Colorado
NCAA Championships
SKIERS TOP NORDIC EVENT, FINISH FOURTH OVERALL AT NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS
March 13, 2004 | Skiing
TRUCKEE, Calif. ? The University of Colorado ski team utilized one of the most dominant days in history to vault from seventh into a fourth place finish as the 51st Annual NCAA Championships came to a conclusion here Saturday.
New Mexico, which took over the lead by 31 points Friday, pulled away to win with a total of 623 points, with defending national champion Utah second with 581, followed by Denver (568), Colorado (564) and Vermont (533.5). It's the 10th straight year that the title was won by a team from the NCAA west region.
The Lobos also won the first national championship in the school's long athletic history, finally rewarding head coach George Brooks after 34 years as ski coach, the only one UNM has ever had.
Colorado had five finishers in the top six in the cross country classical races, with the sixth Buffs skier just outside the top 10 in 11th place. All told, it meant a whopping 206.5 points for the Buffaloes, the most in one single day by any school in this meet, as well as the most ever in a nordic single day and the second most overall in the eight years since the NCAA adopted the current scoring format (Utah scored 212 in the giant slalom last year). That gave the Buffs 375 total points in cross country here, easily topping Alaska-Anchorage (354) and Utah (323.5).
It's the first time the Buffaloes have ever paced the field in nordic points at the national event; CU had finished second in cross country points seven times in the NCAA meet, the last time in 2002, but the Buffs were never the point leader in the nordic standings until this year since the sport went coed in 1983.
“It was a phenomenal performance today, simply dominating,” CU head coach Richard Rokos said. “Everyone went out and had fun, skied comfortably, helped each other out and it was just great scenery to see. There's nothing like watching your team's uniforms cross the line in bunches at the end of the race.”
Junior Tor Erik Schjellerud led the way for the Buffaloes Saturday, as he rebounded from an 11th place effort in Thursday's freestyle event to finish second in the 20-kilometer classical in a time of 53:16.7. It was his fifth runner-up finish to go with one win in 10 races this winter, and was redemption for his freestyle finish, his only effort of the year outside of the top four. He earned first-team All-America honors with his finish, as he trailed Utah's Henning Dybendal, who won in 53:11.9.
“It was kind of hard in the beginning, and I didn't feel super great today,” Schjellerud said. “I was in a group for most of the race, from second to sixth place, and I pulled away from the pack in the last three kilometers. I stayed until good position until then, and then I really started to ski fast. I'm pretty happy with my finish, and I felt much better at the end of the race than I did at the beginning.”
Sophomore Erling Christiansen added a fifth place finish in the classical to his third place outing in the freestyle, skiing the four laps in 53:23.6, while earning first-team All-American honors for the second time in this meet. Christiansen actually slipped and fell at the start, and was in 30th place in the early going.
“In cross country skiing there is no mercy,” Rokos said. “No one will give you any slack, or give you the right of way, they make your life miserable. So for him to pass 25 skiers, his life was miserable 25 times. To his credit, it was a tremendous effort.”
Another sophomore, Henrik Hoye, battled illness but still managed to finish in an amazing 11th place despite skiing what amounted to 12.4 miles in 53:51.2. “Henrik was the only ?victim' in that he was racing under the weather; it's hard to everyone 100 percent healthy this time of year, but he had an outstanding result considering he was so sick.”
The women's 15-kilometer version closed the championships, and the Buff women were not to be outdone by their male counterparts. With classic CU's strong suit, the Buffs put together a 4-5-6 finish in the race to rack up 104.5 team points.
Juniors Jana Rehemaa and Muriele Huberli both posted first-team All-America finishes in placing fourth and fifth respectively, the second time this meet Rehemaa was afforded the honor. Alaska-Fairbanks' Sigrid Aas won her second NCAA title her in winning in 53:04.7, edging Alaska-Anchorage's Mandy Kaempf for the second straight race by eight seconds. Rehemaa skied the course in 53:28.4, Muriele in 53:30.0.
Right behind the pair was senior Claire Critchley, earning second-team All-American honors as she tied for sixth in 53:31.0, a dead heat with Northern Michigan's Lindsey Weier. Thus, the three Colorado women were all of 2.6 seconds apart after 15 kilometers (9.3 miles).
