NCAA: Northern Michigan women finish 1-2-3

Lindsay Williams led a Northern Michigan sweep of the top three places in the women’s 5-kilometer freestyle event Wednesday at the NCAA Championships in Jackson, New Hampshire.
LINDSAY WILLIAMS led a Northern Michigan sweep of the top three places in the women’s 5-kilometer freestyle event Wednesday at the NCAA Championships in Jackson, New Hampshire.
    Williams, a 2006 Olympian and member of the U.S. Ski Team, powered to the national title in 13 minutes, 50.4 seconds. Morgan Smyth, also a member of the U.S. team and a three-time gold medalist at last year’s junior nationals, finished second in 14:06.6. Lindsey Weier, a two-time Olympian who finished third in the classic race at NCAAs last season, was third in 14:08.3.
    On the strength of its podium sweep and two top-15 finishers in Wednesday's men's race, Northern Michigan — which sends only cross-country teams to NCAAs — leads after the first day of the championships with 189 points. Dartmouth is in second with 166, followed by Denver (146), Utah (143) and Colorado (131).
    “We just raced hard as a team, and [coach] Sten [Fjeldheim] always tells us attitude and effort, so we went into it with a positive attitude, a ready-to-go, go-get-em attitude, and left it all out on the course,” Williams said. “I know that our team is really strong, so it doesn’t surprise me that much, but it’s just awesome that this really did happen. I was pushing hard the whole way, from the very beginning to the very end. I like this course a lot, it’s really fun. The first half is a climb to the woods uphill and you get to the top of the course, then its fun downhill. When you get to the stadium again you hammer it to the finish line.” 
    Denver’s Annelise Bailly, who won three freestyle races during the regular season out west, finished fourth in 14:23.8, and Utah’s Sara Schweiger was fifth (14:31.0).
    Colorado’s Maria Grevsgaard finished sixth, followed by Dartmouth racers Elsa Sargent and Sara Studebaker in seventh and eighth, Julia Coulter of Alaska-Fairbanks in ninth and Susan Dunklee of Dartmouth in 10th.
    Grevsgaard, who won a West-leading seven Nordic races this season, remained positive despite her sixth-place finish.
    "Today was a good race, it was a good start to this championship,” Grevsgaard said. “My best event this year has been classic so I'm really looking forward to that and to the mass start on Friday. This race is basically at sea level, so it's different than when you ski at altitude. At altitude it's so much harder to breathe and harder to ski. Here it's easier to breathe and easier to ski, but you feel like you are skiing so fast and you really aren't skiing fast enough so you have to work much harder. I fell a little bit into that trap today.”
    Colorado Nordic coordinator Bruce Cranmer said he was pleased with Grevsgaard's result but disappointed in the Buffs' mediocre finish as a team in the women's event. 
    “This wasn't the race we were obviously hoping for, looking at the results,” he said. “Especially when you factor in the potential for where we could have been and the reality of where we were.
    "I think Maria had a good race, she's been up there in skating, not winning all the races in the west. But sixth, that's close to where she would be if you factored in the NMU girls; 1-2-3 sweeps in any event are rare at NCAAs. She's not that far off from where she's been skiing, so that’s not exactly a disappointing effort."