Utah wins home invitational to kick off RMISA season

The University of Utah rallied from behind in Monday’s final day of Nordic competition at its home meet to claim the opening invitational of the 2016 RMISA season. At the conclusion of the alpine races contested Jan. 4-6, the University of Denver Pioneers held a two-point advantage over the University of Colorado Buffaloes, but the Utes were eyeing a come-from-behind charge. 

The alpine men started off 2016 at Park City Mountain Resort, where Denver’s Erik Read immediately make his mark on the season by winning the first run by more than a half-second, a gap he maintained in the second run to win by 0.52 seconds over Colorado’s Ola Johansen.

Read won his second collegiate race in just his fifth collegiate outing. Last season in four races, he hit the podium three times and was seventh in the other race. 

Giulio Bosca from Westminster College claimed third place just ahead of his teammate Tim Lindgren. Montana State’s Garret Driller of the N-UNI Team rounded out the top five. 

In women’s slalom action, a most familiar name topped the results as Denver senior Kristine Haugen won the race by 0.69 seconds. Haugen didn’t ski away from the field in either run, but she was the only skier to put together two top finishes for the combined victory. She topped fellow Norwegian skiers Julie Mohagen of Utah and rookie Tuva Norbye of her very own Pioneers. 

In fact, Norwegian women accounted for eight of the top 10 results on the day. Colorado’s Tonje Trulsrud was fourth, New Mexico’s Karoline Myklebust fifth, Thea Grosvold of Colorado eighth, Benedicte Lyche of Montana State ninth, and Utah’s Chloe Fausa (pictured above) 10th. 

More than half of Denver’s squad was sidelined by illness for the women’s giant slalom, and both Colorado and Utah capitalized on the Pioneers’ misfortune. 

“We were hit hard by food poisoning after day one and had to leave more than half the team in bed for the women’s GS,” said Denver’s head alpine coach Andy LeRoy. “By no means did we show our best skiing, but it is early and there were plenty of good turns made by all.”

Utah’s Fausa led the charge by claiming a victory 0.89 seconds ahead of Colorado’s Trulsrud. Frenchwoman Marie Aufrere of Westminster College rounded out the podium in third. Things could have been worse for Denver, but their two skiers who could race managed to place inside the top 10 with Norbye fourth and Monica Huebner eighth.  

“I could not be more excited for Chloe to open the season with a collegiate victory,” Utah head alpine coach Jaka Korencan said. “She skied very well technically and really deserves this win. The rest of the girls are still not feeling comfortable on this hill and have been skiing tentatively. However, the team is showing huge potential and I really believe we will turn things around very soon.”

Colorado continued to close the margin on Denver the next day as the men once again took to the hill. This time the Buffs’ Johansen got the better of Read as they swapped places on the podium from their slalom results. Utah rookie Ty Sprock of Nevada made an immediate impact on the circuit by claiming his first podium in third place, scoring a season-best 18-point result in the process. 

“Ola is a great skier and he has a good background,” Colorado head coach Richard Rokos said. “He was injured, so I didn’t know exactly how well he would do. He had no firm expectations coming in and he exceed all expectations. He’s very mature, a good skier and consistent.  Those three things for a college skier is like finding gold.”

Heading into the Nordic events at Soldier Hollow, Denver held a two-point lead over Colorado, 320 to 318. The Utes certainly had their work cut out for them with only 268 points collected before the freestyle races. 

Utah started off by claiming the men’s 10K interval start freestyle race on Sunday as Nick Hendrickson outpaced Colorado’s Mads Stroem and Denver’s Moritz Madlener for the win. New Mexico’s Emilie Cedervarn topped Denver newcomer Linn Eriksen by almost five seconds, and Utah’s Veronika Mayerhofer rounded out the podium in third. 

The Utes needed every bit of a one-two finish in the women’s 10K classic race to complete their comeback at Soldier Hollow and win their own invitational, the first meet of the 2016 to come to completion.

The race was as close as it can be between the host Utes, who entered the day in third place but just six points behind Denver and Colorado, who were tied for the lead. But a 1-2-7 performance in the women’s race, racking up an impressive 102 points, surged the Utes past both the Buffs and Pioneers to take the meet.

Colorado’s Mads Stroem collected his first win of the season in the men’s race to open the day, just 1.3 seconds ahead of Utah’s Niklas Persson. Denver’s Madlener finished third.

In the ladies’ race, two Utes created their own drama at the finish line as Sloan Storey edged out Mayerhofer by just 0.20 second for the win. Colorado, without two of its top female skiers, managed to hit the podium with Petra Hyncicova taking third, 16 seconds behind Storey.

“Today was a great day!” Storey said. “Earlier this week Veronika and I were dreaming about what would happen if we decided to take off together in the mass start and go for the one-two finish. Today we made it happen! Right away I knew that we had good skis and that if we took advantage of them and skied our race with efficient technique and use each other we could gap the field. We also received extra motivation from the coaches’ splits of our teammates not far behind. It was so much fun being able to ski the entire race with my amazing teammate, and to get to show off all the hard work we had done this fall as a team.”

Utah’s third scorer was Natalia Mueller in seventh place and for good measure, the Utes had four of the top nine finishers with Josefin Nilsson taking ninth. Utah outscored Colorado by 27 points to turn the 14 point deficit into a 13 point win.

When all was said and done, the Utes scored 632 points to Colorado’s 619, and Denver took third with 579 points. Montana State was fourth with 492 points, New Mexico fifth with 479 and Alaska Anchorage finished sixth with 384 points. Associate members Westminster (258) and Colorado Mountain College (73) rounded out the team scoring.

The alpine portion of the Montana State Invitational was completed this past weekend, and Nordic skiers take on Bohart Ranch Jan. 17-18.

Release courtesy of RMISA