Colorado University Athletics
Buffs To Send Full Squad To Defend NCAA Championship
February 24, 2014 | Skiing
INDIANAPOLIS - The University of Colorado ski team will be sending a full 12-member squad to Utah to defend its NCAA Championship from a season ago, the NCAA announced Monday. The championship, set for March 5-8 in Park City and Midway, Utah, will be hosted by the University of Utah.
The Buffs are one of eight teams that will send a full squad, consisting of three skiers for alpine and Nordic, both men and women. Six of the eight teams that will field full teams are from the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association with Alaska Anchorage, Denver, Montana State and New Mexico joining the Buffs and host Utes from the west while the east will send both Vermont and Dartmouth at full strength.
The Buffs will send the same six alpine skiers that helped them to the 2013 NCAA Championship with men's alpine captain Andreas Haug set to make his fourth appearance alongside sophomores Henrik Gunnarsson and Kasper Hietanen, who will go for the second straight season. Haug has been on the traveling squad for two NCAA Championship teams for the Buffs, 2011 and '13, while Hietanen was an All-American last year in the slalom race for the Buffaloes.
On the women's side, a trio of sophomores will represent the Buffs in Thea Grosvold, Jessica Honkonen and Brooke Wales. Honkonen enters the championship as the top seeded women's alpine skier out of the RMISA while Brooke Wales will look for another good showing after taking second in the giant slalom race a season ago to earn All-America honors. Grosvold also earned All-America honors in last year's GS race, as well.
Conversely, the Nordic contingent will feature just one skier with previous experience at the Championships in junior Rune Oedegaard who will defend his individual NCAA Championship in the men's classical race and will look to compete for a title in the men's freestyle race, as well, where he finished second a season ago. The top men's Nordic seed out of the RMISA, he will be joined by junior Arnaud Du Pasquier, making his first appearance and freshman Mads Stroem, who quickly distinguished himself as one of the top men's Nordic skiers in the RMISA this season.
Last year the Buffs won the championship largely based on their performance in women's Nordic races and with a completely new women's Nordic team on campus this year, the contingent of three freshman have all steadily improved as the season has worn on and all three - Camilla Brautaset, Lucy Newman and Maja Solbakken - will look to continue that momentum in Utah.
The Buffs got the 2014 season off to a rocky start but closed the season by finishing second at both the New Mexico Invitational and last week at the RMISA Championships, where the Buffs were just three points behind Utah in the second-closest RMISA Championship margin in history.
