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Colorado Rallies To Win RMISA Championship

Saturday, February 28, 2015 • by Curtis Snyder, RMISA

ANCHORAGE, Alaska—Top-ranked Colorado proved to be just that, rallying from as far down as 27 points Saturday to claim the 66th RMISA Championship, which doubles as the 2015 NCAA Western Regional Championship, here with Nordic classical and alpine slalom races at Kincaid Park and Aleyska Ski Resort.

In the end, Colorado won by 42 points, scoring 651 points over the eight races to earn the Buffs their second RMISA title in the last three years and fourth in the past six. No. 5 New Mexico scored 550 points, holding off No. 2 Denver (542) by eight points. Montana State, on the strength of another stellar day on the men’s alpine side, finished fifth with 513 points and host Alaska Anchorage scored 474 points. Associate member competing in alpine only Colorado Mountain College rounded out the team scoring with 73 points.

Colorado, trailing No. 3 Utah by eight points entering the day’s action, fell behind the Utes by 27 points after the conclusion of the women’s 15K classical race on the strength of three top seven finishes for the Utes, including Veronika Mayerhoffer’s runner-up performance.

But the Buffs responded with yet another 1-2 finish in the men’s Nordic race, this one coming down to a sprint that saw Mads Stroem defeat Rune Oedegaard by three-tenths of a second. The Buffs outscored the Utes, 97-70 in the race to make it all tied up with just two races left over at Aleyska.

CU pulled away from Utah and the rest of the field after the women’s slalom became official. The Buffs scored 96 points as a team and had four in the top eight while Utah struggled a bit. CU outscored Utah 96-56 to take a 40 point lead. The men’s slalom race was essentially a dead heat between the two schools, with CU gaining a slight 79-77 advantage for the final margin of 42 points.

It was just a year ago that the Utes defeated the Buffs by just four points, 640-636, in the closest RMISA Championship in 30 years, and while this year’s point total wasn’t as close, the drama was similar.

In the end the Buffaloes won their 27th RMISA title, the most of any school. Denver is second with 18 and Utah has 17 to its credit. The RMISA’s two Pac-12 schools have now combined to win each of the last six championships, with Colorado also winning titles in 2010, ’11 and ’13. Utah won in 2012 and ’14.

Since 1983 in the coed era of college skiing, the Buffs have won 14 of the 33 championships with Utah claiming 12 of the other 19 titles.

The women’s Nordic squads got the action underway Saturday and New Mexico’s Emilie Cedervarn won her fourth straight race and earned a sweep of the individual RMISA Championships, pulling away for good about half way through the four-lap race. Her winning time of 42:35.3 was 23.7 seconds ahead of Mayerhoffer’s total of 42:59.0. Mayerhoffer broke from the lead pack about the same time Cedervarn did and the gap after Mayerhoffer was 11.8 seconds.

The next group of five skiers stayed together until the last half of the last loop when Alaska Anchorage’s Manon Locatelli and Colorado’s Pentra Hyncicova leading the way. Hyncicova led most of the final lap before Locatelli surged at the end to take the win by 4.8 seconds, 43:10.8 to 43:16.6. Utah’s Josefin Nilsson edged New Mexico’s Eva Sever Rus by a half second for fifth place, 43:22.1 to 43:22.6. The Utes Sloan Storey finished seventh in 43:31.1, as that group of seven skiers held more than a minute advantage on the rest of the field.

The Utes won the race with 91 points, edging New Mexico (85) by six and Colorado (72) by 19 to take that 27 point lead with three races remaining.

The men’s race saw the guys make six laps around the 3.3K course to reach the 20K distance. The lead pack was large at the beginning of the race with as many as 20 skiers in it. By the halfway mark, there were 15 skiers in the lead pack and that number dwindled to 12 at the start of the fourth lap and just seven at the start of the final lap.

At that point, the Buffs’ Oedegaard attempted to break away and Storem went with him. The Lobos Aku Nikander caught the duo and led with about 1K remaining and all three skiers made the final turn into the final sprint at about the same time. In the end, Storem defeated his teammate by .3 seconds, 50:20.2 to 50:20.5, while Nikander was just 2.4 seconds behind that duo to earn the podium appearance.

Utah’s Niklas Persson was then the lead of the remained of that lead group in a time of 50:30.6, edging out a pair of DU skiers, Dag Trolleboe (50:31.6) and Moritz Madlener (50:34.0) and one Alaska Anchorage skier, Clement Moillet (50:34.5). That group was more than 20 seconds ahead of the next bunch of skiers.

The Buffs scored 97 points in the race, 18 head of New Mexico’s total of 79 and 27 ahead of Utah’s total of 70, bringing the meet to an even tie with just two races remaining.

When the Nordic races were over, the first runs of both slalom races were complete and it was apparent that the Buffaloes would have a good day as CU’s Jessica Honkonen won the slalom in a time of 1:25.93 for her first race victory of the season, ahead of New Mexico’s Mateja Robnik (1:26.77) and a pair of Denver skiers, Monica Huebner (1:27.22) and Devin Delaney (1:27.78). The Buffs Thea Grosvold and Brooke Wales Granstrom finished 5-6 and Shane McLean eighth for good measure as the Buffs made their run at the title.

CU scored 96 points, winning the race by nine points over Denver (87) and 19 over New Mexico (77), but more importantly for the team scoring by 40 over Utah’s total of 56.

Montana State’s Garret Driller won his first race of the season and his career and he made it a good one becoming the 2015 RMISA Men’s Slalom Individual Champion in a time of 1:21.77, by .18 over Utah’s Endre Bjertness (1:21.95). Denver’s Sebastian Brigovic rounded out the podium in a time of 1:22.31 and CU’s Adam Zika finished fourth in 1:22.45. The Buffs and Pioneers traded positions from third through seventh places with the Pioneers’ Trevor Philp taking fifth in 1:22.66 and Alex Leever seventh in 1:23.06 and the Buffs Kasper Hietanen finishing sixth in 1:22.94.

DU won the race with 88 points, nine ahead of Colorado (79) and 11 on top of Utah (77) with Montana State finishing with 70 points.

Next up for the RMISA teams is NCAA selections, which are due to the national office by the end of business on Monday and the team’s will be announced on Tuesday. Each of the six RMISA teams will qualify a full 12 skier team, three for each gender in both Nordic and alpine. This will be the third straight year the RMISA has fielded six full teams. Seeds are allocated to each region based on past performances at NCAA Championships.

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