BOZEMAN, Mont.—Senior Mikaela Tommy won the women's GS race and six skiers earned top five finishes for the Colorado Ski Team, which sits third but just 6.5 points out of first at the midpoint of the 2020 RMISA Championships, held here Friday at Crosscut Mountain and Bridger Bowl.  

Tommy was joined by sophomore Stef Fleckenstein on the podium for the women's GS race with her third-place finish while sophomore Filip Forejtek matched that third-place performance in the men's GS race.  Junior Sondre Bollum had his career-best finish of second in the men's 10K freestyle race while freshman Anna-Maria Dietze (fourth) and sophomore Ezra Smith (fifth) earned top-five finishes in the women's 5K freestyle race. 

The women's alpine team won the race with 93 points, both Nordic teams scored 80 points and the men's alpine team scored 69.5 points as the Buffs finished the day with 322.5.  The Buffs sit third but are just a half-point behind Denver (323) and just 6.5 points back of Utah (329).  That's significant because the Utes have been setting records for margin of victory throughout the regular season.  Behind the Buffs in fourth place is Montana State with 247 points.  

"It's one of those days where we shouldn't even get out of bed because there's no difference between the beginning and end of the day with only 6.5 points gapping the top three teams," CU coach Richard Rokos said. "It looks like our key people are fairly solid and staying in the top five or top 10 across the board and that's very good before NCAAs."

Tommy's win gives her five on the season and eight for her career, all in GS.  She's won five of six GS races on the season and eight of the 12 she's competed in for her career.  She had the fastest first run by 13-hundredths over DU's Storm Klomhaus and then held Klmohaus off, winning by just four-hundredths of a second.  Klomhaus beat Tommy in Friday's qualifier race, the only time Tommy didn't win this season.   With her fifth win, she becomes the first women's alpine skier to win five GS races in one season and matches the single-season CU record for wins within one discipline, matching Lucie Zikova, who won five slalom races in both 2006 and '08.  She already holds the record for both season and career GS wins. 

"Mikaela's performance, I don't know if it's precedented in our history," Rokos said.  "It's so outstanding it's scary. It's become a good competition between Mikaela and Storm, they're alike in many ways." 

Tommy is the 10th women's alpine skier to win the women's GS RMISA Individual Championship, but the first since 2009.  It's also CU's 124th all-time individual RMISA championship, the 40th for women's skiers, the 56th on the alpine side and 22nd in giant slalom between both genders.  

Fleckenstein's podium is her sixth of the season including fourth in GS races.  She now has nine top-five finishes on the season.  Saturday's race went similar to Friday's qualifier.  On Friday, she had the sixth-fastest first run and then used the fastest second run to move up onto the podium.  Saturday, she was again in sixth place after the first run and then had the second-fastest second run, and fastest in the top seven of the field, to again move up onto the podium.  

Junior Isabelle Fiejeland was the Buffs' third scorer in 14th place in just her second race of the season and second in the last two years. 

Forejtek continued his end of season surge with his third podium appearance of the season, all coming in the last five races.  He initially finished second in Friday's GS race only to be disqualified late in the run.   He was the only men's skier in the top 10 for the Buffs with Joey Young finishing 12th and Teddy Takki 15th as the team scorers for the Buffs.  

Bollum earned his first career podium and betters his previous best freestyle result of sixth back in 2018 at the New Mexico Invitational.  It's his first top-five finish since this same race at last year's RMISA Championships when he took fifth place.  He was in the lead at the 5K mark, having the fastest first lap in the field.  He held on for the sixth-fastest second lap to finish second.   

CU's two newcomers on the men's Nordic side, senior Ryan Jackson finished ninth and Magnus Boee took 10th.  It's Jackson's fourth top 10 of the season and Boee's eighth in nine races.  

Anna-Maria Dietze led the women's Nordic team with her fourth-place finish, continuing her solid skiing of late. She has three straight top-four finishes and four top 10 finishes, all in the last five races.  Ezra Smith too fifth place, her best career freestyle finish and second career top-five finish.  Senior Anne Siri Lervik finished 12th as the third scorer for the team and junior Hedda Baangman finished 14th. 

