Buffs Quest For 21st National Title Begins Wednesday

LAKE PLACID, N.Y.—Every time St. Lawrence University has hosted the NCAA Ski Championships at Lake Placid, the Colorado Buffaloes have come away as National Champions, and the 2023 version of the CU Ski Team hopes to make it four-for-four here this week at Whiteface Mountain and Mt. Van Hoevenberg in a quest to win the program's 21st national championship.

CU is one of four fully qualified teams in the 22-team field here this week at the 70th Annual NCAA Championship. Racing begins on Wednesday with the giant slalom races at Whiteface Mountain. The women get things started at 7 a.m. MT/9 a.m. ET followed by the men's first run at 8:15 a.m. MT/10:15 a.m. ET with second runs in the early afternoon. Thursday will be the 5K women's and 10K men's freestyle races, an interval start race that begins at 8 a.m. MT/10 a.m. ET.

Slalom races are on tap for Friday and the Championships will conclude Saturday with the 20K classic races.

The 12 skiers representing the Buffs in Lake Placid are one of the most experienced teams the Buffs have ever sent, with 11 of the 12 skiers having participated in the NCAA Championships previously, including 10 last season.

The men's alpine team trio of Jacob Dilling, Louis Fausa and Filip Forejtek are all threats in both races and have proven as much over the course of the season, with Dilling and Forejtek both winning races and Fausa most recently picking up his first two podium appearances in Alaska at the end of the season. This is Forejtek's fifth appearance at the NCAA Championships and he is the defending individual champion in the giant slalom, while it's Fausa's third and Dilling's second appearance. Dilling is the only skier from the RMISA to hold a top seed position in both disciplines this year.

The women's alpine team is represented by Elena Exenberger, Emma Hammergaard and Kaitlyn Harsch. Hammergaard has become one of the top women's alpine skiers in the nation. Harsch came back for her fifth season after earning All-America honors at the end of her senior season in the NCAA Championships in Park City. Exenberger turned in one of the more clutch performances in CU history, winning the final run of the final race before these championships to surge into the final qualification spot for the RMISA. She had three top 10 performances in Alaska and in the final slalom race, the trio all finished in the top nine. Exenberger is the sole newcomer to NCAAs as Hammergaard has skied three times previously and Harsch once.

On the Nordic side, the women's team is one of the top in the nation with Hanna Abrahamsson, Anna-Maria Dietze and Weronika Kaleta all putting together their best collegiate seasons and skiing together for the second straight championships. Abrahamsson and Dietze are regular finishers in the top five and each won a race and Kaleta had an abbreviated collegiate season competing at both World University Games and the World Championships, where she just finished her racing before heading to Lake Placid.

The men's Nordic team is one of the more experienced, as well, with Magnus Boee, Oyvind Haugan and Will Koch all returning to the NCAA Championships. Boee is in his fourth season at NCAAs, Koch his third and Haugan his second. Haugan didn't ski for the Buffs in 2022, but this is the trio that represented CU in 2021 when Boee won both individual NCAA Championships. The team as a whole has battled illness and a lot of travel, but hope to be peaking at the right time in Lake Placid.

The main competition for the Buffs are the usual suspects of Utah and Denver in the west and Dartmouth and Vermont in the east. The Big Green, Catamounts and Utes are also here with full 12-skier teams. Denver is one skier short, but was the most recent example of winning a championship without a full squad, doing so in 2008 with 11 skiers. CU also accomplished that feat in 2006, but each of the last 14 titles have come from a team with a full squad.

College skiing has been dominated by four of those teams with the Buffs (17 titles, nine seconds), Utah (14, 12), Vermont (6, 18) and Denver (14, 6) accounting for 51 of the past 55 team championships and 96 of the 110 top two finishes in that span. Dartmouth is the only other active team to crack the top two in that timeframe, winning two championships, while defunct programs Wyoming and New Mexico make up for the rest.

Since the 1990 season, Denver and Utah each have nine championships and the Buffs eight with Vermont accounting for four of the other six with only New Mexico (2004) and Dartmouth (2007) winning in that time frame. The west has won the last nine championships, 25 of the last 27 and 33 of the 39 dating back to the sport becoming coed with the addition of women's skiing in 1983.

This is the fifth time Lake Placid has served in some sort of hosting fashion and the fourth time hosting the entire championship, the third for NCAA Championships while also hosting the AIAW Championships the lone time CU's women won that national championship. CU won the 1982 AIAW, 1982 NCAA and 2015 NCAA Championships in Lake Placid, the last three hosted here by St. Lawrence.

Additionally, Lake Placid was favorable for this group of Buffs, which was 14 skiers compete at the World University Games here in mid January and those 14 skiers racked up nine medals. Prior to Lake Placid, the Buffs had earned six World University Games medals in its extensive history with the event.

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Hanna Abrahamsson

Magnus Boee

Anna-Maria Dietze

Jacob Dilling

Elena Exenberger

Louis Fausa

Filip Forejtek

Emma Hammergaard

Kaitlyn Harsch

Oyvind Haugan

Weronika Kaleta

Will Koch