Skiing grabs eighth at NCAAs

Author: Martin Breu

At the NCAA championships this past week, the western ski schools showed that they are the real forces in national collegiate skiing. Strong finishes from the western universities relegated the first eastern school (UVM) to fifth place. The University of Denver stormed to a prominent overall win on the last day of competition, breaking up what had been essentially a three-way tie with UVM and UNM going into the final nordic race. University of Colorado capitalized on an especially strong final day to clinch second, while the University of New Mexico completed the podium in third.

The Panthers concluded their season with an eighth-place finish in the 2009 NCAA Championships hosted by Bates College.

The championships were scheduled to start on Wednesday, March 11, but rain and high winds forced race organizers to postpone the alpine races by a day. When competition resumed on Thursday, both the alpine and nordic racers hit the slopes. The alpine teams raced an icy giant slalom course where Billy Wagner '09 had a great race, which amounted to the only podium finish of the championships for the Panthers. Bobby Poehling '11 raced well to record a top 20 finish, in 19th place.

Mattie Ford '09 led the Panther women with a 12th-place finish, just a half-second out of the top ten. Nicole Dvorak '11 also had a good race to finish 15th; Natasha Woodworth '09 placed 23rd. David Donaldson '12 of UVM and Lindsay Cone '12 of SLU took the individual wins on the day.

On the nordic trails, the icy tracks made for a fast 5- and 10-km classic race. Fortunately, the Panthers found the right wax and posted some great results with Simi Hamilton '09 in seventh and Elise Moody-Roberts '12 in 11th. The rest of the nordic team also performed well with Patrick Johnson '11 and Robyn Anderson '09 placing 23rd and 27th, respectively. Classic specialist Juergen Uhl '09 of UVM won the men's race, while Antje Maempel '11 of Denver took the women's title.

Going into the second day of competition, Denver held a tiny lead over the second-place underdog, UVM. The alpine teams were back in action with a tough slalom race that proved troublesome for quite a few athletes. Wagner led the Panthers with his second All-American placing of the championships finishing eighth; this result makes him a five-time All-American in his four years as a Panther.

"One of our strongest team values is perseverance, and Andrew demonstrated that by finishing so well at NCAA's after having a mediocre season," said Alpine coach Stever Bartlett.

Unfortunately, Ford was again just outside of her goal of an All-American finish with 13th place. Dvorak contributed good points to Middlebury with her 22th place finish, while both Poehling and Woodworth crashed but still finished. The individual winners were Gabriel Rivas '12 of Colorado and Malin Hemmingsson '10 of UNM.

Capitalizing on strong alpine results, UVM entered the final day of competition with a slim lead over Denver and UNM. The final race of NCAAs was a mass-start freestyle race of 15km for women and 20km for men. Hamilton had another great race to lead the Panthers with a ninth place finish and his second All-American placing of the championships. Johnson had a strong race to take 15th place despite having a pole broken by another skier. Moody-Roberts also suffered from a broken pole that relegated her to a bittersweet 15th place finish after skiing most of the race with the lead pack of skiers; Anderson hung tough for 26th place. Vegard Kjoelhamar '11 of Colorado took first place in the men's race, while Maempel of Denver made it two for two winning the women's race.

The final day of racing proved to be too trying for UVM, who slipped from first to fifth on subpar results; Dartmouth was the next eastern school in the rankings with a seventh-place finish.

Middlebury's eighth-place finish put the Panthers in third place for the East, the same position they held in the final college carnival of the year at Colby.

In review, Coach Bartlett emphasized Wagner's performances but said "[that] the rest of the crew put their best foot forward and skied solid performances, but fell short of reaching their true potential."

The '08-'09 ski season was a exciting one for the Panthers with its "share of ups and downs" but both the alpine and nordic teams are looking forward to next season.