The RMISA Championships continue Saturday with the slalom races on the alpine side and classic races on the Nordic side, 15K for the women and 20K for the men.  These are the same course that will be used in two weeks for the NCAA Championships.  

WHAT IT MEANS: Friday's races prove that despite Utah handily winning each of the first regular-season meets, that anything can happen in college skiing and when teams get to the postseason, it's a different dynamic.  Saturday will be a fun day in college skiing and expect all three teams to battle it out to try and win a conference and regional championship.  

TEAM NOTES: 

• The last time there was a close race for the RMISA Championship was the last time the Buffs won it back in 2017, beating Denver by 7.5 points, 672-664.5, while Utah also scored in the 600s at 601.  
• The women's alpine team continued to lead in the points.  The Buffs won the women's alpine standings in the regular season as the only team to score more than 500 points in the six races that counted and continued that Friday with 93 points, holding off Denver by just two points. 

WOMEN'S NORDIC NOTES: 

• Dietze continued her upward trajectory to the season with her fourth-place finish.  She had now finished fourth or better in three straight races after having just one top 10 in her first six races of the season.  
• Smith got her career-best freestyle finish of fifth and second-best overall result of her career behind a third-place classic finish from 2019.  

MEN'S NORDIC NOTES: 

• Bollum earned his career-best finish and first career podium in second place.  It's just his second top 10 of the season, also finishing seventh in the freestyle race at the Denver Invitational, but having the best jump in that pursuit race.  In that race, he got credit for a fourth-place showing and now with his second place, he could potentially move into the top five on the qualification list for freestyle.  

MEN'S ALPINE NOTES: 

• Like Dietze, Forejtek is on an upward trajectory here at the end of the season.  He had one fourth-place finish over the first six races of the season and now has four in his last five outings the only other finish when he was DQ'd after finishing second in Friday's GS race.  

WOMEN'S ALPINE NOTES: 

• Tommy's win gives her five on the season and eight in her short two-year career.  She has five wins in six GS starts this season, taking second in the other race on Friday.  Her five wins this season and eight in her career are both records for GS races and her five wins in one discipline matches the CU record set twice by Zikova in slalom races.  She now has nine podium appearances this season and hasn't finished lower than third in any race she's finished, and she's finished nine of 11 on the season.  
• Fleckenstein hit the podium for the fifth time this season, second straight and she's finished in the top five nine times in 10 finishes.  
• The women's alpine's 15 podium appearance this season are tied for second-most in a season in CU history along with the 1991 team's total of 15 and behind only 2006, which saw 20 podium appearances.  

QUOTABLE: 
Richard Rokos: 
"It's one of those days where we shouldn't even get out of bed because there's no difference between the beginning and end of the day with only 6.5 points gapping the top three teams.  It looks like our key people are fairly solid and staying in the top five or top 10 across the board and that's very good before NCAAs.  We have a core already in place and the fight will be for the third skier on each of the team.s  There's still a little opening there for each team, we'll see who wants to take it." 

"Slalom is always the great equalizer, tomorrow even more so with the surface being so soft.  Anything can happen in those conditions, it's supposed to be warm and overcast.  Slalom isn't predictable, so we'll rely more on the Nordic results and do the best we can do with slalom." 

"Mikaela's performance, I don't know if it's precedented in our history.  It's so outstanding it's scary. It's become a good competition between Mikaela and Storm, they're alike in many ways." 

"Filip has been improving throughout the season and is coming into his own at the right time." 

Jana Weinberger

"Overall, the boys did well, all three skiers in the top 10 and Sondre on the podium, his best race.  Magnus has the potential to be better than he was today.  For Ryan it was a good skating race, I'm happy he was top 10 today.  For the girls, very good races for Anna-Maria and Ezra.  Anne Siri is still coming back from being sick and Hedda should race better than she did today so hopefully, she'll have a better day tomorrow.  Being in the shape that she was at the begging of the season. 

"Ezra pulled together a very good race, and that helps us overall and gives us a good chance to compete for a regional championship."

