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Cedervarn Wins Classic Race; Buffs Take Back Lead From Utah By Seven Points

Friday, March 13, 2015 • by Curtis Snyder, RMISA

LAKE PLACID, N.Y.—New Mexico got its second individual titlist of the 2015 NCAA Championships and Colorado and Utah both threw haymakers at each other and when the Nordic races were complete it was the Buffaloes who came away with a seven point lead over the Utes, 388-381 with six of eight events now complete.

When all the dust settled and the Buffs and Utes all crossed the line, Colorado’s 388-381 lead is the third smallest margin through three days in championship history. The RMISA owns the top four spots with New Mexico third with 327 points and Denver fourth with 290. Vermont is also still in the mix with 272 points. Montana State sits eighth with 190 points and Alaska Anchorage 10th with 156.

While Colorado and Utah certainly have the inside track to either the Buffs 20th or Utes 11th national championships, don’t count out any of the top five. New Mexico won the Lobo’s Invitational on the strength of third slalom teams. The Pioneers racked up numerious

Cedervarn earned her fifth victory of the season all in the last six races, more than the UNM women’s Nordic team had won in the previous nine seasons, and she did it in dramatic fashion. Falling on the final downhill, it looked to be over as Utah’s Veronika Mayerhoffer built a 15-20-meter lead entering the stadium, but Cedervarn pulled her in and won in an all-out sprint to the finish, winning by 1.5 seconds in the end, 47:40.3 to 47:41.8.

A minute back at 48:51.3, DU’s Sylvia Nordksar took third in 48:51.3, holding off Colorado’s Maja Solbakken (48:55.5) who beat out Utah’s Sloan Storey (48:56.0) by just five-tenths of a second in a sprint of their own.

It was Cedervarn who broke the tie to earn best women’s Nordic skier in the west, and thus the country, in the race. Her five victories was one more than Mayerhoffer, who earned her fourth Wednesday winning the women’s 5K freestyle race. Nordskar won the other three races on the season before falling ill for much of the middle of the season.

Those three plus Solbakken and Storey all earn first-team All-America honors. Second team All-America honors went to Colorado’s Petra Hyncicova (sixth place; 49:05.8) and Ane Johnsen (9; 49:26.2), New Hampshire’s Annika Taylor (7; 49:11.8), Vermont’s Mary Kate Cirelli (8; 49:12.7) and Anna-Lena Heynen (10; 49:26.3).

The race for the championship, at least for the day, shaped up to be between the RMISA’s two Pac-12 schools, as Utah won the race with 87 points and Colorado was second with 80 points. Utah’s four point margin entering the day had swelled slightly to 11 points. Denver, who was just five points behind the Buffs, had just Nordskar earn points and fell behind by 62 to Utah and 51 to Colorado.

In the men’s 20K classic race, the finish was just as exciting and a lot crazier. A four-skier pack broke off at the beginning of the final lap and battled back and forth the entire way. Colorado’s Rune Oedegaard led the final downhill and along the long straightaway before a 180 degree turn into the final sprint to the finish. With him were teammate Mads Stroem, New Mexico’s Aku Nikander and Northern Michigan’s Fredrik Schwenke.

Schwenke and Stroem emerged after the turn and Oedegaard got in the lane behind Schwenke as they entered the final stretch. Nikander was pushed to the left of Oedegaard and Schwenke outside the tracks and it appeared as though their poles touched and Oedegaard fell and Nikander collided with him while Schwenke beat Stroem in the sprint to become the NCAA Champion.

Oedegaard was the first up of the two who crashed and got on the podium in third place and Nikander finished in fourth.

On paper, Schwencke beat Stroem by six-tenths, 56:12.3 to 56:12.9, while Oedegaard finished in 56:19.2 and Nikander 56:23.7. Lucky for both Oedegaard and Nikander they had built a big gap on the field, ahead of Utah’s Niklas Persson, who took fifth and the final first-team All-America spot in a time of 56:33.5.

Alaska Anchorage’s Clement Molliet finished sixth in 56:38.2 as he battled Persson and after’s NMU’s second skier, Kyle Bratrud (56:47.4) was Denver’s Moritz Madlener (56:53.4) while Darmouth’s Patrick Caldwell, Wednesday’s freestyle winner, took 10th in 57:05.2, losing a sprint to Vermont’s Joergen Grav in ninth (57:03.4).

Northern Michigan won the race with 85 points while Colorado racked up 71, New Mexico 66 and Utah 53. The Buffs turned their 11 point deficit into a seven point advantage entering the Saturday’s slalom races. The action will get underway at Whiteface Mountain at 8:30 a.m. ET.

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