Colorado
NCAA Championships (GS)
Skiers In Dogfight At Midway Point Of NCAA Championships
March 12, 2015 | Skiing
LAKE PLACID, N.Y. - The University of Colorado ski team slipped into second place here Thursday at the midway point of the 62nd NCAA Skiing Championships, as the giant slalom races proved to be disastrous almost across the board, the end result being a tightened leaderboard.
Utah, down by 24 points after the Nordic freestyle races Wednesday, overtook the Buffaloes atop the standings, albeit by a slim 4-point margin. The Utes have amassed 241 points, with CU recording 237; defending national champion Denver moved from fifth into third with 232, while New Mexico (204) and Vermont (192) round out the top five .
The four-point differential between first and second ties the third closest standing at the midway point in the last 25 championships; Dartmouth held a 1-point lead over Denver in 2007 on its way to winning the title, and Utah held a 2-+-point lead in 1999 ... but eventually lost to Colorado by 14 (DU led by four in 2009 and went on to win by 56 over the Buffs).
The "safer" of the two alpine races, the giant slalom, was anything but on Thursday. Between the men's and women's races, 68 skiers started, but only 48 finished; nine did not finish their first runs, seven could not complete their second sprint down, and four were disqualified, including CU junior Adam Zika, the 2012 NCAA champion in the GS as a freshman.
The women skied first, and while all three CU women did finish, they experienced some problems as well. Junior Thea Groswold, the west's No. 3 seed, finished 11th in a two-run time of 2:25.98; New Mexico's Mateja Robnik won in 2:22.56. She has performed better in the slalom, which now appears will be the decisive factor in these championships.
Junior Jessica Honkonen was 19th in 2:27.89, with senior Brooke Wales Granstrom 21st in 2:28.95; Granstrom was fifth after the first run but hit a patch of ice and had her skis go out from under her, causing her to fall on her side. She was able to regroup quickly and get to the next turn, but lost at least five seconds due to the incident.
"This is what alpine skiing is about, you have good days and bad days and you need to go for it and still make it down the best you can," Grosvold said. "Things happen so fast, today wasn't a great day, but we're still on track for Saturday, we still have two days of events and we're in the mix. We've all been skiing well GÇô all the teams have really done well. I thought I had a good race, I've been struggling a little with GS this year, so 11th was good for me, I wish Jessie and Brooke were ahead of me, but for me it was a good result."
In the men's race, junior Henrik Gunnarsson recorded CU's lone top 10 finish of the day, after the Buffs recorded a meet-best five on Wednesday. He finished seventh in 2:18.71, about two seconds off the winning time of 2:16.79 by Dartmouth's Robert Cone. Gunnarsson earned second-team All-America honors for his finish, which was his second best in the giant slalom this winter.
"I think I put down two solid runs, it was shaky out there, tough conditions, hard snow, but two solid runs, I'm happy about that," Gunnarsson said. "I didn't really think about being an All-American in GS last year, but I'm happy I could do it again. It was tough, up to the snow was really hard, but then it got soft as you came down and was even slushy in the bottom, there were three different snow types and it's hard to race on that."
"I think we're better in slalom, so I think we're looking good," he added. "We went out to the Nordic races yesterday, so hopefully we can get out there tomorrow and help them out a little bit."
Junior Kasper Hietanen placed 16th in 2:21.47, a solid effort since he started in the 28th position. Zika was in 13th place on his first run at the split before he had trouble at the 40th gate. He fell on his side, but unlike Granstrom, wasn't able to recover in time as he didn't have the momentum needed to return to the gate without hiking, which is now against the rules.
"It's more bitter than sweet," CU head coach Richard Rokos said. "The girls didn't ski to their potential, although Thea had a couple of good runs. It's just a matter of survival and trying not to spoil it. They tried not to spoil it and it didn't happen. They are far better skiers than they were today and they have one more event to prove it. On the guys, some bad luck with Adam, he was skiing fast, Henrik and Kasper skied to their potential. Kasper can ski faster in GS but from where he started, he moved up more than 10 places through the field, that's respectable. Henrik's was a super result.
"The snow was super, you couldn't ask for more. It's a challenging hill, no question, and guys were taking chances. On this level of skiing it shouldn't happen (all the DNF's). It's such a unique event because of the team competition, there's no room for error and that makes it very different. It's all upstairs and how much you can handle the pressure. The girls didn't have a field day with handling the pressure, skiing-wise they can do it, and it's all mental. In slalom, we will take chances, go for it, and going back to the fact that Thea is the slalom champion of University Games and Jessica is the slalom champion in the RMISA, we are taking two champions to one race, let's see what they can do."
The Nordic classical races are set for Friday, with the women's 15-kilometer race at 8 a.m. MDT and the men's 20k at 10 a.m.; CU's Rune Oedegaard is the two-time defending champion in the men's race and he is bidding to become just the second CU athlete in history to become a three-time NCAA champion in the same event. The slalom races will finish off the NCAA meet on Saturday: the men's first run is up first at 7 a.m., with the women's first run at 8 a.m.; the second runs follow at 10 a.m. (men) and 11 a.m. (women).
"Brooke has improved a lot in slalom, Jessica has been skiing really well, we're a better slalom team, we definitely have the confidence that we can get three girls in the top 10," Grosvold said. "Tomorrow (Friday), I really like to watch Nordic skiing, and it's fun to feel like you're helping them. We'll get some slalom runs in the morning and go over and watch them, and hopefully they have a good day."
"So now we are the hunters," Rokos said of his Buffs falling behind. "I don't like to lose 40 points, but I don't like the red target on our back. It changes, we have goals and ambitions and we can go after it. It looks like after two days we didn't need to waste any money, we could've come here and run two events to determine the champion. That's the funny part of it, we fight back and forth and we're all essentially even. That's the name of the game. It's up to the Nordies, I know they're on top of it, and there is a good chance they'll give us the lead again."
"We won't have the luxury of resting on the results from the Nordies, hopefully they give us a cushion, but it will come down to the last day and that's how it should be, it makes it more exciting," continued Rokos. "The slalom has been our better event lately. It's really funny how slalom is unpredictable, because for us it's been like that in the GS. So we may be better off with slalom on the last day."
(Associate SID Curtis Snyder contributed to this report.)
Players Mentioned
