Skiers Slip To Third At NCAA Championships

March 06, 2008 | Skiing

Day 2 Results

By: David Plati, Associate AD/Sports Information

BOZEMAN, Mont. - Senior Lucie Zikova finally earned the national giant slalom title that had eluded her for four years, but the University of Colorado ski team slipped from first place into third as the 55th Annual NCAA Championships reached the midway point here Thursday.

Denver used top three team finishes in the giant slalom (second by its women, third from its men) to vault from a third-place tie into the lead with 316.5 points, good for a sizeable lead over Utah (288) and the Buffaloes (282). Middlebury (279), defending national champion Dartmouth (267) and Vermont (252) round out the top six, the only schools with over 200 points in the 21-team field. UVM made the biggest charge Thursday, as the Catamounts won both races as a team and lunged from 12th into sixth place.

The Pioneers are in a fairly familiar position, as DU has been the leader at midway point (four of eight events) six times in the last eight national meets, going on to win titles three of those occasions. Colorado, which owned a 33-point lead after Wednesday's cross country freestyle races, the largest first-day lead since the sport went coed in 1983, saw its lead disappear due to being one skier short in alpine, two having low starting positions and another having to hike.

"We definitely have to play catch up now after today, but it was a battle to survive and we know our better days are coming," CU head coach Richard Rokos said. "Classic and slalom are our better events, and in slalom anything can happen. We'll be right back in things if the Nordics have anything even close to the performance they had in the freestyle."

Only Dartmouth, Middlebury and Utah have full teams competing here, with CU and Denver the only other ones with as many as 11. All are in the top five.

Whatever the result, it mark the sixth straight championship that the eventual title winner did not lead from start to finish; however, a telling fact is that the leader through three days, or six events, has won the last 13 titles. The last school not to hold on to its third day lead was Utah in 1994; the Utes entered the last two events with a 31-point lead over New Mexico and a 36-point edge over Vermont, but UVM rallied to win by 21 over the Utes.

Zikova became the fourth Colorado woman to win the giant slalom at the NCAA's, as she joined Lynda McGehee (1986), Caroline Gedde-Dahl (1998) and Aimee-Noel Hartley, who won it twice (1999, 2000). It was her sixth top five, first-team All-America finish at nationals, as she was also the 2006 slalom champion. But in the GS, she did not finish her first run as a freshman in 2005, and then finished fourth in each of the last two NCAA meets.

"It feels great, it's way more than I ever expected," Zikova said. "I think this season that it's the only GS that I have won, so it's a good one to take. I'm excited and really happy." Her memory was correct; she had two runner-up efforts in the giant slalom, including two weeks on the same trail in regionals.

She had a healthy .38 of a second lead after her first run, and came back with the second best time in the 35-skier field for the second run, posting an overall effort of 1:44.88. That was good for nearly a quarter second win over Utah's Eva Huckova, who skied down twice in 1:45.11.

"I felt good skiing here last week, and it always helps when you know the hill and especially when you've already raced it, so that's definitely an advantage for the western teams," Zikova continued. "It just all came together, everything worked for me today and we'll look to go for it again on Saturday.

"The whole team thing is very inspiring," she said of CU's Nordic performers cheering out on the alpine course. "After watching and cheering all the Nordics yesterday and seeing Maria (Grevsgaard), Lenka (Palanova) and Jesper (Ostensen) do so well, and then to see them out here cheering for us today, that really, really helped me out and made it easier for me. I heard everyone along the course cheering all the time and it makes you feel like a rock star."

Coupled with Maria Grevsgaard's Nordic win Wednesday in the 5-kilometer freestyle race, this marked the 25th time in Colorado history that the Buffaloes have won multiple individual titles at the NCAA Championships, the 13th time since the sport went coed in 1983.

Zikova's win was also CU's 76th overall NCAA individual ski title, as the Buffs maintained their margin over second place Denver (70), which had a racer capture the men's GS earlier in the day. It was also the 19th win by a Buff skier this season, now tied for the third most since the sport went coed in 1983 and trailing only the 2006 (21) and 1998 (20) squads, while matching the 1991 team; all won national titles.

It was her fourth career GS victory, and 15th overall, as she will finish second all-time in individual career wins by a Colorado skier. She only trails teammate Grevsgaard, who has 18 titles.

"Lucie has just maintained her momentum throughout the season and she came through when we needed it most today," Rokos said. "The conditions out there weren't bad. It was a little bumpy, but really nothing changed from when we were here for regionals two weeks ago. She wasn't fazed, she showed no nerves and generally just had fun out there."

