Buffs Give It All, Finish Second At NCAAs

LAKE PLACID, N.Y.— It just wasn't meant to be. After pushing the clear favorite Utah to the brink, the Colorado Buffaloes Ski Team fell just short of its ultimate goal and finished second at the 70th Annual NCAA Ski Championships with the 20K classic races closing out the event here Saturday at Mt. Van Hoevenberg.

Hanna Abrahamsson finished second and Magnus Boee fifth to earn first-team All-America honors and Weronika Kaleta and Will Koch picked up second-team honors to pace the Buffs on the day. Anna-Maria Dietze finished 11th, missing an All-America honor by just two-tenths of a second after an hour of racing.

"This was the closest that we have been in past couple of years to Utah," Interim Coach Jana Weinberger said. "We needed something very special to win, that did not happen, but for this team to get second place, that's nothing to be ashamed of or hang our heads about. We always want to win, that's our goal, and if a couple of different things would have happened, we could have won."

The Buffs did put together an impressive week, pushing Utah to the brink and beating perennial powers Denver, Vermont and Dartmouth handily. Utah scored 168 points on the final day to finish with 526 points and beat the Buffs by 34.5 points (491.5). Denver took third with 416.5 points while Vermont (343) and Dartmouth (335.5) rounded out the top five.

"I'm proud of this team throughout this entire championship I think everyone did their very best and we all tried our best today," Boee said. "Everyone tried their best and we just came up short. It just how it is but there's nothing we have to be ashamed or embarrassed about. I'm proud of what we've done."

"I feel like our season leading up to NCAA's wasn't the best," Boee continued. "We got at the last minute, a full squat into NCAA's, a lot of us really stepped up and pulled off some of our better performances at the championships. You need a little bit of luck as well to win a championship. And it's a little bitter to lose by one good race, we're just off by one race and it's just margins and it really could have gone the opposite way as well. You just keep trying and I think we have even better chances next year. The tides can turn, and we're hosting too. That would be a great way to regain our title."

Boee will return for his fifth season as already one of the most decorated skiers in CU history, and in all 10 of the 12 Buffs who skied at the Championships this week are expected to return. CU does say farewell to fifth year seniors Filip Forejtek and Kaitlyn Harsch on the alpine side, Forejtek winning two NCAA Championships in his tenure as one of the top men's alpine skiers in CU history.

Abrahamsson's performance on the final day was perhaps the most impressive. Utah's women's Nordic team features three World Cup and Olympian skiers, and she was the only skier in the field able to stay with that trio past the halfway point of the race. She eventually beat two of them, taking second place after an impressive sprint to the finish.

"I'm really happy with the results and I felt I felt really good during the race as well," Abrahamsson said. "I've never felt that I've had such support throughout the course, because everybody that was not a Utah fan was cheering for me because I was in there with three Utes. The race was a little stressful to be honest, because we were skiing really slow. It was very controlled until the last lap, but I tried to trust the process and I figured some people would drop off."

WHAT IT MEANS
The goal of the Colorado Buffaloes is to win the national championship in skiing every season. That said, given what this team had to overcome this season, extensive travel, injuries, illness and more, to push Utah to the brink and finish second is nothing to be ashamed of. This same team finished fifth at the NCAA Regionals two weeks ago, and improved to beat three of the four teams ahead of them as well as every central and east power at the championships. The future is bright for the program, and the Buffs should put a strong contender together for the 2024 season, which will culminate a year from now by hosting the NCAA Championships in Steamboat Springs.

UP NEXT
The 2023 season, the 79th in CU history, is now complete.

