UMass men, Sierra Nevada women earn USCSA titles

With an unproven women’s team and a solid men’s lineup, taking home a USCSA title seemed inevitable for Sierra Nevada — for the men, anyway. But when hip checks, prereleased skis, and DNF’s plagued the Sierra Nevada men, a title was not in the cards.
With an unproven women’s team and a solid men’s lineup, taking home a USCSA title seemed inevitable for Sierra Nevada — for the men, anyway. But when hip checks, prereleased skis, and DNF’s plagued the Sierra Nevada men, a title was not in the cards.
    “The men were dominant coming into the championship,” said Sierra Nevada head coach Branko Zagar. “When I set up this team, I set it up for the men to win because they haven’t won nationals for the past few seasons.”
    What Zagar didn’t expect, especially after a frustrating season for the women, was that his women’s squad had a plan of its own. Swedes Jessica Bouleau and Martina Hulten won the slalom and GS respectively, and led Sierra Nevada to a women’s USCSA championship at Sunday River, Maine, beating out Colby-Sawyer and University of Massachusetts-Amherst.  
    “The girls skied well. They really put it together,” Zagar said. “We have been practicing the whole year for this and they skied smart and pulled one out.
    “Bouleau won all of the races in Tahoe so I knew she was going to be a key player. Hulten is a really strong GS skier so I knew she was going to be in there. But Caroline [Bergstrom] has been struggling a bit this season, Laura Hoff is coming off an injury along with Peterson who hasn’t skied in almost a year because of injury. So like I said, I was not expecting to win.”
    The men also have had their share of disappointments this season. Top skier Tyson McGinty tore his ACL just three weeks before nationals and New Zealander Mickey Ross was pulled for eligibility reasons. Former Czech National Team member Matyas Mlziva gave the team a blip of hope for the men after winning both the GS and slalom by a considerable amount.
    “Mlziva was skiing the whole season right in there with Ross and McGinty,” Zagar said. “I was expecting him to be our top athlete. He’s young but he’s used to the pressure because of his national team experience. I knew he could deal with the weekend, so he did his job well.”    
    With the Sierra Nevada men’s team out of the running, Massachusetts-Amherst took advantage of an opportunity to clinch the men’s title for the first time in the university’s history.
    “I really didn’t expect us to win,” said Skip Fox, head coach at UMass. “I was really pleasantly surprised. We had been battling Plymouth State all year and I knew they would be hard to beat. I put the fastest guy first and the second-fastest guy second and away we went. We had great fortune and everyone finished. That did the trick for us.”
Jason Small, who scored a second place in both the GS and slalom, led his team to victory over Plymouth State and Sierra Nevada, but it was a team effort that clinched the title.
    “Small fell a lot during the season but he stood in both races and scored a couple of great results,” Fox said. “[Andrew] Hawes was the second best skier for UMass both days staying in the top 10, Ian [Hohmeister] was also top 10 in the GS and Matthew Small was top 10 in the slalom. It was definitely a team effort. They skied like a team and that’s why we won.”
    With many years having passed since an Eastern team has won the USCSA title (23 years according to Fox), the coach and his team were excited to end the drought.
    “We were on cloud nine,” Fox said if his team’s victory. “In fact, we still are all on could nine.”
    With Small graduating this season, Fox said he’s focusing on recruiting and chasing more national titles.
    “Getting some new skiers on the team is key to success,” Fox said. “Success brings talent, and having success like this turns heads.”
    For the nordic-alpine combined, also known as the President’s Cup, St. Olaf easily clinched the title.
    With surprising victories, hard snow, spirited athletes and an enthusiastic spectator turnout, the USCSA’s 30th anniversary championship proved to be as competitive as ever.
    “They did an impressive job of running the race this weekend,” Fox said of the organizers at Sunday River. “And I can’t say we didn’t have an advantage being from the East Coast — the snow was as hard as a rock.”
    Click here for a link to complete results .