Colorado University Athletics
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Montana State Invitational (CL-15/20K-M)
Buffs Finish Second At Montana State Invitational
January 18, 2016 | Skiing
BOZEMAN, Mont — The University of Colorado ski team had an overall solid day with 10 skiers finishing in the top 17 of the women's 15K and men's 20K classic races, but in the end it wasn't enough as Colorado finished second to Denver by just four points, 629-625, here Monday at Bohart Ranch.
The Buffs entered the day down five points to the Pioneers and while the Buffs together a performance that overall was significantly better than the Pioneers, it didn't translate to the team scores and the Buffs finished the meet just four points behind the Pioneers, the closest meet in the RMISA since the 2014 RMISA Championships when the Buffs were edged by Utah, 640-636. You have to go back to 2008 to find a meet that was closer than four points when the Lobos beat the Buffs by 3.5 points.
Behind Denver's total of 629 and CU's 625, Utah took third with 598 points followed by New Mexico with 501 as the Lobos had the best day in the field, winning both races as a team. Host Montana State finished fifth with 465 points and Alaska Anchorage was sixth with 406 points.
“It was one of those tricky days,” CU Nordic coach Bruce Cranmer said. “It was snowing hard, it was above freezing so it was warm. Definitely a tricky day. We had a lot of positives and a few negatives and in the end we missed the target by just a handful of points.”
Overnight it snowed a few inches and then it snowed another inch after the course was groomed at 7 a.m. Then during the race, it was snowing off and on. More snow puts two things into play, what wax, if any, skiers and coaches use and then having to push through the snow and keep skiing fast.
“When you have relatively good conditions, the best skiers normally win,” Cranmer said. “When conditions get funky, it affects certain people more than others. Certainly the fastest skier on that day still wins, but it does affect some skiers more than others. On the whole it wasn't a terrible weekend by any means, just a few small things here and there that leave a little bit of a sour taste in our mouths.”
The good was evident. CU's six women's skiers all finished in the top 16, something that hasn't happened on the women's Nordic team since the 2008 season. In all, 10 skiers finished in the top 17 on the day. Career or near career-best finishes were put in the books by Reistad, senior Arnaud Du Pasquier and sophomore Ian Boucher on the men's side while Jackson Hill had another near-top 10 finish. On the women's side sophomore Petra Hyncicova put in another top five finish, sophomore Jessie Knori matched her career best finish, junior Lucy Newman had her best finish since her freshman season, freshman Christina Rolandsen pushed close to the top 10 in her second career race and sophomore Ane Johnsen put another top 10 in the books.
The sour was also evident. Despite outperforming Denver on the whole, the Buffs only knocked a single point off the Pioneer's lead entering the day. Junior Mads Stroem had bad skies and it resulted in the worst finish of his career, coming in 25th, just the second time in 24 career races he's been outside the top four.
“That's ski racing,” Cranmer said. “You want to get the bad days out of the way, I always feel terrible when somebody doesn't have good skis, and Mads definitely didn't. But we had good things happen and we're over our post-break period. We're getting used to being back at altitude, we're able to focus on racing and getting good training in. We are still trending in the right direction.”
The women got the action started with the 15K mass start classic race, and Hyncicova was in the lead group throughout. That group was seven skiers after the first lap and down to four skiers at the end of the second lap. Her time of 55:42.9 gave her a third straight top five finish and marks her 14th top 10 finish in 16 career races.
Knori's time of 57:39.4 was good for eighth place and that matches her career best finish which she attained at Steamboat Springs last season. Johnsen finished 10th in 58:29.6 despite being one of the few skiers in the field that chose to use wax on her skis. She was the only CU skier and likely one of just a few in the field and still managed a top 10 finish.
Rolandsen's 12th place time was 58:49.6 while Brautaset finished 13th in a time of 59:27.9 and Newman was skiing for just over an hour in 1:00:08.4 and finished 16th. That marks Newman's 11th career top 20 finish but first since the RMISA Championships her freshman season.
The women scored 75 points, the best performance of the season. Despite the Buffs finishing six in the top 16, only the top three are counted for team scoring. Denver had just three skiers finish in the top 20 and ended up outscoring the Buffs by six points on the strength of a race victory for Linn Eriksen. The scoring system is weighted in the top 10 and it was evident in this race as CU's scoring positions of 4th, 8th and 10th equaled 75 points and the Pioneer's finishes of 1st, 12th and 20th scored 81 points.
Utah, which surged from third place to win the Utah Invitational in the final race last week, basically maintained its distance behind the Buffs finishing with 73 points. The three team race for the title saw Denver with 556 points, 11 up on Colorado (545) and 31 up on Utah's total of 525 with just the men's classic race left to complete.