TEAM NOTES

Colorado has now won or finished second in 12 of the past 17 championships dating back to 2006 with four titles and eight second place finishes. CU is the only school to finish in the top four in each of those championships.
Colorado has 27 top two finishes over the past 55 seasons, tied with Utah for the most over that span.
Since 1990, CU has won eight titles, one behind Denver and two behind Utah.
With Utah's win, the Utes have won four straight titles dating back to 2019 (2020 was cancelled at the midpoint due to the COVID Pandemic). The RMISA has claimed the national champion in 26 of the last 28 years and 34 of the last 40 dating back to 1983 when the sport became coed.
The Buffs scored 79 points in the women's race and 56 points in the men's race for a total of 135 points to finish second with 491.5 points, 34.5 points behind champion Utah and 75 ahead of third place Denver.
The Buffs finished with 275 points in Nordic action, second-most in the field behind Utah (316) while Alaska Fairbanks finished third with 268 points.
The Buffs finished with 216.5 alpine points, good for third behind Denver (233.5) and Westminster (225), narrowly defeating Montana State (213) and Utah (210).
CU won the men's GS race and finished with the most points in giant slalom action with 139.5
CU scored the most men's points of the championship, scoring the second most points for men's alpine (124.5) and fifth most for Nordic men (111) for a total of 235.5, 8.5 ahead of Vermont (227) and 20.5 ahead of Utah (215).
CU scored the second-most points for women's skiers with 256 points behind Utah's total of 311. The alpine women scored 92 points and Nordic women scored 164 points.

ALL-AMERICA NOTES

The Buffs picked up four All-America honors on the day, two first-team and two second-team honors.
CU finished with 13 All-America honors in this championship, tied with Utah for the most. CU's seven first-team honors were second behind Utah's nine. CU's nine Nordic All-Americans were most in the field. CU's seven women's honors were second to Utah (8) but CU's six men's honors were most in the field.
CU now has 547 All-America honors in its history from 208 skiers, 309 men's honors from 121 skiers and 238 women's from 88 skiers.
CU now has 315 total first-team All-America honors, 178 men's and 137 women's honors.
Abrahamsson picked up two first-team honors with her second place finish on Saturday. She now has four honors out of four possible with three being first-team honors. She earned first-team honors in the 5K classic race last season and second-team honors in the 15K freestyle.
Kaleta picked up her second honor of the week, both second-team nods. She now has four honors in her career, all second-team, and this is the first championship she picked up honors in both races, previously earn9ing second team honors in freestyle in 2021 and classic in 2022.
Boee picked up a first-team honor, giving him two on the week, one first and one second team. He picked up second team freestyle honors in 2020, two first-team honors in 2021 and one first-team honor in 2022, giving him six total honors now (out of a possible seven) with four being first-team nods.
Koch picked up his second honor of the week, both second-team nods. He now has four honors in his career, all second-team, and this is the first time he picked up two at the same championship, having earned second-team honors in classic in both 2021 and '22.

WOMEN'S NORDIC NOTES

Hanna Abrahamsson finished second, picking up her 10th career podium appearance. She now has finished in the top seven in each of her 22 career races. This season she finished with nine top five finishes, seven podiums and one win. In her career, she has 18 top five finishes and one win among her 10 podiums.
Weronika Kaleta finished ninth and finished in the top nine in all six races this season that she finished with three top five finishes and one podium. In her career, she has finished 23 races with 17 top 10 finishes including seven top five and three podiums.
Anna-Maria Dietze finished 11th and missed out on a top 10 (and All-America honor) by two-tenths of a second, and she was just four-tenths behind Kaleta in ninth place. It was her first time outside the top six all season and she finished the season with 10 top 20s in 10 races, nine top 10s and eight top five finishes including four podiums and one win. In 42 career races, she has 41 top 20, 25 top 10 and 15 top five finishes with five podiums and one win.

MEN'S NORDIC NOTES

Magnus Boee finished fifth to give him five top five finishes on the season. He's finished in the top 20 in each of his 12 races this season with eight top 10 and among his five top fives are three podiums and one win. In his career, he has finished 47 races with 46 top 20, 41 top 10 and 33 top five finishes including 25 podiums and 15 wins.
Will Koch finished 10th giving him eight top 10 finishes on the season in nine races (he was 14th in the other race). In nine races this season, he also had one top five and one podium appearance. In his career, he has 28 races to his credit and 27 in the top 20, 19 in the top 10 and four in the top five with three podiums.
Oyvind Haugan finished 25th after missing the wax a little but, but he did move up from a seed of 38 to pick up points for the Buffs.

