March 13, 2015 (Lake Placid, NY) – New Mexico’s Emilie Cedervaern took home the women’s 15km CL title by 1.5s at the 2015 NCAA Championships as she battled with Utah’s Veronika Mayerhofer who landed on the podium again this time in second place. Denver University’s Sylvia Thorson Nordskar claimed third another 10s behind.

Fo the men’s 20km CL race it was Michigan’s Fredrik Schwencke (NMU) edging out Colorado’s Mads Ek Stroem at the line by a mere 0.6s with Rune Malo Oedegaard, also from Colorado Univ., in third at 7.1s behind the winner.

University of Colorado currently tops the standings with a 7-point lead over the University of Utah as the University of New Mexico sits in third at 54 points behind Utah – full results below.

University of Colorado Report

The University of Colorado enjoyed a second dominant day in Nordic competition here Friday, and in the process, wrestled the lead back from rival Utah as the 62nd NCAA Skiing Championships are now three-quarters complete.

The Buffaloes led the Utes by 24 points after Wednesday’s freestyle races, but Utah had the better go of it in the giant slalom Thursday to take a four-point lead at the midway point.  CU countered with five top nine finishes in the classic cross country races, one more than the Utes, and jumped back into the lead with 388 total points to Utah’s 381.

The seven-point is tied for the third closest margin between the top two teams with two events remaining in the last 25 championships; Vermont led eventual champion by two points in 2009; CU led by five in 2006 before running away with the title in 2006; and Utah held a seven-point margin in 1997 en route to the title.

At present, it appears to be a two-school race, with New Mexico a distant third with 327 points, followed by defending national champion Denver (290) and Vermont (272).  However, with the always challenging and often treacherous slalom races to close this year’s event, nothing can be taken for granted, especially after 20 skiers didn’t finish the giant slalom; one or two falls could open the door.  But barring total disaster, CU is in position to win its 19th NCAA title or Utah its 11th, which would mean NCAA championship No. 472 for the Pac-12 Conference.

“The Nordies got the lead back for us, now it’s up to the alpine team in slalom,” CU head coach Richard Rokos said.  “It will be an exciting day for certain, and a lot of strategy will have to go into each race.  You have to be smart measuring risk versus reward, especially with just a seven-point differential going on.”

In the men’s 20-kilometer classical race, CU’s literal 1-2 punch of senior Rune Oedegaard and sophomore Mads Stroem, the duo that finished first or second nine times this winter, nearly pulled it off but had to settle for second and third behind Northern Michigan’s Fredrik Schwencke, who won in 56 minutes and 12.3 seconds.  He just nipped Stroem in the end in an all-out sprint by six-tenths of a second (56:12.9), while Oedegaard survived a spill and took third in 56:19.2.   Sophomore Jackson Hill finished 36th in 1:00:46.6 to round out the CU effort.

“It was tough – I thought maybe there would be smaller packs earlier in the lead,” Stroem said.  “We tried every lap in the uphills, but people were able to come from behind and get you in the stadium.  I think we skied fast from the beginning, in the end there were four people, and it came down to a pretty hectic sprint finish.

“I’ve never experienced this many people at a race,” he continued.  “ I thought I had it, I had the lead down the straight away before the final turn into the finish, but Fredrik got me on the last corner, we both almost fell, but Rune went down with Aku (Nikander) from UNM, it was total anarchy.  If there wasn’t a huge turn before the finish, where I almost got disqualified, I would’ve had a finish (win).”

There were mild protests against several skiers, but no Friday the 13th bad luck came into play in the end as no one was disqualified.

“Of course I wanted to win both races, I’m good enough to do it,” Stroem concluded.  “But it’s tight at the top.  Today was fair conditions for everybody, Wednesday (freestyle race) really wasn’t.”

Stroem and Oedegaard both earned their second first-team All-America honors this week, as they were third and fourth in the freestyle.

“I felt good today, I think we had a great race, it was high paced form the beginning and really fun to be in,” Oedegaard said of his collegiate finale.  “In a mass start, instead of people just looking at each other, they just went for it.  Unfortunately it started snowing on the last lap, and it slowed down.  I asked for softer kick today to have really good kick to conserve energy on the uphills, and that back fired a little when it started snowing.  My tactic was to gap the field on the last lap, to really go for it, but after it started snowing, I felt that wasn’t the best plan – the New Mexico guy tried to do that, but he couldn’t gap anything.”

It remained a tight foursome until the last major hill, and unfortunately the separation was created by his fall.

“It was just a crazy show down the last steep downhill,” he continued.  “I wanted to be first down the last hill – there were tons of crashes there both today and in training.  If I was first, at least if I fell, it was just me falling and not me falling over somebody else.  But on the last section, I was at the disadvantage, they could pass me, but I didn’t stress out about it, I felt I could win in a sprint, I took a couple of guys around the last corner, but then fell right before the last straightaway.  I was on the inside track and the UNM guy was on the inside of that track, if anybody lost anything on that fall, it was me.  He was a half-meter behind me, and he fell into me.  You’re still just thinking about finishing, you can’t lay down and feel sorry for yourself, you have to get up and finish.”

