Ski Team Qualifies Full Allotment For NCAA Championships

INDIANAPOLIS—The University of Colorado ski team will be represented by a full 12-member team for the 2019 NCAA Championships in Vermont, the selection committee announced Tuesday.

The Buffs contingent headed two Stowe, Vt., where the Buffs won the 2011 NCAA Championship, includes men's alpine skiers Filip Forejtek, Max Luukko and Joey Young; women's alpine skiers Nora Christensen, Stef Fleckenstein and Mikaela Tommy; men's Nordic skiers Alvar Alev, Sondre Bollum and Erik Dengerud; and women's Nordic skiers Hedda Baangman, Anne Siri Lervik and Christina Rolandsen.

The Buffs will head east on Saturday for a few days of training ahead of the competition, which begins Wednesday, March 6, with Nordic freestyle races. The giant slalom races will take place on March 7 with Nordic action concluding with classic races on March 8 and the championship concluding with slalom races on March 9. The Buffs have won three of last four NCAA Championships in the east, including 2011 in Stowe, Vt., 2013 at Middlebury, Vt., and 2015 at Lake Placid, N.Y.

In all, the Buffs have won 20 National Championships, including eight under coach Richard Rokos, who's in his 29th season at the helm of the program. Rokos has the most championships in school history and third most in NCAA skiing history.

During the regular season teams can score up to six skiers per gender and discipline, taking the top three for team scoring. But at the NCAA Championships, teams are limited to just three per gender and discipline, all of which count toward team scoring, making what is already a heightened tension to the Championship races even more stressful.

The Buffs contingent includes six skiers who have skied at the NCAA Championships previously and six who are making their first appearance. The six skiers who have skied previously have combined for 11 appearances at NCAAs and all six have earned at least one All-America honor in each of those 11 appearances. Of the six making their first appearance, four of those six won at least one race this season. The 12 skiers have combined for 73 top 10 and 34 top five finishes this season including 22 podium appearances and seven race victories.

A closer look at the Buffs contingent:

ALPINE WOMEN:
Nora Christensen: A senior making her fourth trip to the NCAA Championships, Christensen is a three-time All-American, earning the honor each of the last three years in the slalom race, first team in 2016 and '17 and second team in 2018. A two-time All-RMISA performer, she has 54 race starts in her CU career and has finished 49 of those with 23 coming in the Top 10 and 16 coming in the top five including nine podium appearances and two race wins. This season she has finished 11 of 12 races with nine of those 11 coming in the top 10 including three podium appearances, all in slalom action.

Stef Fleckenstein: A freshman making her first trip to the NCAA Championships, Fleckenstein hit the ground running upon joining the Buffs team in January. She has finished nine of 12 races this season, including eight of the last nine, with seven top 10 finishes, three in GS and four in slalom. She has finished either sixth or eighth in each of her last five finishes.

Mikaela Tommy: A freshman making her first trip to the NCAA Championships, Tommy enters NCAAs as the top giant slalom seed out of the RMISA and No. 2 overall seed. She set a new CU record when she won three straight GS races, the first three of her career after sitting the first two of the season out. She also has three top 10 finishes in slalom, including one top five. While also skiing on the World Cup circuit this season, she raced in eight of the possible 12 college races and finished six of them. Her three GS finishes were all wins, the second most GS wins in a season by a CU skier and already top 10 for a career. Her three slalom finishes improved each time, taking 10th at Montana State and then seventh and fifth in Alaska last week.

ALPINE MEN:
Filip Forejtek: A freshman who was injured in the first race of the season, Forejtek injured his wrist and didn't make a start in slalom until Alaska at the end of the season. He was seventh after the first run in the slalom at the UAA Invitational before skiing out. He also entered Alaska with just one GS finish to his credit, a 17th place finish at Montana State still coming back from injury, but he proved what he can do in Alaska with starting positions in the mid teens, he finished second and fourth in the two GS races to move all the way up into sixth place on the GS seed list for NCAA Championships. In seven race starts, he has three finishes, all in GS, with two top five finishes and one podium.

Max Luukko: A senior making his fourth trip to NCAA Championships, Luukko is a three-time All-American, having won one such award each of the previous three years at NCAAs, taking first-team honors in the slalom in 2016 while earning second team honors in slalom in 2017 and second team GS honors in 2019. Luukko has finished an astonishing 53 of a possible 54 races in his career with 35 finishes in the top 10 and 20 in the top five including nine podium appearances and one race win. A well-rounded skier, of his 35 top 10 finishes, 19 have come in GS and 16 in slalom. This season he has finished all 12 races with four in the top 10 and two in the top five with one podium, a third place finish in the GS race at the RMISA Championships.

