petra west yellowstone

Buffs Take Home Montana State Invite Victory

January 14, 2018 | Skiing

CU’s women’s Nordic team scored 201 total points over the last two days to lead the Buffs to the victory

BOULDER — The Colorado Nordic team capped off its commanding weekend racing at the Rendezvous Ski Trails and on Sunday put the finishing touches on the Montana State Invitational that the Buffalo ski team won by the wide margin of 76½ points.
 
CU's women's Nordic team took first with 95 points Sunday in the 10K freestyle while the men placed third with 69 points, its race running the same distance as the women's. Overall after all eight events were in the books (four Nordic, four alpine), the Buffs collected 658 points to top second place Utah who scored 581½ points.
 
Senior Petra Hyncicova was the only Buff on the podium Sunday, but five Buffs did finish in the top 10. On the women's side, freshman Hedda Baangman was close behind Hyncicova and finished fourth while junior Christina Rolandsen was sixth. Junior Petter Reistad led the men's team with his fifth place finish and freshman Sondre Bollum was ninth.
 
"All-in-all, happy to win a meet," head Nordic coach Bruce Cranmer said. "Happy to have some podiums and some solid results in the first college meet, so we are just kind of getting going."
 
WOMEN'S 10K FREESTYLE RACE: In Saturday's classic race, Baangman had edged out Hyncicova for the win by fourth tenths of a second. On Sunday, Hyncicova again fell just short of a race victory, losing the 10K mass start by five-tenths of a second to Utah's Guro Jordheim.
 
"For me I am glad that I can perform well in classic and in skating," Hyncicova said. "I was kind of lucky and unlucky both days because both of the first places were really close, but it is just the beginning of the season and I'm really happy."
 
Baangman followed up her win Saturday with the fourth place showing Sunday and Rolandsen's sixth place finish helped the women's team win the freestyle skate by 25 points over second place Denver.
 
"We are back in altitude and I think it is more fun racing here because now you can actually see where the skiers are and how in shape they are," Hyncicova said. "We can see that our team is so strong with all the other girls and I am so happy for them."
 
MEN'S 10K FREESTYLE RACE: At the halfway mark of the race there were 15 racers all within four seconds of each other and CU's Reistad, Bollum and Andrew Potyk were all among that cluster.
 
"It was hard to get away and so I think a few people that were a little fresher or whatever just did better," Cranmer said of the mass start. "The conditions were really good, it was fair racing, good course, but hard to get away, that was a tricky thing. It was a big pack for a long time, so that maybe tactically plays in to things a bit."
 
That it did because over the final 5K to the finish we saw 17 seconds separating first and fifth place, with Reistad being CU's top finisher in fifth with a time of 23:59.9.
 
"The course is kind of easy so on today's 10K mass start skate, I tagged along to the others, but there weren't that many hills so even though I tried to make a move on the last big hill I couldn't get the gap and in the end I was just too tired to keep up with the others so I ended up in fifth place," Reistad said.
 
Bollum came in ninth place, clocking in 24:25.8, and the third Buffalo scorer was Potyk, who placed 14th, the best freestyle finish of his career.
 
Utah took the men's race with 92 overall points and had the individual race winner with Martin Bergstroem, finishing in a time of 23:42.9. Denver scored 71 points to edge the Buffs by two for second place.               
 
NOTEWORTHY: Hyncicova has either finished first or second in all four of her races this winter and dating back to last season she has been first or second in 10-of-12 races (six wins, four runner-ups, one third place and one fifth place). She now has 15 career podium finishes, which is tied for the 13th most in school history with current CU assistant Nordic coach Jana Weinberger, who raced for the Buffs from 2003-06.
 
WHAT IT MEANS: This was the 15th running of the Montana State Invitational, the first ever meet hosted by the Bobcats taking place back in 1983. Of the 15 MSU Invites, Colorado has now won seven of them, including taking the title in back-to-back seasons. The next closest school for the most MSU Invite wins is Denver with four.
 