"It was good course conditions for us, it's been a little too warm but you have to adjust.  It's going to be more of an issue tomorrow for the classic.  It'll be good practice for NCAas,  We'll see what we do well tomorrow and try to fix it for NCAA chamionships."

UP NEXT: The RMISA Championships will conclude Saturday with the women's 15K and men's 20K classic races at Crosscut Mountain and the slalom races at Bridger Bowl.  Teams will return to the same venue on March 11-14 for the NCAA Championships.  

TEAM STANDINGS (Through 4 of 8 races): 1. Utah 329; 2. Denver 323; 3. Colorado 322.5; 4. Montana State 247; 5. Alaska Anchorage 226; 6. Westminster 146.5; 7. Alaska Fairbanks 88; 8. Colorado Mountain 47. 

WOMEN'S 5K FREESTYLE (30 collegiate finishers)—1. Eveliina Piippo, DU, 12:53.3; 2. Guro Jordheim, UU, 13:14.6; 3. Leah Lange, UU, 13:22.2; 4. Anna-Maria Dietze, CU, 13:27.8; 5. Ezra Smith, CU, 13:29.2; 6. Emma Tarbath, MSU, 13:33.6; 7. Mariah Bredal, UU, 13:39.5; 8. Karianne Moe, UU, 13:41.3; 9. Anna Darnell, UAA, 13:44.1; 10. Natalie Hynes, UAA, 13:48.0.  Other CU Finishers: 12. Anne Siri Lervik, 13:52.4; 15. Hedda Baangman, 13:57.6; 21. Quinn Lehmkuhl, 14:48.1; 27. Bridget Donovan, 15:12.2.  

MEN'S 10K FREESTYLE (29 collegiate finishers)—1. Bernhard Flaschberger, DU, 24:21.0; 2. Sondre Bollum, CU, 24:43.8; 3. Ola Jordheim, UU, 24:54.1; 4. Maximilian Bie, UU, 24:55.2; 5. Sigurd Roenning, 25:02.6; 6. Bjorn Riksaasen, UU, 25:07.6; 7. Borgar Norrud, DU, 25:15.6; 8. Espen Persen, UAA, 25:18.7; 9. Ryan Jackson, CU, 25:22.3; 10. Magnus Boee, CU, 25:27.8. Other CU Finishers: 23. Wyatt Gebhardt, 26:52.1; 29. Tyler Terranova, 28:16.0.

WOMEN'S GIANT SLALOM (31 collegiate finishers)—1. Mikaela Tommy, CU, 1:55.62; 2. Storm Klomhaus, DU, 1:55.66; 3. Stef Fleckenstein, CU, 1:56.84; 4. Julia Toiviainen, WMC, 1:57.09; 5. Amelia Smart, DU, 1:57.33; 6. Nellie Talbot, MSU, 1:57.34; 7. Andrea Komsic, DU, 1:57.43; 8. Lana Zbasnik, WMC, 1:57.58; 9. Henriette Resen, WMC, 1:57.67; 10. Kathryn Parker, UU, 1:57.71.  Other CU Finishers: 14. Isabelle Fidjeland, 1:59.16; 17. Andrea Arnold, 1:59.38; 21. Olivia Gerrard, 2:00.14; 22. Emma Hammergaard, 2:00.39; 27. Kaitlyn Harsch, 2:01.29.

MEN'S GIANT SLALOM (35 collegiate finishers)—1. Joachim Lein, UU, 1:52.93; 2. Tobias Kogler, DU, 1:53.45; 3. Filip Forejtek, CU, 1:53.69; 4. Riley Seger, MSU, 1:53.93; 5. Alexandre Coltier, WMC, 1:54.24; 6. Gustav Voello, UU, 1:54.50; 7. Louis Muhlen-Schulte, MSU, 1:54.55; 8. Aage Solheim, MSU, 1:54.62; 9. Joachim Mjelde, WMC, 1:54.64; 10. Jett Seymour, DU, 1:54.66.  Other CU Finishers: t-11. Joey Young, 1:54.87; 15. Teddy Takki, 1:53.33; 24. Bobby Ryan, 1:56.10; 31. Alex Birkner, 1:59.86; 34. Max Bervy, 2:00.91.