QUOTES

Jana Weinberger
"Yes, exactly. And you know, it was the closest that we ever been in past couple of years to Utah. We needed something very special to win, that did not happen, but for this team to get second place, that's nothing to be ashamed of or hang our heads about. We always want to win, that's our goal, and if a couple of different things would have happened, we could have won. Yesterday, slalom, anything can happen. There was some unfortunate things that happened, but they also happened to Utah. You can't say could have, would have, but I'm happy with this team's performance this week."

Magnus Boee
"I'm proud of this team throughout this entire championship I think everyone did their very best and we all tried our best today. It was a tricky day in terms of temperature and conditions for waxing, and that happens. But overall, I think everyone tried their best and we just came up short. It just how it is but there's nothing we have to be ashamed or embarrassed about. I'm proud of what we've done."

"I feel like our season leading up to NCAA's wasn't the best. We got at the last minute, a full squat into NCAA's, a lot of us really stepped up and pulled off some of our better performances at the championships. Everyone put up some decent results. You need a little bit of luck as well to win a championship. And it's a little bitter to lose by one good race, we're just off by one race and it's just margins and it really could have gone the opposite way as well. And it's not because somebody didn't try hard enough or anything, but you can't control everything. You just keep trying and I think we have even better chances next year. The tides can turn, and we're hosting too. That would be a great way to regain our title."

Hanna Abrahamsson
"I'm actually really happy with the results and I felt I felt really good during the race as well. I've never felt that I've had such support throughout the course, because everybody that was not a Utah fan was cheering for me because I was in there with three Utes. The race was a little stressful to be honest, because we were skiing really slow. It was very controlled until the last lap, but I tried to trust the process and I figured some people would drop off, and if nobody would've done anything the last, lap, I was going to."

NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM RESULTS (FINAL)— 1 1. Utah, 526; 2. Colorado, 491.5; 3. Denver, 416.5; 4. Vermont, 343; 5. Dartmouth, 335.5; 6. Montana State, 280; 7. Alaska Fairbanks, 268; 8. New Hampshire, 234; 9. Westminster, 225; 10. Middlebury, 215; 11. St. Michael's, 145; 12. Alaska Anchorage, 130; 13. Plymouth State, 104; 14. Harvard, 67; 15. Michigan Tech, 67; 16. Colby, 58; 17. St. Lawrence, 43; 18. Nevada, 21; 19. Northern Michigan, 20.5; 20. Bowdoin, St. Scholastica, and Williams, 0.

WOMEN'S 20K CLASSIC (40 collegiate finishers)— 1. Novie McCabe, UU, 1:00:04.3; 2. Hanna Abrahamsson, CU, 1:00:23.9; 3. Sophia Laukli, UU, 1:00:25.3; 4. Mariel Pulles, UAF, 1:01:20.9; 5. Sydney Palmer-Leger, UU, 1:01:31.2; 6. Jasmine Lyons, UNH, 1:02:05.3; 7. Ava Thurston, DAR, 1:02:37.3; 8. Jasmine Drolet, DAR, 1:02:53.4; 9. Weronika Kaleta, CU, 1:03:05.4; 10. Waverly Gebhardt, UVM, 1:03:05.8. Other CU Finisher: 11. Anna-Maria Dietze, 1:03:06.0.

MEN'S 20K CLASSIC (40 collegiate finishers)— 1. Remi Drolet, HAR, 54:54.6; 2. John Hagenbuch, DAR, 54:59.3; 3. Jacob Nystedt, UVM, 55:17.4; 4. Samuel Hendry, UU, 55:43.0; 5. Magnus Boee, CU, 55:46.1; 6. Joe Davies, UAF, 55:48.3; 7. Mike Ophoff, UAF, 56:13.7; 8. Bernhard Flaschberger, DU, 56:22.8; 9. Jack Lange, DAR, 56:30.1; 10. Will Koch, CU, 56:34.0. Other CU Finisher: 25. Oyvind Haugan, 1:00:30.1.

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Hanna Abrahamsson

Magnus Boee

Anna-Maria Dietze

Filip Forejtek

Kaitlyn Harsch

Oyvind Haugan

Weronika Kaleta

Will Koch

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