CU Skiers Out To Defend National Title In Steamboat

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — The 63rd Annual NCAA Skiing Championships are set to begin here Wednesday, with defending champion Colorado looking to be the first school to win back-to-back titles in six years.

The Buffaloes are looking for their 21st national crown in the sport, and back-to-back titles for the first time since 1998-99. Denver is the last team to repeat, doing so three straight years from 2008 to 2010. CU is coming off a second-place finish in the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association championships, an event that also doubled as the NCAA West Regional.

Colorado has had a bit of a rollercoaster ride this winter, but still managed to win one invitational (New Mexico) and finish second in three others. Injuries, illness and some personal matters took a greater toll than in recent years, and just when it appeared the Buffs would be back at full strength, the team lost senior Jessica Honkonen to a knee injury in the first day of alpine training here last Saturday.

“Going back to the beginning of the season, we had a blend of a new team and an old team,” CU head coach Richard Rokos said. “This was actually a very unique situation, we have very little middle ground on the Alpine side. We have four newcomers and seven actually departing so it's very unique. On the Nordic side, it's not such. We have one graduating and the rest are all new freshmen or juniors. The season has been interesting to the degree that we have had injuries and have gone through some trials and tribulations, not having a (healthy) full team ever. The NCAA's would have been the first time we had everyone in the same place at the same time and then we lost Jessica. But it will be interesting.”

CU, Utah and Denver were the dominant teams in the west this winter, with just 202 points separating the schools over the four regular season meets plus the regional; it was even closer between the Utes (3,187 points) and the Buffs (3,138). Utah won three meets with CU and the Pioneers splitting the other pair. In the east, Vermont won four of the six carnivals as they term them, with Dartmouth claiming the other two. All five of the aforementioned schools qualified full 12-skier teams and count all among the favorites in Steamboat.

Rokos feels good about what his team has accomplished and how they have likely peaked at the right time. This will be the team's third competition in the state this winter (for the first time since 1998), the second at Steamboat which CU considers one of its home mountains. So CU and Denver certainly aren't travel-weary.

Colorado's depth has produced 50 top five finishes and 95 in the top 10 this season, the latter breaking down to 52 by CU's alpine performers and 43 by the Nordics.

Despite winning the title last year, the Buffs did not have an individual champion for the first time since 2007; Colorado still leads all-time with 88 individual NCAA titles, topping Denver (85), Utah (70), Vermont (63), Dartmouth (36), Wyoming (19), New Mexico (17) and Middlebury (11).

Junior Mads Stroem, who won the NCAA freestyle as a freshman two years ago in Soldier Hollow, Utah, enters as CU's top skier and the No. 1 seed out of the west. He won six races this winter, including the last four in a row and is thus on a hot streak and is shooting to become the fifth skier in school history to sweep at the NCAA's. The last Buffs to do it came in 2008, when CU was the first school since 1983 to have two skiers sweep their respective disciplines: Lucie Zikova claimed the individual titles in the giant slalom and slalom, while Maria Grevsgaard did the same in winning both the classical and freestyle races. Across all sports, 16 CU athletes have won two NCAA titles in the same event, so Stroem is bidding to become the 17th if he can win the freestyle.

Stroem is not a one-man show for the Buffs however; four alpine skiers also won races this winter. Senior Henrik Gunnarsson and freshmen Ola Johansen and Tonje Trulsrud each won twice and freshman Max Luukko once. The men's alpine team was the strongest in the west, and in fact, a 1-2-3 finish by Johansen, Luukko and Gunnarsson in the slalom at New Mexico was CU's first podium sweep in a men's alpine event since 1977. Those are the three men's alpine skiers representing the Buffs here, with Gunnarsson the No. 1 seed, with Luukko No. 4 and Johansen No. 5.

“We've had strong women's alpine teams recently, but this year the men have had the better winter,” Rokos said. “It's one of the best men's teams we've had here in a long time and it's been fun to watch the freshmen develop.”

