Buffs In Lead At Halfway Point of UNM Invite

RED RIVER, N.M. and CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. — The Colorado ski program opened the first of the two-day New Mexico Invitational on Saturday and swept the slalom races to help launch the Buffaloes into a first-place team standing after four of eight events.

For the second of now three team meets this season, CU swept the top spot in both the men's and women's slalom races. Ola Johansen won his third race of the season, second in the slalom, while Tonje Trulsrud also notched a second slalom victory in 2018. The duo where both victorious in the slalom at the Montana State Invitational back on Jan. 8.

The Buffalo men's and women's alpine teams both came out on top of their respective leaderboards in the slalom races that were held at the Red River Ski Area.

"Ola is consistent in winning, so it just proved again that he can be there at any given time," head coach Richard Rokos said. "On the ladies side it was an exceptional dual to see Tonje and Nora (Christensen, who placed third). Nora started in the leader bib and Tonje has now started digging in strong slalom territory mode. Last year GS was kind of strong for her and right now she is going back and forth and doing well in both."

On the Nordic side, Colorado placed third in both the men's and women's races that are being held in Crested Butte due to local ski conditionals at the originally scheduled facility Enchanted Forest Ski Area in New Mexico.

WOMEN'S SLALOM RACE: With Trulsrud winning the race and Nora Christensen's third place finish, Colorado ran away on the women's side to win the event with 93 points, a 21-point margin of victory.

Trulsrud had the fastest first run in the field and the second-fastest time on run No. 2. She edged out DU's Andrea Komsic by just under three-tenths of a second overall and Christensen was just 0.22 seconds behind Komsic, making for a tight race at the top of the leaderboard.

Christensen has now hit the podium in all three slalom races this season and in 17 career slalom events on the NCAA circuit, she has 10 top five finishes (five on the podium).

CU's third scorer was Isabella Fidjeland in 12th place while Megan McGrew came in 19th.

MEN'S SLALOM RACE: Behind Johansen's win, the men's team won the slalom race with 89 points. The Buffs edged out Denver (87) and New Mexico (85) to win their first slalom event of the season (they were runner-up in the MSU Invite and third at the Utah Invitational).

Max Luukko recorded his best finish of the season, finishing in fifth place to pick up 29 points for Colorado. The three-time All-American and 2016 RMISA slalom champion came into the year with 23 top 10 finishes in 28 career races, but his top finish so far in 2018 was 11th in the giant slalom at the Utah Invitational.

"For some reason this environment fits well to Max," Rokos said. "He was here two years ago and he likes it here. I know that he was very happy with today and for him it was a good confidence builder that he needed. He is moving back to a better starting position for tomorrow and it is all just little details what makes a better picture of it."

Freshman Joey Young placed 12th Saturday and in his first race back from his eight World Cup starts over the last three months, David Ketterer came in 19th place.

MEN'S 21K FREESTYLE RACE: The CU men finished third in the race with 72 points, as Utah ran away by claiming 100 points on the backing of first-, second- and eighth-place finishes. Denver earned 76 points, to beat out CU by four for second place.

A pair of freshmen led the Buffs on the men's side. Alvar Alev came in fifth with a time of 1:04:43.1 and Sondre Bollum was right behind him in sixth, clocking in at 1:04:51.2. Petter Reistad was the third scorer for CU, placing 17th to collect 16 points for the Buffs.

Other CU finishers include Ian Boucher in 22nd, Andrew Potyk in 26th and Tyler Terranova was 31st.

WOMEN'S 21K FREESTYLE RACE: For the second time in her young career, sophomore Anne Siri Lervik was the top CU finisher in a race. She came in fifth place in the women's race and was followed in eighth place by junior Christina Rolandsen and 10th by senior Ane Johnsen.

Johnsen returned after missing both the MSU and Utah Invitationals to record her first top 10 finish of the season. She had placed 13th in the 10K freestyle at the U.S. Cross Country Championships on Jan. 3. In her first three seasons she had earned four All-America honors, including a first-team nod in 2016 after finishing third in the classical race at the NCAA Championships, and she has four podium and now 18 top 10 finishes in her career.

Quinn Lehmkuhl placed 22nd on Saturday and Hedda Baangman did not finish the race.

CU as a women's Nordic team finished third in the 21K skate, the longest on the NCAA circuit this season.

NOTEWORTHY: With Trulsrud and Johansen both winning their respective slalom races, the second win in the event this year for the two of them, this marks the first time since 2002 that CU has had two or more individual slalom race winners on both the men's and women's side.

Now with three individual race victories on the women's side (the two slalom wins by Trulsrud and one slalom victory by Christensen), the women's alpine team has matched the highest number of individual alpine race victories in the last 11 years. In 2007, Colorado won four races, three that were slalom events, and the year before in 2006, the Buffs posted nine victories with seven of those at the skies of Lucie Zikova.

QUOTEABLE
Head Coach Richard Rokos

On Skiing In New Mexico
"This place is great, everybody loves it. It is a very unique environment and is one of those experiences you are looking forward to."

On Joey Young's Race
"Joey skied exceptionally well and fast. He did a huge mistake in the first run and ended up being in the back of the field after the first run, but he regained his composure for the second run."

On David Ketterer's Return From The World Cup Circuit
"Dave became a victim of World Cup, something I saw last year with Erik Read from Denver. You come from the league and have a pretty reasonable expectation that things will go easy (back on the NCAA circuit) and it is not that way. There are lots of good skiers in this league and I think in addition to everything that cumulates a little fatigue and anxiety and the fact that he is starting back and needs to move forward. It is something he needs to cope with and get on top of it. He can do very well and I have no doubt that this one is very temporary. And on top of it, being in Europe since last year practically, he didn't ski any hill of this kind. It is gentle, doesn't have any steep parts or one steep part that is relatively short, and the snow is different because until now he was on ice in miserable European weather and here he comes and it is 50 degrees, sunny and good snow, so it is very overwhelming."

On Bobby Moyer
"He had his track of bad luck again. He was skiing clean and good, but ended up making mistake at the end of his first run. It looked like it would be the run to move up to the upper division and be able to score from there and it didn't happen, so we'll have to fight for it tomorrow."

On Nora Christensen
"Nora did a little adjustment on the second run and it paid off for her, so she moved up a little bit."

On Isabella Fidjeland and Megan McGrew
"Bella is coming off that old injury and bad points and everything, so every baby step is good for her. Megan, she skied clean, well and fast. She made a mistake in the second run and ended a little bit back."

NEXT UP: The alpine squads will again be racing slalom on Sunday while the Nordic teams will have a 5K classic individual start, the men opening it up at 9 a.m. followed by the women at 10.

THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO/DREW JUDYCKI MEMORIAL/JADE ENTERPRISES INVITATIONAL

MEET TEAM STANDINGS (4 of 8 events):
1. Colorado 327; 2. Denver 322; 3. Utah 292.5; 4. New Mexico 274; 5. Montana State 257; 6. Alaska Anchorage 175.5; 7. Westminster College 78; 8. Wyoming 69; 9. Colorado Mountain College 24

Official and complete results on the link at the top of the page.

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Players Mentioned

Alvar Alev

Hedda Baangman

Sondre Bollum

Ian Boucher

Nora Christensen

Isabelle Fidjeland

Ola Johansen

Ane Johnsen

David Ketterer

Quinn Lehmkuhl

Anne Siri Lervik

Max Luukko

Megan McGrew

Bobby Moyer

Andrew Potyk

Petter Reistad

Christina Rolandsen

Tyler Terranova

Tonje Trulsrud

Joey Young