ANCHORAGE, Alaska—Both new Pac-12 foes, it was in a sport where the two schools have been rivals for over 50 years, as No. 3 Utah took a slim eight point lead over No. 1 Colorado in the race for the 2015 RMISA Championship, which doubles as the 2015 NCAA Western Regional Championship.
The Utes scored 315 points on the day, boosted most by its women’s alpine team, while the Buffs score 307 on the strength of its men’s Nordic team. It appears to be a race between the two, as the Buffs then have a 40 point advantage over third place and No. 10 Montana State and its total of 277 points.
No. 2 Denver and No. 5 New Mexico are tied for fourth with 267 points, meaning those three teams are just 10 points apart halfway through the meet. Host and No. 9 Alaska Anchorage is sixth with 238 points and Colorado Mountain College rounds out the team scoring with 24 points.
First on tap at Kincaid Park in Nordic action was the 10K freestyle interval start race, which in similar fashion saw Colorado’s duo of Mads Stroem and Rune Oedegaard finish first and second. Those two have finished 1-2 in eight of nine races in the college season thus far, with Stroem winning the RMISA Individual Championship, his second straight win and third overall of those eight races this season.
Stroem’s time of 22:49.3 was 18.8 seconeds ahead of Oedegaard’s time of 23:08.1. Denver’s Dag Trolleoboe hit his first podium of the season in third place in 23:09.1 with Alaska Anchorage’s Alex Mahoney taking fourth in 23:21.7 and New Mexico’s Aki Nikander rounding out the top five in 23:28.4.
The Buffs scored 98 points as a team, bettering the host Seawolves (75) by 23 points while Denver finished third with 69 points.
Next up in the women’s 5K freestyle race, the Lobos’ matched the Buffs efforts by going 1-2 with Emilie Cedervarn winning the race in a time of 13:40.5, 8.8 seconds ahead of her teammate Eva Sever Rus and her total of 13:49.3. Sever Rus was ahead of Colorado’s Petra Hyncicova (13:51.1) by less than two seconds. Utah’s Veronika Mayerhoffer finished fourth in 14:03.6 and UAA’s Manon Locatelli rounded out the top five in 14:10.3.
The Lobos scored 96 points while Utah came in second with 81 and Colorado scored 70.
Thirty-five miles down the Seward Highway, alpine action took place at Aleyska Ski Resort with the giant slalom races. As the Nordic races, the podiums had some eerily similar elements. Like the Nordic races where one team swept the top two spots, the alpine races had a similar pattern with DU skiers winning both races but then another team sweeping the rest of the podium in second and third places.
In the women’s race, Kristine Haugen won the race in a time of 2:37.49, crushing the field by almost a second-and-a-half, bettering Utah’s Kristiina Rove (2:38.93) and Chloe Fausa (2:39.05). Colorado’s Jessica Honkonen took fourth in 2:39.21 and Montana State’s Benedicte Lyche rounded out the top five in 2:39.67.
The Utes scored 98 points, 17 ahead of DU total of 81 while Colorado took third with 76 points.
The men’s GS race saw DU’s Espen Lysdahl win by a bigger margin than his teammate. His two-run total of 2:29.94 was 1.66 seconds ahead of second place David Neuhauser from Montana State while Neuhauser’s teammate Garret Driller also hit the podium in 2:32.29. The times then tightened up, as a pair of Utes took 4-5 with Andy Trow finishing in 2:32.37 and Joergen Brath taking fifth in 2:32.64.
Montana State won the men’s race, its first race win of the season, scoring 92 points, seven ahead of Denver’s total of 85 points while Utah took third with 83.
The championships will conclude Saturday with the Nordic classic and alpine slalom races. Racing will get underway at Kincaid Park with a mass start schedule, 20K for the men and 10K for the women, starting at 9:30 a.m. At 11 a.m. in Girdwood, the women will get things started in slalom action.
After the conclusion of the championships, the RMISA coaches will select teams to represent themselves at the 2015 NCAA Championships, slated for March 11-14 in Lake Placid, N.Y., hosted by St. Lawrence. Each team is only allowed to bring 12 skiers, three from each discipline and gender, but all six RMISA schools will be represented with full 12-skier teams.
| Date | Race |
|---|---|
| Feb. 27 | Women's 5K Freestyle |
| Feb. 27 | Women's Giant Slalom |
| Feb. 27 | Men's 10K Freestyle |
| Feb. 27 | Men's Giant Slalom |
| Feb. 28 | Women's 15K Classical |
| Feb. 28 | Women's Slalom |
| Feb. 28 | Men's 20K Classical |
| Feb. 28 | Men's Slalom |