The men's Nordic unit was CU's next strongest over the regular season, as freshman Petter Reistad was a great complement to Stroem. He raced nine times with all his finishes between second and seventh, including three runner-up efforts and is the No. 4 seed overall. Senior Arnaud DuPasquier completes CU's Nordic entries, as he's coming off his finest season (he's seeded 14th).

“Mads has been demonstrating it (dominate performances) since he came here,” Rokos said. “He's a tremendous athlete and it's always good to have someone like this because the rest of the team gets pulled with him. They go to training, they time it and the guys know how far off they are and the closer they can get they elevate the whole competition and their own performance. That's a skill-set you cannot ever substitute with anything else. Having a guy so far ahead and doing it consistently. Petter comes here the same way (as Mads) – he's a great athlete, very, very highly ranked on a competitive level. One of these days he will step into Mads shoes and hopefully he will continue to ski the way he has until now. Being 1-2, 1-2 in this league is very hard.”

CU women's Nordic team is led by sophomore Petra Hyncicova, who qualified early on (No. 6 seed) but missed the last four races to compete back in national competition in her native Czech Republic. Sophomore Ane Johnsen (the eighth seed) is coming off an improved winter and like Hyncicova is competing in the NCAA's for a second straight year. Junior Jesse Knorri will compete in her first, coming in as the west's No. 15 seed as well as off her best collegiate finish, a fifth-place effort in the classic in the West regional.

The women's alpine had its least successful year in quite a while, but injuries and personal matters played a role. With Honkonen out, Rokos activated the next in line, freshman Nora Christensen; she's CU's lowest seed here (No. 17), but she did record five finishes just outside the top 10 (two 11s, two 12s and a 13). She joins fellow countrywomen Trulsrud (the 2 seed) and senior Thea Grosvold, who is competing in her fourth NCAA meet. The No. 16 seed, she's not had the season she'd have liked as a senior with just two top 10 finishes, but has been a perennial top five performer in the slalom and will thus play an important role.

The giant slalom races will open the NCAA Championships on Wednesday, March 9, with the men's first run at 9:00 a.m. MST and the women's at 9:45 a.m.; the second runs follow at 11:30 a.m. and 12:15 p.m., respectively. The freestyle races open the Nordic events on Thursday, March 10, with the women's 5-kilometer race at 9 a.m. and men's 10k at 10:30 a.m. The slalom races are set for Friday, March 11, and for third time in NCAA history – all at Steamboat – the event will be in prime time: the women's first run is at 6:30 p.m., with the men's at 7:15 p.m.; the second runs follow at 9 p.m. (women) and 9:30 p.m. (men). The classical races will finish off the NCAA meet on Saturday, March 12: the men are first with their 20-kilometer run at 9 a.m., with the women's 15k to follow at 11 a.m.

CU's overall goal at the NCAA never changes, regardless if the Buffs have not fielded a full team or if they were battling illness or injury. It's never changed since Rokos took over the program in 1991 and won the title in his rookie season.

“We want to defend our title,” he said. “We don't go into this thinking second or third place would be nice. We want to leave here with the trophy. Any other finish is always a disappointment.”

If Colorado should repeat, Rokos would make some history for the second straight year. With CU's victory in 2015, he broke a tie with Bill Marolt for coaching the most NCAA champion ski teams at Colorado with his eighth title. Should the Buffs win in 2016, he would tie Utah's Pat Miller for the second most title in NCAA history with nine. Miller's first title in 1981 was with the men's team before the sport went coed in 1983; Miller and Rokos are tied for the most coed crowns with eight.

Denver's Willy Schaeffler is the all-time NCAA leader, coaching the Pioneers to 13 titles between 1954 and 1970.

Rokos' Buffaloes have also won titles in 1995, 1998, 1999, 2006, 2010, 2013 and 2015; the last three titles were won in the east with the one a decade ago claimed right here in Steamboat.

Colorado has won 11 men's and one women's (an AIAW crown in 1982) title in skiing in addition to the eight coed crowns under Rokos. The school has won 28 overall national championships representing four sports (five men's cross country, two women's cross country and one football in addition to the ski titles) and is thus seeking its 29th national title (and 27th NCAA).