“I'm just really happy because it was the best race of my season, and I'm happy that I could do it when it was really important,” Huberli said. “I'm also really proud of our team because I think we all did an awesome job the whole year, and we did it again here at the NCAA's.
The CU women by chance happen to finish in a pack, as it wasn't necessarily strategy. “There were about six or eight girls together all the time during the first lap, and then things spread out a bit, but we were always close to each other,” Huberli said. “In the end, it's just how it played out (that they were in order), so we all had a really good day.
“It's great (winning CU's first national nordic points crown), and I'm just really happy and I hope we can continue the same way next year.”
“We did great as a team, we had some great individual efforts, and I'm real pleased with the way things came out,” CU nordic coordinator Bruce Cranmer said. “We're happy with the way things came out. You can always be happier, but overall, we're happy. Everyone picked things up and performed as a group.”
“I want to congratulate Bruce and Mari (Storeng, assistant coach), they put an incredible team together and put a lot of hard work in and the result was that cross country did exceptionally well,” Rokos said of his cross country staff. “We only lose one skier on that side, so my goal will be to match the alpine team with what we've done in cross country. They have set the standard.”
Two things hurt CU in these championships, the fact that it was one skier short on the men's alpine team, and that its top women's alpine skier, sophomore Erika Hogan, was disqualified from a fourth place finish in Friday's slalom (worth 35 team points). The reason: skiing at 60 miles per hour, she straddled one gate, missing perfection by a single inch, a technical error barely visible to the naked eye.
“You could get away with it, but everyone would talk about it for the rest of time,” Rokos said of the disqualification, one that CU actually notified the race officials of. “It escaped everybody who was in charge, but not the field. It's a tough call, but it was the right call. It was just a tough break, the last of many we endured this season.
“In some sense, I was looking forward to the end of the year,” Rokos concluded. “I knew how strong we were on the cross country side, and I knew we had struggled on the alpine side, just a lot of frustrations. It was the toughest year in alpine in my coaching career, no question. There were three or four people that I recruited to come to CU, but for a multitude of reasons they wound up elsewhere, so it hurt when they kept finishing in the top 10. Along with some disciplinary issues, we had a depth problem, but we chose to go with short time loss for long time gain. Hopefully, it'll have a good impact on everything in the future.”
NCAA Championship Team Scores?1. New Mexico 623; 2. Utah 581; 3. Denver 568; 4. COLORADO 564; 5. Vermont 533.5; 6. Alaska-Anchorage 504; 7. Middlebury 495.5; 8. Dartmouth 391; 9. Nevada 383; 10. Alaska-Fairbanks 219; 11. Colby 210.5; 12. Northern Michigan 198.5; 13. Williams 178; 14. New Hampshire 149; 15. Montana State 127; 16. Western State 110; 17. Boise State 67; 18. Whitman 62; 19. Harvard 40; 20. Bates 27; 21. Michigan Tech 11; 22. Wisconsin-Green Bay 1; 23. St. Lawrence 0.
(Note: only a maximum 21 of 24 skiers scored for those five schools that qualified full-squads; Colorado and Vermont qualified one short, so 21 of their 22 counted.)
Men's 20K Classical?1. Henning Dybendal, Utah, 53:11.9; 2. Tor Erik Schjellerud, CU, 53:16.7; 3. Geir-endre Rogn, UNM, 53:21.7; 4. Zach Violett, UAA, 53:22.7; 5. Erling Christiansen, CU, 53:23.6; 6. Ethan Foster, UVM, 53:28.3; 7. Dirk Grimm, UNM, 53:28.4; 8. Jesse Carlstrom, UNR, 53:40.5; 9. Eric Strabel, UAA, 53:47.0; 10. Lowell Bailey, UVM, 53:50.4. Other CU & Area Finishers: 11. Henrik Hoye, CU, 53:51.2; 15. Martin Bartnes, DU, 54:23.9; 17. Amund Hansen, DU, 55:08.7; 20. Erlend Hoff, DU, 56:06.0; 28. Brian Gregg, WSC, 58:55.0.
