Friday, January 24, 2020 • by Brooke Frederickson, RMISA
MINTURN, Colo.—The RMISA travels to Maloit Park this weekend for the Nordic portion of the Denver Invitational. Races begin with the men's 10-km classic at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 25, followed by the women's 5-km race at 11:00 a.m. The finishing order will determine the starting list for the men's 10-km and women's 7.5-km freestyle pursuit races on Sunday, beginning at 9:00 a.m. Results can be found at RaceRite.com.
Utah leads the Denver Invitational following the alpine portion of the meet. The Utes have 317 points, leading host Denver by 11 points (306). Westminster College finished the alpine portion ranked third with 288 points but will drop since it doesn't compete in Nordic, while Colorado is fourth with 278 points and Montana State fifth (274).
The Utes won the first meet of the season, winning the Colorado Invitational with 745 points, 104 points over second-place Colorado (641). Utah's 745 points is a league record since the current scoring rubric was implemented in 2014. It is just the third time a school has scored over 700 points at a league meet – Denver scored 737 points at the 2014 Montana State Invitational and the Pioneers scored 710.5 points at the 2018 RMISA Championships.
Women's Nordic Notes
- Utah's Guro Jordheim has won both races this year. She has 14 career race victories.
- In addition to Jordheim, Utah's Mariah Bredal and Leah Lange and Colorado's Anne-Siri Lervik have finished in the top five in both races this season. Bredal and Lange have four career top-five finishes while Lervik has 18 in her career. Each earned a podium finish last week.
- Alaska Anchorage's Anna Darnell earned her first career podium finish last week in the freestyle race and finished in the top 10 in both races.
- Colorado's Hedda Baangman finished in the top five of the classic race, the 15th top five in her career.
Men's Nordic Notes
- Utah's Samuel Hendry has won both races this season. He is in his first collegiate season.
- Colorado's Magnus Boee, also in his first college season, joins Hendry as the only two skiers to finish in the top five in both races. Boee also has a classic podium.
- Utah's podium sweep of the men's freestyle at the Colorado Invitational of Hendry, Maximilian Bie and Luke Jager is the fifth time since 2014 that a team has swept the podium. Bie has three career podiums while Jager was competing in his first collegiate race.
- Alaska Anchorage's Sigurd Roenning earned a podium in last week's classic race, he has six career podium finishes.
- Skiers who finished in the top 10 in every race include Utah's Logan Diekmann, Utah's Noel Keeffe and Utah's Ola Jordheim.