Joey Young: A sophomore making his first appearance at the NCAA Championships, Young has been the Buffs most consistent alpine skier in 2019, having finished all 12 races this season with eight top 10 finishes, four of six in both slalom and GS. He has two top five finishes with one podium and one race win in slalom action, his win coming at the Montana State Invitational, which the Buffs won as a team. He is the only alpine skier in either gender to score points for the team by finishing in the top three on the team in each of the 10 races associated with the five collegiate meets. In 24 career races, he has finished 23 of them with 13 top 10 and four top five finishes with one podium and one race win.

NORDIC WOMEN:
Hedda Baangman: A sophomore making her first appearance at the NCAA Championships, Baangman was the RMISA Women's Nordic MVP for the 2019 season. She has 21 career race starts with 19 finishes and in those 19 races she had finished in the top 10 16 times with 10 podium appearances and three race wins. This season she finished nine of 10 races with eight top 10 finishes and hit the podium six times with one race win, the classic race at the Montana State Invitational. She enters NCAAs as the No. 3 qualifier out of the RMISA and is the No. 2 seed in classic and No. 9 in freestyle.

Anne Siri Lervik: A junior making her second trip to the NCAA Championships, Lervik was a first-team All-American in the classic race and has had an outstanding season where she finished third in the RMISA Women's Nordic MVP standings, is the No. 4 qualifier out of the RMISA and will be seeded No. 4 in classic and No. 6 in freestyle at the NCAA Championships. She has finished all 34 of her career races with 23 top 10 finishes, including 16 in the top five with eight podiums and one race win. This season she has seven top 10 finishes in the 10 races this season with three coming in classic and four in freestyle. She won the 7.5K classic race at New Mexico as the Buffs swept the podium.

Christina Rolandsen: A senior making her third trip to the NCAA Championships, Rolandsen is a three-time All-American, having taken home first team honors in both races at the 2017 NCAA Championships and second-team honors in freestyle in 2018. She has finished all 42 of her career races with 32 of those 42 races coming in the top 10 and 15 in the top five with eight podium appearances. She has nine top 10's in 10 races this season with four in the top five and two podiums, which have come in each of the last two freestyle races of the season in Alaska, taking third in both the UAA Invitational and RMISA Championships.

NORDIC MEN:
Alvar Alev: A second-year senior making his second appearance at the NCAA Championships, Alev earned a first-team All-America honor last year with his second place finish in the freestyle race at Steamboat Springs. He has finished all 21 of his career races with 16 top 10 finishes including five in the top five with six podiums and three race wins. Having been granted an extra year of eligibility in 2019, he took full advantage and has finished in the top 10 in eight of 10 races this season with one podium, which was a win at the UNM Invitational in the 7.5K classic race.

Sondre Bollum: A sophomore making his second appearance at the NCAA Championships, Bollum earned a pair of second-team All-America honors last season in Steamboat Springs, finishing seventh in the classic and 10th in the freestyle race. He has finished all 19 of his career starts with 14 coming in the top 10 and two in the top five. He has one top five finish this season, taking fifth in the 10K freestyle at the RMISA Championships.

Erik Dengerud: A freshman making his first appearance at the NCAA Championships, Dengerud has been the most consistent men's Nordic skier this season, having scored for the team in nine of the 10 races and he was the Buffs top finisher five times, including all four races in Alaska at the UAA Invitational and RMISA Championships. He won the RMISA Individual Championship in the 10K freestyle race, winning that race by 14.4 seconds in Alaska. He has eight top 10 finishes in 10 races this season, including each the last seven, with three in the top five, all of which came in Alaska, and two podiums, both at the RMISA Championships where he won the freestyle race and was third in the classic race.

Colorado University Athletics

Ski Team Qualifies Full Allotment For NCAA Championships

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Players Mentioned

Alvar Alev

Hedda Baangman

Sondre Bollum

Nora Christensen

Erik Dengerud

Stef Fleckenstein

Filip Forejtek

Anne Siri Lervik

Max Luukko

Christina Rolandsen

Mikaela Tommy

Joey Young

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