Colorado University Athletics
Colorado
NCAA Championships
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Skiers Move Into Fourth At NCAA Championships
March 08, 2007 | Skiing
ATTITASH, N.H. - The defending national champion University of Colorado ski team moved up a notch into fourth place here Thursday as the 54th Annual NCAA Championships reached the midway point, but the Buffaloes have their work cut out for them if they want to order rings for the second straight year.
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Dartmouth moved into first place after four events with 330 total points, one ahead of runner-up Denver (329); it's a four-school race at this point, as Utah (280) and the Buffaloes (275) are within striking range, with Vermont a very distance fifth at present with 211.5 points.
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"We're not giving up hope at all, and we're still going to fight for it. That's our mission," CU head coach Richard Rokos said. "The girls had a good-to-great day, but the guys had a long, tough one. We may very well have to pull a rabbit out of the hat, but we've done it before so we know it's doable."
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It was a bitter cold day, as the temperature was only about 5 degrees at the start of the day, never warming as it dropped to just 2 by the last skier down in the afternoon. Â The winds gusted up to 30 miles per hour that put the wind-chill at 15 to 20 below zero at times.
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In the women's giant slalom, Colorado won the event as a team with 93 points despite not having any skiers get medal finishes (top three). Junior Lucie Zikova and sophomore Lisa Perricone did earn first-team All-America finishes, however, as they finished fourth and fifth.
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Western State's Sarah Schaedler won easily in a 2:30.47 time, and Denver's Jenny Tank was a distant second in 2:31.35. Zikova was clocked for her two runs in 2:31.82, while Perricone was timed in 2:32.03, including the fastest run the second time down the Bear Peak mountain course. The effort enabled her to jump from ninth into fifth.
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CU's third performer, freshman Heidi Hillenbrand, finished 18th in 2:36.19; she was 27th after her first run, but had the 13th best afternoon run despite skiing sixth from last her second time down.
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"Lucie sacrificed something I think just playing it a little safe for the team, where Lisa put a hammer on it in the second run and was able to move up," Rokos said. "Heidi paid the typical dues for a rookie at the NCAA Championships.  It was her first real major college race and it was obviously a bit of a nerve-racking experience for her. She was a little too serious about it, but on her second run, she took a different approach and she skied much more like herself.
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"I was hoping to medal so really it's alright, but it would have been nicer to be on the podium," Zikova said. "It was really windy on the second run compared to the first." She was in third after the initial run, but Schaedler's 1:15.25 time down would have been next-to-impossible to catch without her making a mistake.
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Perricone was beaming with her second effort. "The course was set faster so it was easier to make up time," she said. "This is the best I've skied all season so I'm pretty psyched about that. I can't wait for Saturday (slalom). We traditionally are a better slalom team so this is a good start for us.Â
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"I think that our alpine team has a lot of confidence for today and Saturday," Perricone added. "I think we've set the bar high for the guys and they are excited about it. We trained (Wednesday) and everybody felt strong, so I think we are ready to dominate. Our team always seems to ski better under pressure when other teams let it get to them. We tend to step it up and ski better under pressure."
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Unfortunately, Perricone's optimism didn't ring true at least on Thursday, as the men had the luck of the draw?on the lesser side?in the GS and it partly contributed to an eighth place showing in the event. The Buffs mustered just 51 points, still lower than hoped in the weaker of its two events, as CU's trio started in the 18th, 30th and 32nd positions, whereas the two teams atop the standings, DU and Dartmouth, had five combined in the top 12.
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Freshman Stefan Hughes did manage to move from 18th into a ninth place finish, earning him second-team All-America honors in the process. He was 11th after his first run and finished in 2:22.96, still well behind Denver's Adam Cole, who captured the gold medal with a 2:20.42 time. Cole led after the first run by .27 of a second over Dartmouth's Evan Weiss, who eventually finished second, some two-thirds of a second (.67) behind the DU sophomore.