The win also marked the 12th season in the tenure of head coach Richard Rokos, who is now in his 28th season as the head coach of the Buffaloes, that CU has won the first completed meet to start a season.  
 
NEXT UP: The Nordic teams will stay put in West Yellowstone since they will have its classic and freestyle races of the Utah Invitational on Thursday and Friday at the same Rendezvous Ski Trails.
 
QUOTEABLE:
Head Nordic Coach Bruce Cranmer
 
On The Win
"It is always good to win and I think we're doing well. The classic race yesterday I think was really good, I was happy and the athletes were happy. I think today we are not quite as happy even though we won the meet. On an individual basis, I think everyone was hoping to do a little bit better and for a variety of reasons."

On The Team
"It was close with Petra almost winning, just got out touched at the line, and everyone seems to be a little bit tired so they felt like they struggled a little bit today. We've done a lot of racing, a lot of the girls did all the races in Alaska (at the U.S. Cross Country Championship last week). So with travel and we didn't have a lot of turnaround time, and these back-to-back races, everyone sort of felt a little bit tired today."
 
On Racing At Altitude Providing A Barometer On How Everyone Stacks Up
"I think there is a lot of things going on being early season. So hard to know because some people didn't go to Alaska at all from other teams and so they could be a little more rested. It could be a mix of a whole bunch of different things as far as trying to view the strengths of other teams and weaknesses of them or us or whatever. I think we're, especially on the women's side, we should be a strong team at altitude. I think it is a little early to judge anything."
 
RESULTS
Montana State Invitational | Men's 10K and Women's 10K Freestyle
West Yellowstone, Mont. (Rendezvous Ski Trails)
 
FINAL MEET TEAM STANDINGS (8 EVENTS):
1. Colorado 658; 2. Utah 581½; 3. Denver 561; 4. Montana State 534; 5. Alaska Anchorage 419; 6. New Mexico 371; 7. Alaska Fairbanks 217; 8. Westminster College 193½; 9. Wyoming 97; 10. Colorado Mountain College 71.
 
Women's 10K Team Scores:
1. Colorado 95; 2. Denver 70; 3. Montana State 55; 4. Alaska Anchorage 62; 5. Utah 61; 6. Alaska Fairbanks 51; 7. New Mexico 39; 8. Wyoming 27
 
Women's 10K Freestyle Results (31 finishers)
1. Guro Jordheim, Utah, 26:58.2; 2. Petra Hyncicova, CU, 26:58.7; 3. Hailey Swirbul, UAA, 27:01.3; 4. Hedda Baangman, CU, 27:17.8; 5. Emma Tarbath, MSU, 27:19.6; 6. Christina Rolandsen, CU, 28:02.1; 7. Linn Eriksen, DU, 28:04.7; 8. Taeler McCrerey, DU, 28:07.3; 9. Aja Starkey, DU, 28:10.3; 10. Mariah Bredal, Utah, 28:10.3. Other CU Finishers: 12. Anne Siri Lervik 28:22.3; 27. Quinn Lehmkuhl 30:55.3
 
Men's 10K Team Scores:
1. Utah 92; 2. Denver 71; 3. Colorado 69; 4. Montana State 64; 5. Alaska Fairbanks 63; 6. Alaska Anchorage 48; 7. Wyoming 23; New Mexico14
 
Men's 10K Freestyle Results (30 finishers)
1. Martin Bergstroem, Utah, 23:42.9; 2. Dag Frode Trolleboe, DU, 23:43.3; 3. Evind Kvaale, DU, 23:47.4; 4. Karsten Hokanson, MSU, 23:52.8; 5. Petter Reistad, CU, 23:59.9; 6. Hakon Hjelstuen, Utah, 24:02.8; 7. Bjorn Riksaasen, Utah, 24:07.9; 8. Seiji Takagi, UAF, 24:10.2; 9. Sondre Bollum, CU, 24:25.8; 10. Arnaud Guyon, UAF, 24:27.0. Other CU Finishers: 14. Andrew Potyk 24:35.8; 22. Ian Boucher 25:47.6; 24. Tyler Terranova 26:05.7.
 

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