ALL-TIME INDIVIDUAL WINS BY CU SKIERS

18 Maria Grevsgaard, 2006-08 (11 CL, 7 FS)

15 Lucie Zikova, 2005-08 (11 SL, 4 GS)

13 Per Kare Jakobsen, 1988-90 (9 FS/XC, 4 CL)

12 John Skajem, 1985-87 (8 SL, 4 GS)

11 Anette Skjolden, 1991-93 (7 CL, 4 FS)

11 Line Selnes, 1998 (6 FS, 5 CL)

10 Bjorn Svensson, 1990-93 (6 FS, 4 CL)

Senior Rachel Roosevelt finished 20th in 1:50.25, one notch up from where she started, while junior Lisa Perricone had issues with a chronic bone spur. She fell twice and had to hike a back a bit both times during her second run, eventually finishing 33rd in 2:30.19. She had been seeded 14th and was 17th after the first run, but with her foot swelling up for the first time on a race day since she had surgery, she definitely was held back from her usual gung-ho approach.

"Lisa is alright, she's probably in more mental than physical pain, but it happens and it's unfortunate," Rokos said. "But obviously she can't take it too hard, because it could have happened to anyone. It was just bad timing."

The women scored 66 points, the fifth most, trailing Vermont's 106 as the Catamounts had the third, fifth and sixth place finishers.

The men's giant slalom was first up Thursday, as CU did as well as expected, if not better. Since the Buffaloes are one men's alpine performer short of a full-12 skier team, it was more important for both CU men to finish, scoring points, than to risk a higher finish and have one or both post a DNF (did not finish) or suffer a fall or disqualification.

Junior Josh Bryan, who started in the 31st position (out of 33 racers), moved into 29th after the first run and jumped five more spots after his second time down the hill, completing two runs in 1:43.55.

Sophomore Drew Roberts, who started 29th, moved into 26th after his first run and remained there following his second, posting a two-run time of 1:43.71. Thus, the pair earned 30 team points, and though 12th in the men's GS standings, was 10 more than the seedings projected. Vermont had 96, Denver 93 to lead all schools.

"I felt alright today," Bryan said. "It's hard to start so far down and with our only two guys racing starting 29th and 31st, it's difficult to make a move. We stood our own and put it down a little more in the second run and finished up all right. We would have liked to be top-15, but from where we started, we did okay. It was important to try to minimize the point loss that we get.

"Having two people is difficult in the first place because you only get to count two, while some other teams are getting three, but we're just trying to deal with it. Most teams here have to deal with that in one discipline or another. So we're trying to go as fast as we can, like we do in any other race, and we're really hoping for the best. Maybe we'll get lucky."

"The guys, the way they started the season, they are my heroes after all of this," Rokos said. "The places where they started were down the line, and that made it hard and I thought they did great. They maintained good, solid runs and they knew that they had to finish and that's what they did. On their side, mission accomplished. It didn't happen today, but miracles do happen."

Denver's John Buchar captured the gold with a first place time of 1:39.85, which edged Vermont's Greg Hardy by 2/100ths of a second, as he was clocked in 1:39.87. Hardy led after the first run, with Buchar second some .54 of a second behind, but the Pioneer junior, who was 18th in the event as a freshman and 14th last year, posted the second best second run while Hardy had just the 15th fastest time the second time down.

One surprise about the men's race was that eastern schools had six of the top 10 finishers and 12 in the top 20, a rarity when the championships are in the west due to their unfamiliarity with the western snow. The regions each had five place in the top 10 in the women's race, but western skiers dominated the top 20 with 13 finishes.

Bryan was optimistic looking ahead to Saturday's slalom. "Slalom is definitely our specialty on all sides, both the girls and the guys," he noted. "We have much better seeds, and we're looking to make a strong showing there and make up a good amount of points and move up in the standings. We'll be down cheering on the Nordics tomorrow and hopefully we'll take the lead back and get it done."

The classical cross country races will be on Friday, with the men's 20k at 9:00 a.m. followed by the women's 15k at 11:00; both feature mass starts. The slalom races will finish off the NCAA meet on Saturday, the first runs are at 9:30 a.m. (women) and 10:30 (men); second runs follow at 11:45 a.m. and 1:00 p.m., respectively.

55th Annual NCAA Championship Team Scores?1. Denver 316.5; 2. Utah 288; 3. Colorado 282; 4. Middlebury 279; 5. Dartmouth 267; 6. Vermont 252; 7. New Mexico 199; 8. Alaska-Anchorage 177.5; 9. Northern Michigan 153; 10. Nevada 144; 11. Alaska-Fairbanks 135; 12. Colby 126; 13. New Hampshire 125; 14. Williams 115; 15. Bates 81; 16. Montana State 74; 17. St. Scholastica 25; 18. Michigan Tech 15; 19. Wisconsin-Green Bay 14; 20. Gustavus Adolphus 13; 21. Whitman 7.