Utah, Dartmouth, Middlebury qualify full teams for NCAAs

Utah is the only team from the West to qualify a full team of 12 for the NCAA Championships, while East powers Middlebury and defending NCAA champion Dartmouth also will send 12 skiers to Montana for the championships scheduled for March 5-8.
    The Utes qualified three skiers in each of the four disciplines, while Colorado and Denver each qualified 11 skiers and Alaska-Anchorage and New Mexico 10 apiece. Vermont qualified nine, while Nevada and New Hampshire each qualified eight.
 
UTAH IS the only team from the West to qualify a full team of 12 for the NCAA Championships, while East powers Middlebury and defending NCAA champion Dartmouth also will send 12 skiers to Montana for the championships scheduled for March 5-8.
    The Utes qualified three skiers in each of the four disciplines, while Colorado and Denver each qualified 11 skiers and Alaska-Anchorage and New Mexico 10 apiece. Vermont qualified nine, while Nevada and New Hampshire each qualified eight.
    Colorado earned the top seeded skier in three of the four qualifying disciplines and in five of the eight races. On the nordic side, CU’s Maria Grevsgaard earned the top seed in both the freestyle and classic races while Kit Richmond accomplished the same on the men’s side.
    On the alpine side, four skiers from four schools earned the same rights as CU’s Lucie Zikova is the top slalom seed while Malin Hemmingsson from New Mexico earned the top giant slalom seed. Utah’s Tague Thorson is the top men’s slalom seed while Denver’s John Buchar is the top giant slalom seed.
    The women’s nordic qualifying was the most spread out in the league as all eight schools sending a skier to NCAAs will be represented in the women’s nordic races while the total number of qualifiers is the lowest of the four disciplines, as well. Utah and Colorado were the only two teams to qualify three skiers in the women’s nordic while Denver, New Mexico, Nevada and Montana State each had two and Alaska-Anchorage and Whitman one. Men’s nordic saw five schools qualify a full team including Alaska-Anchorage, Colorado, Denver, New Mexico and Utah while Montana State got two and Nevada one.
    Along with men’s nordic, men’s alpine saw the most schools qualify a full team with Alaska-Anchorage, Denver, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah all qualifying three skiers while CU got two and Montana State one. Women’s alpine was similar as Alaska-Anchorage, Colorado, Denver and Utah qualified a full three while Nevada and New Mexico earned two apiece and Montana State one.
    The 2008 RMISA Most Valuable Skiers also were announced, with Grevsgaard (nordic) and Zikova (alpine) of Colorado winning in their respective disciplines.
    Raphael Wunderle of Alaska-Anchorage earned the RMISA honor for men’s nordic, and Francesco Ghedina of Denver earned the honor for men’s alpine.
    Click here to view all the NCAA qualifiers from the RMISA and their seeds .

    Click here to view the full list of NCAA qualifiers from across the country .