Cone, Huebner honored as USCSCA Alpine Skiers of the Year

By Published On: April 22nd, 2015Comments Off on Cone, Huebner honored as USCSCA Alpine Skiers of the Year

BOULDER, Colo. – The United States Collegiate Ski Coaches Association (USCSCA) announced the winners of its annual Coaches of the Year as well as its inaugural selections for Skiers of the Year last Thursday.

Four skiers were honored, men and women in both alpine and Nordic disciplines, and all four come from four different schools – two each from Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association (RMISA) in the west and Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association (EISA) from the east. Two are freshmen and two are sophomores.

Middlebury’s Rob Cone was honored as the National Men’s Alpine Skier of the Year and Denver’s Monica Huebner was honored as the National Women’s Alpine Skier of the Year. On the Nordic side, Dartmouth’s Patrick Caldwell earned National Men’s Nordic Skier of the Year honors and Utah’s Veronika Mayerhofer was named National Women’s Nordic Skier of the Year.

Colorado’s Richard Rokos earned the National Alpine Coach of the Year honor and Bruce Cranmer earned the National Nordic Coach of the Year honor.  Both helped the Buffaloes claim the 2015 NCAA Championship a month ago in Lake Placid, N.Y.

Cone, a sophomore, was stellar for Middlebury, capping his season by claiming the individual NCAA Championship in the giant slalom race at Whiteface Mountain, his fourth GS victory of the season. He dominated the eastern circuit, winning three races and taking second and third in two others in GS action. He was also solid in slalom, taking second place three times and had four total podium appearances in the discipline.

The top-ranked GS and No. 2 ranked slalom skier out of the EISA, Cone earned the GS Leader Award from the EISA and was a first-team selection. His victory in the GS race at the NCAA Championships enabled Middlebury to win that race as a team. That individual title was the first men’s GS title for Middlebury and the first men’s alpine title since 1989 when Robert MacLeod claimed the slalom title. Cone then placed 10th in the slalom race at the NCAA Championships to earn two All-America honors, one first and one second-team.

Huebner, just a freshman, had a dominant season for Denver that ended with her atop the podium. As the individual NCAA Champion in the slalom event, she was also the runner-up in the giant slalom race at Whiteface Mountain, earning two first-team All-America honors. She is the third Pioneer in the last five seasons to win the women’s slalom title. Huebner, who hails from Germany, earned the Women’s Alpine MVP and was named the Women’s Alpine Skier of the Year for the RMISA while also earning first-team honors and helping the Pioneers to a second-place finish at the NCAA Championships.

The top-seeded women’s alpine skier out of the RMISA, Huebner finished her rookie year outside the top 10 just once in 14 races. She ended the season with four wins, all in slalom, and had nine podium appearances. In her seven slalom races, she was on the podium all seven times with those four wins, two runner-ups and one third place.  She had two podiums in GS races as well, including the NCAA Championships.

Caldwell, a sophomore, won the NCAA Individual Championship in the men’s 10K freestyle race in Lake Placid, Dartmouth’s third winner in that race (all coming since 2008), joining Glenn Randall and Sam Tarling.  Caldwell also finished 10th in the 20K classic race at NCAAs earning two All-America honors, one first and one second-team.

Caldwell won both races at the EISA Championships, taking the freestyle race by 36.9 seconds and the classic race by a whopping 2 minutes and 24 seconds. On the season, he won six races and finished second in two others. He was the top-seeded skier out of the EISA in both freestyle and classic disciplines heading into the NCAA Championships.

Mayerhofer, a freshman from Austria, capped a brilliant season for the Utes by claiming the individual NCAA Championship in the 5K freestyle race and finishing second in the 15K classic race, earning two first-team All-America honors in the process. She is the fourth Utah skier to win the freestyle race at NCAAs, including three in the past five seasons after Maria Graefnings repeated as freestyle champion in 2011-12. Mayerhofer didn’t finish outside the top 4 in any of her 12 races on the season, winning four and taking second place five other times. She had one third-place and two-fourth place finishes on the season.

The No. 2 ranked skier out of the RMISA for women’s Nordic, Mayerhoffer earned the Women’s Nordic MVP honor as the only skier to finish in the top five of all 10 races leading up to NCAA Championships. Her win in the 5K freestyle race at the NCAA Championships was by an impressive 13.2 seconds, and her second-place finish in the 15K classic race was by just over one second in a sprint finish.

Rokos capped his 25th season with Colorado, claiming the eighth NCAA Championship in his time there.  He broke a tie with the Buffs’ Bill Marolt, who won seven titles all consecutively from 1972-78, for most titles at Colorado and is now third all-time behind Denver’s Willie Schaeffer, who won 13 titles from 1954-70, and Utah’s Pat Miller, who claimed nine championships from 1981-97.

With a slim seven-point lead entering the final day of the NCAA Championships, Rokos’ six alpine skiers all safely completed two runs apiece to help the Buffs secure their third championship this decade and third straight in the east, also winning in 2011 and 2013.

Cranmer led the Buffs dominant Nordic squad, who once again claimed the mythical Nordic championship at NCAAs, racking up 306 points as a team, 35 more than any other. Five of the Buffs’ six Nordic skiers at the NCAA Championships both earned two top-10 finishes and all claimed two All-America honors.

CU men’s Nordic duo of Rune Oedegaard and Mads Stroem finished 1-2 in nine of the 10 races leading up to the NCAA Championships and then finished 2-3 and 3-4 in the two races at NCAAs, as the CU men outscored all other teams at the Championships. Cranmer has seen his team score more points on the Nordic side in seven of the last 12 NCAA Championships, the only seven times the Buffs have accomplished that feat since skiing went coed in 1983.

Release courtesy of USCSCA, photo courtesy of Middlebury Athletics

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