at 10:15 (men) and 11:00 (women). The freestyle cross country races will finish off the NCAA meet on Saturday, March 14: the women’s 15-kilometer is set for an 8 a.m. MST start, with the men’s 20K to follow at 10:00 a.m. Flower ceremonies follow each event, and the awards presentation is set for Noon MST on Saturday.
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Denver Skiing Looks for Title No. 20 at the NCAA Championships
Pioneers Look for No. 20: The University of Denver ski teams look to win their 20th national championship while defending last year’s title, when they head to Bethel and Rumford, Maine, for the NCAA Championships from March 11-14. The Pioneers have won an NCAA-record 19 team championships, including five this decade.
Full Squad: Denver won the title last year despite having just 11 of 12 skiers qualified, but DU is sending the maximum 12 skiers to compete in the 2009 NCAA Championships. Alaska-Anchorage and Utah are the only other RMISA teams sending 12 skiers, followed by 11 from Colorado and 10 each from Nevada and New Mexico.
Repeat After Me: John Buchar became just the secondDenver skier to sweep the slalom and giant slalom at the NCAA Championships last year, equaling the feat of teammate Adam Cole from 2007. Buchar, who also earned second-team All-American honors in 2007, looks to become the just the first DU men’s alpine skier to defend his title since Peik Christensen won the alpine crown in 1973 and 1974, and just the third ever to repeat. Otto Tschudi is the only other DU men’s alpine skier to win consecutive titles and the only to do it three times, winning the downhill in 1970, 1971 and 1972.
Men’s Alpine: Joining Buchar on this year’s Men’s Alpine Championship team will be Ian Lochhead and newcomer Leif Haugen. Buchar, Haugen and Lochhead ranked third, fourth and fifth, respectively, in the RMISA men’s slalom rankings this season, as DU claimed the RMISA Regular Season Men’s Alpine Championship by winning four of five slalom events. In the GS, Haugen led the way ranked fourth, followed by Buchar in ninth and Lochhead in 18th.
Women’s Alpine: Molly Ryan is the lone returning skier from last year’s NCAA Championships, where Ryan earned second-team All-American honors with a 10th place finish in giant slalom. However, Clare Abbe earned first-team All-American honors after coming in fifth in the slalom at the 2007 NCAA Championships. Newcomer Ida Dillingoeen will also represent the Pioneers straight off a second place GS and fourth place slalom finish at the NCAA West Regionals. Dillingoeen led the way among DU qualifiers in the GS, ranking fourth in the RMISA, while Abbe was seventh among slalom skiers.
Big Shoes to Fill: For the first time in four years, the Pioneers are sending newcomers to compete in the men’s Nordic. Dan Clark, Mike Hinckley and Harold Lovenskiold will look to fill the void left by three-time individual champion and six-time All-American Rene Reisshauer, 2006 classical champion and eight-time All-American John Stene, and two-time All-American Havard Selseng. Those three skiers represented the Pioneers in 2005-08, winning a pair of team titles. However, Hinckley qualified for last year’s championship before an illness sidelined him. Hinckley leads the way for DU, as the seventh overall qualifier in the RMISA, followed by Clark at 18th and Loevenskiold in 21st.
Women’s Nordic:Annelise Bailly and Antje Maempel return to the NCAA Championships after tying for third in the classical and coming in fifth in the freestyle last year, despite having just two of three qualified skiers. Bailly earned first-team All-American honors in both events, coming in third in freestyle and fifth in classical. Maempel was a first-team All-American in classical and second-team in freestyle. This season, Maempel was named the RMISA Women’s Nordic Most Valuable Skier after finishing in the top five of all 12 events, while Bailly raced to seven top-10 finishes. Newcomer Kate Dolan joins DU at this year’s championships after earning four top-10 finishes in 2009. The team swept the final six events of the season.
Pioneers in the NCAAs: The Pioneers won their 19th team championships in 2008, the most by any team in the NCAA. Colorado is second with 16 titles, and New Mexico is third with 10. The 19 ski titles are tied with Arkansas indoor track and UCLA men’s volleyball for the fifth-most team championships in Division I history. Oklahoma State wrestling holds the most national titles with 34. Added to seven hockey national titles, DU has the 13th most championships among all schools.
Team of the 2000s: Denver has won five NCAA Championships in skiing since 2000. Utah (2003), New Mexico (2004), Colorado (2006) and Dartmouth (2007) won the other four titles this decade.
Coached by Champions: Denver’s head coaches, alpine coach Andy LeRoy and Nordic coach Dave Stewart, have their fair share of championship caliber racing. LeRoy won the slalom at the 2000 NCAA National Championships while at the University of Colorado after a six-year stint on the U.S. Ski Team that included a trip to the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. Meanwhile, Stewart was a 2006 national champion in the sprint relay while racing professionally after graduating from Vermont. Third-year alpine assistant coach Chris Bergfinished seventh in the giant slalom at the 2003 championships. Second-year Nordic assistant coach Hennie Kashiwa was the Nordic captain on DU’s 2005 title team.
Coaches of the Year: Head alpine coach Andy LeRoy was named 2007 and 2008 Coach of the Year at the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association, while David Stewart also earned the award last year.
2009 Season Recap
Alaska-Anchorage Invitational (Jan. 5-10)
The Pioneers took fifth at the Alaska-Anchorage Invitational with 481 points, trailing Colorado (542), New Mexico (529.5), Alaska-Anchorage (529) and Utah (492.5). Antje Maempelwon the classical and was second in the freestyle.
Seawolf Invitational (Jan. 8-11)
Denver was fourth at the Seawolf Invitational in Anchorage with 506.5 points behind host Alaska-Anchorage (554), Utah (538) and Colorado (514.5). Maempel again led the way, finishing second in the freestyle and fifth in the classical, while John Buchar earned a spot on the podium with his second-consecutive third place finish in slalom.
Colorado Invitational (Jan. 14-17)
With 18 top-10 finishes, Denver placed second overall at the Colorado Invitational with 541 points, trailing first-place host CU (564.5). The men’s alpine and women’s Nordic teams dominated the invitational, winning all four of their races.
Denver Invitational (Feb. 5-7)
For the second-straight meet, the Pioneers finished second (492 points) behind Colorado (540). Buchar won the slalom, and 15 Denver skiers finished in the top-10.
RMISA Championships/NCAA Western Regional (Feb. 20-21)
The Pioneer skiers finished fourth at the NCAA Western Regional with 483 points. New Mexico won its first meet of the year with 565 points, followed by Colorado (539) and Nevada (485). Maempel and Annelise Bailly went one-two in the freestyle, and Maempel was on the podium in second place in the classical. Ida Dillingoeen had her strongest finishes of the year at second in the giant slalom and fourth in the slalom.