Oedegaard also completed his Colorado career with a record 36 podiums (including a record 19 wins by a male skier) in 44 overall races.

“It’s been an awesome ride, I wouldn’t’ change it for anything,” he said.  “It was the time of my life all four years, I did great all four years, you can get sick, so much can happen, I’ve been lucky with my teammates all the way.  Of course I wanted to get one individual win this weekend, but to get third is okay.  It’s not why I came here, but there are always surprises at NCAAs, a lot of things happened in those last 50 meters.”

In the women’s 15k that opened the day, the Buffalo women placed all three skiers in the top 10 for the second straight race (actually the top nine), the sixth time this winter for the trio.

Sophomore Maja Solbakken again was CU’s top finisher, her time of 48:55.5 netting her fourth place and the first-team All-America honors that went along with it.  Freshmen Petra Hyncicova was sixth in 49:05.8 and Ane Johnsen ninth in 49:26.2; both earned second-team All-America honors to go with similar nods in the freestyle race.

The women’s race also came down to a sprint finish, with New Mexico’s Emilie Cedervaern winning 47:40.3, about a second-and-a-half ahead of Veronika Mayerhoffer.  But Solbakken needed to win a sprint to capture fourth over Utah’s Sloan Storey, who would finish half-a-second behind her.  It meant a four-point swing in the standings.

“It was really great, a really good team effort, seeing my ‘Buffalinas’ around me in the end felt really good,” Solbakken said.  “Utah was in the lead, of course we wanted to win, we knew there were important wins, I knew when I came to the finish and there was a Utah girl in front of me, I had to win the sprint.”

“I’ve been really sick and almost didn’t come to NCAAs,” Johnsen said; Friday was just her third race since January due to illness.  “So I’m really surprised and happy that I came out of here with two top 10 finishes and that I could help the team as much I did.”

“The girls were solid, they skied as well as we could hope, having three in the top 10 again is great,” CU Nordic coordinator Bruce Cranmer said.  “Maja getting fourth, having her best race at NCAA’s is awesome.  Ane had been a little off of her best, so having her in the top 10 was a boost, and having the guys both on the podium was good to see.  They always want a win, but those aren’t easy to get.  The only thing we would have liked was to have Jackson scoring some points, but some days it isn’t all there.  Overall we’re happy, it’s a great field, the top guys are really, really good.

“We did good on skis and wax, from a coaching perspective, that’s always the most stressful part.  You always want to get as big of a cushion as you want, slalom is always a roll of the dice.  We did what we could – we brought the lead back.”

“They said Mads took one or two many skate steps to change direction,” Cranmer said of one of the protests.  “The course is set for lapping and not finishing, so when he turned to come into the finish instead of lap, I thought he had one stumble step in there, and that can happen with the wax.  From my perspective, I’ve done all the TD (technical) stuff, too, I would’ve said it was borderline, they thought it was a little beyond that.  I didn’t think it was that bad – if you look at World Cup, you see that stuff all the time.  He got a yellow card basically, I certainly don’t’ think it rose to the level of a DQ (disqualification).  A lot of times officials aren’t athletes and they don’t know the  intensity of what goes on in certain areas of a race, when you’re finishing and you’re tired, and guys are moving around and you’re trying not to fall.

“I don’t think Rune was in position to get better than third, it looked like he just kind of fell, tripped, lost his balance, when you’re going as hard as you can after 20K, things happen,” Cranmer added.  “He wouldn’t fall to do anything, there are a lot of things in ski racing that can happen that aren’t very specific.  He has big shoes for somebody to try and fill, he’ll definitely be missed.  Rune’s been great to have on the team.”

Colorado was the leader in Nordic points here with 306, besting Utah’s 271; it marks the seventh time, all under Cranmer’s tutelage, that the Buffaloes topped all other schools in the NCAA championship.

“We have a really strong Nordic squad, the girls were on fire out there and they had the best race of their season when it counted most,” Stroem said.  “They were all top 10 again, Rune and I were two and three, and overall we put up a lot of points.  Hopefully we can maintain that in slalom, and we’ll definitely be out there cheering them on tomorrow.”

The slalom races will finish off the NCAA meet on Saturday: the men’s first run is up first at 7 a.m., with the women’s first run at 8 a.m.; the second runs follow at 10 a.m. (men) and 11 a.m. (women).

Results

Women
1. Emilie Cedervaern (UNM) 47:40.3
2. Veronika Mayerhofer (UU) 47:41.8
3. Sylvia Thorson Nordskar (DU) 48.51.3

Men
1. Fredrik Schwencke (NMU) 56:12.3
2. Mads Ek Stroem (CU) 56:12.9
3. Rune Malo Oedegaard (CU) 56:19.2

Team
1. University of Colorado 388.0
2. University of Utah 381.0
3. University of New Mexico 327.0

Women’s Day 2 XC

Men’s Day 2 XC

Team Score