Boee Hits Podium, Four Buffs In Top 10 At Utah Invite

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Boee Hits Podium, Four Buffs In Top 10 At Utah Invite

January 02, 2022 | Skiing

By: Curtis Snyder, Assistant AD/Sports Information

MIDWAY, Utah–Junior Magnus Boee hit the podium in third place and four members of the Colorado Buffaloes Ski Team finished in the top seven Sunday as the college racing season got underway with freestyle sprint races here at Soldier Hollow at the Utah Invitational. As a team, the Buffs sit in third place in the RMISA team standings after the first day as the meet sits alongside the U.S. National Championships.

Utah led the way in both the men's and women's race and on the strength of a 1-3-6 finish on the women's side, take an early lead in its own Invitational with 187 points. Alaska Anchorage and the Buffs are tied for second with 148 points. Alaska Fairbanks sits in fourth with 133 points followed by Montana State (115) and Denver (110) in a close battle for fifth.

"Overall, it's a good start to the season," Nordic coach Jana Weinberger said. "We're missing some key people and only had three women racing today. We're tied for second place, and I think we can move up after the classic races later this week."

With college results dissected from the overall race standings at the U.S. National Championships, Boee's RMISA podium was based on his fifth place finish in the overall standings at the U.S. National Championships behind collegians J.C. Schoonmaker from Alaska Anchorage, who was the overall winner, and Utah's Noel Keefe in third place. Logan Diekmann finished second and Johnny Hagenbuch was fourth, both professional racers.

Boee struggled a bit in the qualifier race and was in 30th place, the final spot to advance to the bracket in the quarterfinals. From there, he advanced through the quarterfinals and semifinals to move up and earn a podium appearance. A total of nine collegiate skiers advanced in the top 30 to the quarterfinals.

"Magnus just flew back from Europe two days ago," Weinberger explained. "It took some skiing to get him going. He was lucky enough to qualify, and as he skied more throughout the day, he got better and better."

The best performance of the day was perhaps sophomore Will Koch, who won the qualifier race in a time of 3;07.88 to earn the top seed for the quarterfinals. Unfortunately, his quarterfinal was by far the toughest of the five. He led most of the qualifier race with the others in his heat drafting behind him and on the last turn into the final stretch, the others were able to slingshot ahead of him. His time was fifth fastest in the heat, but also fifth fastest of any quarterfinal time. The two skiers to advance as a lucky loser were also in his heat. He missed advancing by just five hundredths of a second and his time was over four seconds ahead of any of the other four heat winners.

When it all panned out, he picked up a seventh-place finish in the RMISA race, matching his career best and setting a new carere standard for a freestyle race.

"Tactically, Will's quarterfinal race wasn't the best race, he was leading but everybody was able to draft and then slingshot past him," Weinberger said. "But he had a great qualifier. He beat J.C. (Schoonmaker), who ended up winning the race and has been racing very well on the World Cup in recent weeks. He was able to beat him, so it was an awesome qualifier race by Will."

On the women's side, CU sisters Karolina and Weronika Kaleta both advanced past the qualifier into the quarterfinals. Weronika finished third in her quarterfinal heat by just three hundredths of a second while Karolina finished fourth in her heat. Eight women advanced to the quarterfinals out of the RMISA, and just two advanced past the quarterfinals as Weronkia ended up in fourth place overall and Karolina in fifth place.

"I would've liked to have seen Karolina and Weronika advance to the semifinals, and they wanted to do a little better than they did," Weinberger said. "But it didn't happen today."

WHAT IT MEANS: The 2022 season is underway and despite the Buffs missing six skiers for a variety of issues, they managed to pick up 146 points on the day and are just four points out of second place, a good start to the season. Utah looks strong again on the Nordic side, but it will be fun to see the battle heat up as the Buffs return to full strength.

UP NEXT: Collegiate teams will remain in Utah for the entire week. U.S. National Championship races continue Tuesday, but the races that day will not count for college. Thursday's classic races will then conclude the Nordic half of the Utah Invitational and Friday teams will count the classic sprint races as an extra NCAA qualifier.

TEAM NOTES:

The Buffs scored 146 points on the day and sit in third place, four points behind Alaska Anchorage (150) in second place and 44 points behind leader Utah (190).
The Buffs scored 78 points in the men's race as Boee (34 points), Koch (25) and freshman Fredrik Nilsen (15) scored. The top three men's teams were separated by just seven points, with Utah (85) winning and UAA (79) taking second.
The Buffs scored 74 points in the women's race as Weronika (31 points) and Karolina (29) were joined by freshman Kili Lehmkuhl (14 points) in her first collegiate race.
Four Buffs made their collegiate debuts, two women and two men. Karolina Kaleta led the way with a fifth place finish in the women's race followed by Lehmkuhl in 21st. On the men's side, Nilsen finished in 19th place as the third team scorer and Alexander Maurer was 25th.

MEN'S INDIVIDUAL NOTES:

Boee's podium appearance is his 17th in 24 career races and he's now tied for 14th in CU history for most podiums alongside John Skajem (1986-87) and Ove Erik Tronvoll (1998-99). That mark is 10th most for men in CU history among those three and he and Tronvoll are tied for sixth for most podium appearances by a men's Nordic skier.
Boee now has 11 straight podium appearances and 20 top five finishes in 24 career races.
Will Koch matched his career best and had his best freestyle finish, taking seventh on the strength of his win in the qualifier race. It marked Koch's fifth top 10 in 11 career races.
Fredrik Nilsen picked up a top 20 performance in his first college race, taking 19th, and Alexander Maurer also competed in his first collegiate race taking 25th.
Wyatt Gebhardt competed in his 31st career race and ironically finished in 31st place.

WOMEN'S INDIVIDUAL NOTES:

Weronika Kaleta led the way for CU with a fourth place finish. It was the second-best finish of her career after a third place finish in last year's freestyle sprint race as part of the CU Invitational. Overall, it's her ninth top 10 in 13 career races and second top five performance.
Karolina Kaleta took fifth place in her collegiate debut. Her fifth place finish would've matched the fourth-best finish by a women's Nordic skier all of last season.
Kili Lehmkuhl finished 21st in her first career race. Kili's sister Quinn also made her college debut for the Buffs at the U.S. National Championships back in 2018 where she took 30th in the 10K freestyle and 29th in the freestyle sprints to open her career.

UTAH INVITATIONAL TEAM STANDINGS (Thru 2 of 8 Events): 1. Utah 187; 2. Alaska Anchorage & Colorado 148; 4. Alaska Fairbanks 133; 5. Montana State 115; 6. Denver 110; 7. Wyoming 46.

MEN'S FREESTYLE SPRINTS (38 collegiate finishers)—1. J.C. Schoonmaker, UAA; 2. Noel Keefe, UU; 3. Magnus Boee, CU; 4. Andreas Kirkeng, DU; 5. Reed Godfrey, MSU; 6. Walker Hall, UU; 7.Will Koch, CU; 8. Christopher Kalev, UAF; 9. Brain Bushey, UU; 10. Magnus Noroey, UAA. Other CU Finishers: 19. Fredrik Nilsen, 25. Alexander Maurer, 31. Wyatt Gebhardt.

WOMEN'S FREESTYLE SPRINTS (26 collegiate finishers)—1. Sydney Palmer-Leger, UU; 2. Mariel Pulles, UAF; 3. Abigail Jarzin, UU; 4. Weronika Kaleta, CU; 5. Karolina Kaleta, CU; 6. Julia Richter, UU; 7. Astrid Staf, UAA; 8.