Women's 15K Classical?1. Sigrid Aas, UAF, 53:04.7; 2. Mandy Kaempf, UAA, 53:12.8; 3. Trine Lundamo, UNM, 53:21.6; 4. Jana Rehemaa, CU, 53:28.4; 5. Muriele Huberli, CU, 53:30.0; T6. Claire Critchley, CU, and Lindsey Weier, NMU, 53:31.0; 8. Sarah Hansen, UAA, 53:46.3; 9. Sari Tuovinen, UNR, 53:53.0; 10. Jenny Hannson, Utah, 53:56.8. Other Area Finishers: 12. Karin Camenisch, DU, 54:24.6; 15. Tara Hamilton, DU, 54:45.9; 29. Melody Scheefer, WSC, 56:12.4; 35. Niina Karvonen, DU, 57:33.9; 36. Jessica Gray, WSC, 58:34.4.
CU SKIING / 2004 NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP NOTES
CRACKING THE TOP: New Mexico is just the sixth school since collegiate skiing went coed in 1983 to win an NCAA Championship, joining Colorado, Denver, Utah, Vermont and Wyoming. But since the '72 title meet, Utah and Vermont (both 19 titles or seconds), Colorado (15; 13 wins and two seconds) and Denver (5, three wins, two runner-up) have dominated college skiing over these 33 seasons. Only three other schools, Wyoming (one win and four seconds), Dartmouth (one co-title) and New Mexico (one title and one second) have been able to crack the top two in this span.
ALL-TIME: CU's fourth place finish ended a run of seven straight years that the Buffs finished in the top three at the NCAA's, as CU won titles in 1998 and 1999, finished second in 2000 and 2002 and was third in 1997, 2001 2003. The Buffaloes have won 16 national championships in skiing: 11 men's (1959-60-72-73-74-75-76-77-78-79-82), four combined (1991-95-98-99) and one women's (1982, AIAW). The 15 NCAA titles by Colorado trail Denver by two, as the Pioneers caught and passed CU by winning three straight to open the 21st century. After DU and CU (32 combined), Utah has won 10, Vermont 5, Dartmouth 2, Wyoming 2 and New Mexico 1 (CU and Dartmouth tied for the '76 crown).
INDIVIDUAL CHAMPIONS: Colorado did not have an individual NCAA champion for a second straight year, but only the fifth time in the last 23 seasons and still leads all-time with 70 individual titles, topping Denver (63), Utah (61), Vermont (50) and Dartmouth (31). The Buffs have had three or more individual champions 11 times, and the only time CU had as many as four was back in 1960, when John Dendahl won three elements (skimeister, nordic, cross country) and Dave Butts captured the downhill.
NACA DIRECTORS' CUP (formerly the Sears Cup): Colorado's fourth place finish earned the Buffaloes 80 points in the NACDA Directors' Cup Standings, as skiing is the first of nine NCAA winter titles decided for 2003-04 (with track to be decided later the same day). CU was in 13th place in the final fall standings with 197 points (Michigan led with 482), but has at least temporarily moved all the way up into fourth place with its new 277 total. New Mexico, with 100 points for the win, jumps from being unranked (167 schools were) into 48th place. The Buffs were the top ranked Big 12 school in the standings in the fall, ahead of No. 22 Nebraska (166), No. 23 Texas A&M (163) and No. 31 Missouri (129).
HEAD COACH RICHARD ROKOS: Richard Rokos wrapped up his 14th season as head coach of the Buffaloes. He has guided the Buffaloes to national championships in 1991 (his first season), 1995, 1998 and 1999, to second place finishes in 2000 and 2002, third-place efforts in 1997, 2001 and 2003, fourth-place showings in 1993, 1994, 1996 and 2004, and a fifth-place finish in 1992. Under Rokos, the Buffaloes have won 35 of 86 meets they have skied in, including 31 of 72 in the west and six NCAA West Regionals (1991, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1998, 1999 and 2002). In his tenure, CU has had 71 first-team All-Americans and 120 first- or second-team selections (alpine and nordic).