As Cranmer predicted after Sunday's race, it took quite a while for the lead pack to separate in the men's race. With four 5K laps to complete, the top racers went well past the half-way point to make a move. After the first lap, 31 of the 36 skiers in the race were within 26 seconds of each other. By the end of the second lap, the half-way point, that lead pack was reduced to 17 skiers within 16 seconds.
Then Reistad and DU's Moritz Madlener made a move. By the end of the third lap, those two had a 10 second lead on third place and 20 second lead on what was the lead pack with about 10 skiers in it. Those two dueled it out the entire final lap with Madlener winning by 17 seconds in the end. The race took well over an hour to complete, with Reistad's runner-up performance coming in a time of 1:08:01.7.
It was Reistad's first career podium in his fourth career race. It's his third straight top five finish and all four of his finishes have been in the top 10.
Du Pasquier's time of 1:08:51.5 was good for eighth. He was near the start of the lead pack late in the race when he fell and his pole broke. After he gathered himself, he was out of the top 10 but fought his way back to eighth. It matched his best career finish in a classic race and is tied for his second best overall performance as a Buff. Hill's 11th place time of 1:08:59.3 was just 7.8 seconds behind Du Pasquier.
Boucher's career-best finish of 17th was in a time of 1:10:40.0. Junior Max Scrimgeour finished in 24th in a time of 1:12:18.1 just ahead of Stroem's 25th place time of 1:12:18.9.
Stroem's performance was a bit of a mystery to Cranmer. He was on similar skis to everybody else, but he was having trouble finding the right combination of ski type and wax during pre-race warm-ups. For Stroem, it was just his second finish outside the top four in his career, both now coming in similar snowy conditions.
"We didn't have a totally good test of his skis before the race,” Cranmer said. “He was definitely slipping more than anybody else and he didn't have his kick. It was a really hard course and in those conditions with the snow being soft, he hung in there as long as he could and got worn down physically and then mentally. He knew he couldn't be competitive, he knew his teammates were well ahead of him.”
The men's team did outscore Denver, 80-73. The Pioneers were again boosted by having the race winner Moritz Madlener, who scored 40 of the 73 points for the Pioneers. Reistad's second place finish was worth 37 points. Despite Du Pasquer and Hill both finishing ahead of Denver's second finisher in 12th and well ahead of DU's third skier in 20th, it wasn't enough to overcome the 11-point deficit.
Next up is the Buffs own meet, the Spencer J. Nelson Memorial Invitational, set for Jan. 22-24 in Steamboat. It's the first time RMISA alpine and Nordic teams will be competing together and also the same site as the NCAA Championships, which the Buffs host March 9-12. Friday will feature a night slalom race at Howelsen Hill followed by Nordic freestyle races there Saturday and classic races Sunday. Alpine teams will compete in two GS races on Saturday and Sunday, the first as part of the CU meet and second as an extra RMISA Alpine Qualifier.
Montana State Invitational Team Scores (FINAL)—1. Denver 629; 2. Colorado 625; 3. Utah 598; 4. New Mexico 501; 5. Montana State 465; 6. Alaska Anchorage 406; 7. Westminster 251; 8. Wyoming 123; 9. Colorado Mountain 55.
Men's 20k Classic (33 finishers)— 1.Moritz Madlener, DU, 1:07:44.7; 2. Petter Reistad, CU, 1:08:01.7; 3. Alijaz Praznik, UNM, 1:08:25.4; 4. Niklas Persson, UU, 1:08:28.6; 5. Petteri Vaherkoski, 1:08:33.4; 6. Sawyer Kesselheim, MSU, 1:08:40.1; 7. Kevin Bolger, UU, 1:08:45.2; 8. Arnaud Du Pasquier, CU, 1:08:51.5; 9. Forrest Mahlen, MSU, 1:08:54.1; 10. Toomas Kollo, UAA, 1:08:57.4. Other CU Finishers: 11. Jackson Hill, 1:08:59.3; 17. Ian Boucher, 1:10:40.0; 24. Max Scrimgeour, 1:12:18.1; 25. Mads Stroem, 1:12:18.9.
Women's 15k Classic (30 finishers)— 1. Linn Erikson, DU, 54:50.3; 2. Veronika Mayerhofer, UU, 55:13.9; 3. Emilie Cedervarn, UNM, 55:29.5; 4. Petra Hyncicova, CU, 55:42.9; 5. Eva Sever Rus, UNM, 56:44.0; 6. Kati Roivas, UNM, 56:50.4; 7. Mackenzie Kanady, UAA, 57:08.1; 8. Jessse Knori, CU, 57:39.4; 9. Jasmi Joensuu, DU, 58:02.8; 10. Ane Johnsen, CU, 58:29.6. Other CU Finishers: 12. Christina Rolandsen, 58:49.6; 13. Camilla Brautaset, 59:27.9; 16. Lucy Newman, 1:00:08.4.
