Colorado University Athletics
Colorado
NCAA Championships (SL)
Skiers Remain In Fourth Place At NCAAs
March 12, 2016 | Skiing
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — Despite three Buffaloes earning All-America honors here Friday night, the defending national champion University of Colorado ski team remained in fourth place through six of eight events in the 63rd NCAA Skiing Championships.
Denver wrestled the lead away from Montana State, which had led after each of the first four events. The Pioneers moved from third into first and go into Saturday's final two races with 405.5 points to 390 by the Bobcats. Utah slipped back into third place with 362 points, with the Buffaloes fourth with 340.5. The four continued to pull away from the rest of the 23-team field, as Dartmouth is a distant fifth with 257 points.
"Too little too late – we have a little ways to go," CU head coach Richard Rokos said. "We closed the gap a little bit. For the most part, we had a good race."
Colorado has come from far behind to win it all before; in fact, in 2013 at Middlebury, Vermont led after each of the first three days had a 54-point lead over the Buffaloes going into the final two events (Nordic freestyle). CU went on to pull off the largest final day rally in the history of the NCAA's to take home the title, winning by 43 points over Utah and 55 over the Catamounts, meaning a whopping 97-point turnaround on the final day.
So trailing by 65 points might not be out of the question, but it would take another historic rally by the Buffs to defend their title.
Senior Henrik Gunnarsson, who enjoyed his finest year as a Buff and earned the west's No. 1 alpine seed, almost went out the highest note as possible. Overcoming the disappointment of suffering a crash that forced him to not finish his second run in Thursday's giant slalom, he came out with a vengeance in Friday night's slalom.
Gunnarsson posted the fastest first run (40.34) in the field, with freshman teammate Max Luukko recording the fifth (40.93). In the second run where the top 30 are inverted, he skied last out of the lead group and put up a time of 44.34 (10th best) to give him a two-run time of 1:24.68. However, Denver's Erik Read, in third after his first run, blistered the course in 44.02 and stole the win away from Gunnarsson by two one-hundredths of a second, finishing in 1:24.66.
It was still his best-ever finish in eight NCAA races, topping a fifth in the giant slalom as a sophomore in 2014 at Park City. Luukko's second run of 44.48, just the 15th-best, enabled him to hold serve and he finished fifth in 1:25.41; both he and Gunnarsson earned first-team All-America honors.
"I feel pretty good, Gunnarsson said. "It was two-hundredths that I lost by and that's a little bit tough to take at present. But I am going to forget it really soon and be happy with my second place."
"I think it went pretty good. I'm happy," Luukko said. "I think the conditions were pretty difficult, but it was pretty sketchy. I think I skied well, but I could have pushed it a little more."
Freshman Ola Johansen had some trouble about two-thirds of the way down on his first run and had to regroup, costing him about 15 seconds but he did complete the run in 55.00, but was in 34th place. He inched up to a 33rd place finish in 1:40.09.
"I still think he is one of the fastest guys in this league," Rokos said of his freshman. "He didn't capitalize on it; that is the life (of slalom racing). "It's part of the sport, sometimes you can overcome them (falls), and that's what we'll try to do Saturday. There are some similarities to this year and to what happened three years ago, but we had a deeper Nordic team then. But we'll definitely do what we can to try and make up the difference."
"It happened," Rokos continued. "You go on a two-inch wide line and everybody goes in the same line, and it happened to him. He was pushing it so hard. He was ahead of the game on the split time. I am happy for Henrik and his second place. It is an awesome farewell to his college career."
Between Gunnarsson's crash in the GS and Johansen's slide off the course in the slalom, those unfortunate mistakes likely cost Colorado around 50 team points otherwise Saturday would really shape up to be crapshoot.
Freshman Nora Christensen picked the best time imaginable for her first career top 10 finish, as she skied to a fifth-place effort in a two-run time of 1:31.24 and earned first-team All-America honors in the process. She was essentially "activated" last Saturday after Jessica Honkonen, CU's second-ranked alpine woman, suffered a collegiate-career ending knee injury in training earlier in the day.
"I am supper happy. I had a rough season, so it is so nice to put down a good race," Christensen said. "And for that to be in the NCAA's is so cool for me. I didn't know I had to be up here until Saturday (afternoon). They went training and Jessica tore her ACL. I had to jump in the car and get here."
Freshman Tonje Trulsrud finished 15th in 1:32.07, while senior Thea Grosvold ended her four years with the Buffaloes right behind her in 16th in a 1:32.48 time. Utah's Julie Mohagen smoked the field with her opening run (44.39, or 1.1 seconds faster than her nearest competitor) and held on to win in a 1:29.63 time, besting Vermont's Laurence St.-Germain (1:30.00).
After the first run, Christensen was in 17th, with Trulsrud 21st and Grosvold 22nd. But the trio came out and put the fastest combined runs by any team the second time down the slick Howelsen Hill course, with Christiansen leading the way with the best in the field in a 44.32 time. Trulsrud recorded the sixth-fastest and Grosvold the seventh-best as the CU women improved a combined 27 places from one run to the next.
"Nora came from (out of) the woods pretty much because she did not ski to that level ever in the middle of the year," Rokos said. "It was good to see that in big races she can step up and do a good job. For all of us it was a learning experience. The whole championship is not over, but it started with a disaster (on the first day) and a disaster before the races even started (Hokonen's injury). It's an interesting series of ups and downs."
Rokos was delighted with his the two fifth-place finishes by his youngsters, with their first-team All-America efforts giving him 205 first- or second-team honorees in his 26 years as head coach (128 first-team).
"Those are freshman with first year experience who are gaining experience in NCAA's," he said. "It is different than any FIS skiing. This is such a unique format that people coming from the World Cup have a tough time to adapt it because so much pressure is placed on individuals to perform. In the World Cup you make the race or you don't make it, no big deal. There is always another race.
"There is no other race for the (NCAA championships)," he added. "This is the one and only and there is no forgiveness. You have to finish all of your runs and do well. Tomorrow will be a day to really watch because the difference in the points is only about 60 or so. With a good race the team can come from behind."
One skier each from Montana State, Vermont and New Mexico had some issues in and that helped to tighten up the standings through five events, as DU took over the lead from Montana State with 342 points, ahead of Utah (321), MSU (315) and CU (274.5) as the top four started its break from the rest of the field.
The classical races will finish off the NCAA meet on Saturday. The men will race first in their 20-kilometer version at 9 a.m., with the women's 15k to follow at 11 a.m. Both races have mass starts and often end in exciting sprint finishes.
NCAA Skiing Championship Team Scores (6 of 8 events)— 1. Denver 405½; 2. Montana State 390; 3. Utah 362; 4. Colorado 340½; 5. Dartmouth 257; 6. Vermont 250; 7. New Mexico 207½; 8. Alaska-Anchorage 174½; 9. Northern Michigan 122; 10. New Hampshire 118; 11. Middlebury 103; 12. Colby 70; 13. Williams 52; 14. St. Michael's 50; 15. Alaska-Fairbanks 38; 16. Plymouth State 27; 17. Michigan Tech 19; 17. Plymouth State 8; 18. St. Scholastica 6. Have not scored: Bates, Harvard, Wisconsin-Green Bay.
Players Mentioned