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"I felt good training here in the east," Hughes said following his race. "I don't know if it was my best skiing, but it was comfortable and I felt like I did well.  It was nice to come back east and ski in this frigid weather. It felt good to be home."Â
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Sophomore Josh Bryan finished 28th in 2:26.62, as he started in the 30th position, while freshman Drew Roberts finished where he started, 32nd, after posting a 2:27.81 time.
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"I still feel like we're in a good position," Hughes added. "For Nordic and alpine these first two events, generally for the team, are not our best events. We are much stronger in slalom and Nordics are in classic, so we have a lot of room to improve. I think it will be a lot different on Saturday. All three of us will have better start positions and in slalom it's anybody's game. The risks are a lot higher to finish. It depends on what we do but I feel like all three of us have the ability to be top five.
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"So maybe we're just getting the bad stuff out of the way," he surmised. "I'm not saying that we did badly; I feel like I had an okay day and the other guys for where they were in the draw did fairly good. The draw and what happens because of it depends on the variables. Today it was windy and cold and the now didn't work out to their advantage. They (Bryan and Roberts) are talented enough to move up and by no means is it insurmountable odds with a bad draw.Â
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"The men's race was a story in itself," Rokos said. Unfortunately, we had two guys starting way back there and we didn't have any surprises today. Stefan skied on a better terrain than the guys further back, and he capitalized and moved from 18th to ninth, a great achievement in these kinds of conditions."
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The Buffs were hoping for the traditional eastern conditions, icy and packed, with their lower starting positions. But they were more "western like," with softer snow when ruts develop quickly, which favors the higher seeds.Â
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"They were more like out west than what we hoped for," Rokos said. "Going on a hard and icy surface, it's almost even from the first to the last guy. But with a little softer snow, ruts developed fast and the guys farther back had a much tougher time of it. Plus there was the wind. Those few that popped up forward really did something to be able to move up, Stefan among them."
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"Our guys will start in better positions for the slalom, so if the conditions are the same Saturday, they should be able to prove what they are really capable of doing."
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The classical cross country races are up next on Friday, with the women's 15k at 7:00 a.m. mountain time, followed by the men's 15k at 9:00. The slalom races will finish off the NCAA meet on Saturday: the first runs are at 7:00 a.m. (men) and 8:15 (women); second runs follow at 10:15 a.m. and 11:30, respectively.
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NCAA Championship Team Scores-1. Dartmouth 330;Â 2. Denver 329;Â 3. Utah 280;Â 4. Colorado 275;Â 5. Vermont 211.5;Â 6. Middlebury 204;Â 7. Northern Michigan 189;Â 8. Nevada 181.5;Â 9. New Mexico 177;Â 10. Montana State 145;Â 11. Alaska-Anchorage 124;Â 12. Bates 118;Â 13. New Hampshire 108;Â 14. Alaska-Fairbanks 130;Â 15. Williams 84;Â 16. Western State 71;Â 17. Colby 66;Â 18. Michigan Tech 42;Â 19. St. Lawrence 23;Â 20. St. Olaf 6;Â 21 (tie). Whitman and Wisconsin-Green Bay 0.
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Women's Giant Slalom-1. Sarah Schaedler, WSC, 2:30.47; 2. Jenny Tank, DU, 2:31.35; 3. Veronique Archambault-Leger, UNH, 2:31.72; 4. Lucie Zikova, CU, 2:31.82; 5. Lisa Perricone, CU, 2:32.03; 6. Chirine Njeim, Utah, 2:32.48; 7. Aileen Farrell, UNH, 2:32.62; 8. Karine Falck-Pedersen, DU, 2:33.05; 9. Michelanne Shields, Dart., 2:33.20; 10. Mikaela Grassl, Utah, 2:33.63; 11. Kara Crow, UVM, 2:34.00; 12. Megan Papineau, Bates, 2:34.10; 13. Lindsay Brush, Midd., 2:34.63; 14. Jennah Durham, Will., 2:35.08; 15. Katie Lyons, UNR, 2:35.81. Other CU Result: 18. Heidi Hillenbrand, 2:36.19.
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