IN-THE-END: The NCAA scoring format calls for a maximum 21 results to be counted when tabulating the team scores. Teams which fielded a full 12-skier roster had their lowest three scores omitted (those with 11 on their squad, Colorado and Vermont, had one score thrown out). This was designed to allow for one or two falls not to devastate a team when the NCAA cut back the number of participants from 16 to 12 in 1997. Since CU suffered a disqualification in the women's slalom and had to take a zero, the Buffs gross and net point totals in this meet were the same. In the gross scoring, New Mexico had 641, Utah 613.5, Denver 581, CU 564 and Vermont 540.5. Here are the final standings within the standings in different categories:
MEN'S TEAM SCORING: 1. New Mexico 332; 2. Utah 318; 3. Vermont 298; 4. Alaska-Anchorage 287; 5. Denver 273; 6. Middlebury 263; 7. Colorado 262; 8. Nevada 231; 9. Dartmouth 207.5; 10. Northern Michigan 98.
WOMEN'S TEAM SCORING: 1. New Mexico 319; 2. Denver 308; 3. Colorado 302; 4. Utah 295.5; 5. Middlebury 255.5; 6. Vermont 242.5; 7. Alaska-Anchorage 217; 8. Dartmouth 191; 9. Nevada 152; 10. Alaska-Fairbanks 133.
NORDIC POINT LEADERS: 1. Colorado 375; 2. Alaska-Anchorage 354; 3. Utah 323.5; 4. New Mexico 311; 5. Denver 271; 6. Vermont 244.5; 7. Alaska-Fairbanks 219; 8. Northern Michigan 198.5; 9. Middlebury 197; 10. Nevada 177. The CU men were first out of 17 men's teams, the Buff women were second out of 17 women's teams (Alaska-Anchorage outpointed CU, 182-177).
ALPINE POINT LEADERS: 1. New Mexico 336; 2. Middlebury 321; 3. Denver 310; 4. Vermont 296; 5. Utah 290; 6. Dartmouth 287; 7. Colby 210.5; 8. Colorado 189; 9. Nevada 163; 10. Alaska-Anchorage 150. The CU women were seventh out 15 women's teams, the Buff men were 11th out of 15 men's teams.
ALL-AMERICANS: Eight Buffaloes earned All-America honors in the meet, five gaining first-team status: Erling Christiansen (freestyle and classical), Erika Hogan (giant slalom), Muriele Huberli (classical), Jana Rehemaa (freestyle and classical) and Tor Erik Schjellerud (classical). Three others earned second-team mention: Claire Critchley (classical), Henrik Hoye (freestyle) and Erin McEachren (slalom). Top five finishes earn skiers the first-team honor, while finishing sixth through 10th nets a second-team honor. It's the first such honors for Critchley, Hogan, McEachren and Schjellerud, the second first-team honor for Rehemaa, and the first first-team honor for Christiansen and Huberli.
NCAA SKIING ALL-ACADEMIC TEAM: CU placed nine team members on the NCAA Skiing All-Academic Team, as the qualifications included owning a 3.50 or better grade point average and participation in the NCAA regionals. Tahir Bisic, Erling Christiansen, Claire Critchley, Julie Czesnowski, Fritz Ernemann, Muriele Huberli, Michael Read, Josh Smullin and Kristin Taylor were named to the prestigious squad, with a 10th student-athlete, Erin McEachren, just missing by two-one hundredths of a point (she will also undergo knee surgery this Wednesday).
LOOKING AHEAD: Only one of the 11 athletes who competed here for Colorado are not scheduled to return for the 2004-05 school year, as alpine skier Erin McEachren is a graduating senior. Three others on the overall roster are also graduating: Mia Cullman, a three-time All-American in alpine; Michael Read (alpine) and Josh Smullin (nordic). Everyone else on the roster is expected to return, thus CU will have as many as 17 letterwinners next winter (nine nordic, eight alpine), including second-team All-American alpine skier Brad Hogan, who did not ski this season.
FUTURE SITES: The 2005 NCAA Championships will return east and will be hosted by the University of Vermont at the Stowe Mountain Resort (alpine events) and the Trapp Family Lodge (nordic). Colorado has bid for the 2006 event, the lone western school to do so, as the Buffs hope to host the event in Steamboat Springs, the site the last time the state hosted the NCAA Championships (bids are due next month with the decision shortly thereafter).
Players Mentioned
