Utah Wins RMISA Championship

Saturday, February 22, 2025 • by Curtis Snyder, RMISA

ANCHORAGE and GIRDWOOD, Alaska—The Utah Utes reclaimed the RMSIA Championship after a one-year hiatus in impressive fashion, winning four of the eight races en route to a 77 point win and claiming the title for the fourth time in the last five seasons.

Overall, the Utes won their 17th RMISA Championship in the coed era since 1983 and counting regular season (awarded since 2006) and postseason championships, the Utes now have 32 to their credit.

Utah finished with 683 points, topping Colorado (606) and Denver (564) while Alaska Anchorage edged out Montana State by a single point (421-420) for fourth place.

Women's GS opened the action at the championship Thursday at Alyeska Resort, with Colorado's Magdalena Luczak getting her second straight GS win but the Utes placing three in the top five to take an early meet lead. Claire Timmermann was second, Kaila Lafreniere fourth and Kaja Norbye fifth for the Utes, who scored 97 points and were up by 22 points on all other teams. Westminster's Elise Hitter finished third on the podium, as well.

Colorado bounced back and won the men's GS race with Louis Fausa winning his third GS race of the season. A close race between Colorado (88), Utah (81) and Montana State (80) as the Bobcats were the only team with two in the top five with Jamie Casselman in third and Gianluca Boehm in fifth. Utah's Johs Herland took second and Denver's Loic Chable fourth.

Through two races, Colorado had moved into second place but 32 points behind the Utes, 178-146.

Action turned to the Nordic side Thursday with the 7.5K Classic Races at Kincaid Park. Utah again took the race win with 94 points on the strength of Celine Mayer's first win of the season, and Erica Laven also on the podium in third place. UAF was also impressive going 4-5 with Kendall Kramer and Tabitha Williams. Colorado placed three in the top 10 with Tilde Baangman finishing second.

Utah scored 94 points with Colorado taking home 82 and UAF 73 in the race. Through three races, Utah extended its lead to 44 points, 272-228, over Colorado.

On the strength of it's men's Nordic team, Denver began to edge back into the meet with a team win in the 7.5K classic race, but just barely edging Utah, 89-87, with Colorado third at 70 points. Utah's Zachary Jayne picked up an impressive win over two Poineers, Andrew Kirkeng and Florian Knopf, two took the other two podium spots. Knopf edged out UAF's Cole Flowers and UAA's Murphy Kimball rounded out the top five.

At the meet's midpoint, Utah's lead grew to 61 points over Colorado, 359-298, with Denver 102 back of the Utes with 257 points.

The second half of the meet took place Saturday with the men's 20K freestyle race a Kincaid Park opening the action, with UAF getting two podiums with Philipp Moosmayer wining he race and Ben Dohlby taking third with Colorado's Hugo Hinckfuss taking second. CU had two in the top five with Johannes Flaaten finishing fifth just behind Kirkeng.

UAF won the race with 91 points, edging Colorado's total of 87 with Utah and Denver third and fourth with 70 and 67 points, respectively. Through five races, CU closed the gap a bit, but were still down by 44 points to Utah, 429-385.

The top four men's teams in the two Nordic races finished within a point of each other with Colorado, Alaska Fairbanks and Utah all scoring 157 points in the two Nordic races and Denver one point back with 156.

The Utes women's team again extended the Utes lead with 88 points in the 20K freestyle race, with Laven picking up yet another win on the season and joined by three other Utes in the top 10. UAF took second in the race on the strength of Kramer finishing second and Williams sixth. Denver's Lea Wenaas also hit the podium in third place and Colorado's Astri Lunde was fourth with MSU's Katey Houser rounding out the top five.

Utah scored 88 points and UAF's 77 with Colorado (69), Denver (68) and MSU (67) all close. Thru six events, Utah extended it's lead again over the Buffs with a 61-point advantage, 517-454.

Over at Alyeska Resort, the final of four days of racing took place with the women first up in slalom action. Denver's Sara Rask made it six-of-six in slalom races taking home the victory with Norbye and MSU's Tea Kiesel rounding out the podium. CU went 4-6 with Accambray and Luczak and Mia Hunt was fifth giving the Pioneers two in the top five.

Denver won the race with 89 points with Utah (83) second and Colorado (75) third. Utah's lead grew to 71 points over Colorado, 600-529, with Denver coming back closer with 481 points in third place.

Those three teams finished within six points of each other in the final race of the meet with Denver and Utah tying for first with 83 points and the Buffs 77 points taking third place. Thomas Hoffman from DU won the race, his first slalom win of the season, with Utah's Wilhelm Normannseth second and Bigatel third. Fausa was fourth giving CU a 3-4 finish with Nevada's Iver Naess rounding out the top five. CU's Filip Wahlqvist, who had won the first five slaloms on the season, did not finish.

In the final standings, Utah ended up winning by 77 over Colorado, 683-606, with Denver's final total being 564.