Skiing takes ninth overall at NCAA championships

The 2011 NCAA Ski Championships were all about revenge. After finishing in the runner-up position three years in a row, the University of Colorado (CU) finally got to hoist the winner’s trophy this past weekend. A prolific skiing power, the Colorado Buffalos now have 18 national ski titles in their trophy case. The final podium spots were taken by the University of Utah (UU) in second, and Dartmouth College in third.
Middlebury sent eight skiers to contest the NCAA races: five Alpine and three Nordic. The Panthers finished the Championships in ninth place, finishing right behind east-coast rival University of New Hampshire (UNH). The Middlebury men’s Alpine team provided the most impressive performances of the Championships. Behind the strong skiing of a young team, the Panthers were fifth in the GS and sixth in the Slalom.
UVM played host for this year’s NCAA Ski Championships. The Nordic and Alpine races were held at Trapp Family Lodge and Stowe Mountain Resort, respectively.
The first races of the Championships were held on Wednesday, March 9. Originally, the plan was that the Nordic races would be held on Wednesday and Friday, while the Alpine races would take place on Thursday and Saturday. However, due to bad weather in the forecast, Thursday’s Alpine races were moved up a day.
The packed day of racing kicked off with a 10km skate race for the Nordic men. Right from the start, Dartmouth established themselves as contenders to repeat their victory of 2007. The Big Green dominated the race, placing all three of their skiers in the top-5; Dartmouth was lead by Sam Tarling, who took the individual win.
Chase Marston ’12 was the top Middlebury skier, finishing 31st in an extremely strong field. First-year standout Ben Lustgarten ’14 was not far behind, placing 37th. To illustrate how stacked the race was, there was just over two-and-a-half-minutes between the first and last place finishers. Both Marston ’11 and Lustgarten ’14 were competing in their first NCAA Championship.
In the women’s 5km race, Dartmouth continued to impress with the second place team score, but it was CU that took the top honors. Maria Graefnings, a Swede who races for the UU, took the individual victory; while, Eliska Hajkova, of the Czech Republic, racing for CU, was second. Middlebury’s sole racer, Corinne Prevot ’13, had a solid race to place 25th in her first NCAA appearance.
Over on the trails of Stowe Mountain, the Alpine racers contested a Giant Slalom (GS) race. In the men’s race, the western schools dominated the team scores with the University of New Mexico (UNM) taking the victory, closely followed by CU and UU. Seppi Stiegler of the University of Denver (DU) won the race.
Middlebury first-year Rob Cone ’14 was not far off Stiegler’s pace, however; Cone just missed out on a podium finish in his first NCAA’s, finishing in fourth; he earned All American honors for finishing in the top-10. Andrew McNealus ’13 was the next Panther finisher in 20th place, while Hig Roberts ’14 crashed but still managed to finish in 32nd. The Middlebury men ended the day with an impressive fifth place team finish.
In the women’s GS race, CU took the top team score with three skiers in the top-six. However, DU kept its winning streak alive when Norwegian racer Ida Dillingoen, won the race. Seniors Nicole Dvorak ’11 and Tasha Woodworth ’11 finished right next to each other in 24th and 26th places, respectively.
“Times were tight today”, said Alpine Coach Stever Bartlett, “the slightest miscalculation cost time and places.”
At the end of the first day of racing, CU held a slim lead over Dartmouth, while UU was third. Middlebury was in ninth, right behind rival UNH.
When racing action returned on Friday, the Nordic skiers raced 15/20km classic mass-start races. Unfortunately for athletes and coaches, the weather was anything but cooperative; with temperatures in the 40’s and a steady rain coming down, finding the right skis and wax was an unenviable task.
The women’s race went off first for three laps around a 5km course that features a lot of gradual climbing and tricky transitions. Wednesday’s winner (Maria Graefnings) and runner-up (Eliska Hajkova) broke away from the rest of the pack and battled each other for the win. Ultimately, it was Hajkova who took the victory after putting in a surge up the final hill that Graefnings could not match. For the Panthers, Prevot ’13 finished in 38th place.
In the men’s race, CU was again on top, when dark-horse Reid Pletcher surprised many to take the individual victory. Pletcher was joined on the podium by Erik Bjorsen of the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), and teammate Vegard Kjoelhamar, who was second in Wednesday’s skate race. Marston ’12 had a great final race of the Championships to lead the Panthers with a 16th place finish. Lustgarten ’14 wrapped up his stellar first-year season finishing in 37th place.
The NCAA Championships concluded on Saturday with a Slalom race for the Alpine skiers. Because of the snow and rain earlier in the week, the conditions for the Slalom race were quite tricky, and many top competitors fell victim to the bumpy course.
In the women’s race, DU took the top-two podium spots and the top team score with Sterling Grant and Lindsay Cone in first and second, respectively. UU was second in front of CU, but the difference was not enough to challenge CU’s overall lead. After a slow first run, Dvorak ’11 laid down a blazing second lap to finish 16th on the day. Middlebury’s other skier, Woodworth ’11 straddled a gate and was disqualified on her second lap.
CU clinched its NCAA victory in the men’s Slalom race when they took the top team score. East-coast skiers shined in the difficult conditions with Tim Kelly of UVM taking the host school’s only first place of the Championships.
McNealus ’13 led the Panthers with an impressive sixth place finish to give Middlebury its second All American of the week. Roberts ’14 and Cone ’14 both had fast first runs, but had to hike on their second runs to finish in 23rd and 26th respectively. The Middlebury men earned a sixth place team finish for the day.
Bartlett praised McNealus’s ’13 performance, saying “it was not an easy day to ski well. Andrew skied fundamentally well and put together two great runs.”