March 09, 2012 (Bozeman, Mont.) – Junior Miles Havlick claimed his first career national title in the men’s 20km classical race to help the University of Utah ski team maintain second place in the team standings after the third day of the NCAA Championships at the Bohart Ranch.

“Today was incredible. It was like a dream,” Havlick said. “Conditions were perfect. The sun was shining and my skis could not have been better. Huge thanks to Kevin [Sweeney] and Abi [Holt] for their hard work this week. This team has been unbelievable this season. Huge thanks to everyone for making it up to Bozeman and supporting us. It’s been an amazing week and season.”

Havlick earned his first career national title by 1.5 seconds over Montana State’s David Norris with UVM’s Franz Bernstein taking the final podium spot 15s later. This was Havlick’s second win of the season and the sixth of his career and he is now a five-time All-American. The Boulder, Colo., native has finished third or better 11 times this season and 19 times over her career.

“It feels amazing,” Havlick said. “It’s been a goal of mine for a long time.  I’m super psyched it happened today.  David [Norris] and I have been going back and forth all year and I went down at the end of the second lap and tried to work my way back up, stay relaxed and not freak out.  David had a great race, he had a little gap, I knew I had to get up to him.  I caught him with about 2km to go, we worked together until the sprint at the end and I was able to get it.”

“It was great out there today,” Norris continued. “The course is amazing and everything was really smooth, I skied how I wanted to.  With all my friends here and people traveling here, it’s fun having everybody cheer for you.  I tried to hammer up the big hill to see if I could pull away, but Miles hung on.  I knew if I was hurting, he was hurting.  I tried to get away but he hung on and then won the sprint.”

Both pulled away from Vermont’s  Bernstein, who rounded out the podium in a time of 56:40.8 while Dartmouth’s Eric Packer (57.05.2) beat both Middlebury’s Patrick Johnson (57:07.1) and Utah’s Didrik Smith (57:07.5) in a sprint.  Johnson and Packer earn first-team All-America with Smith earning second-team honors.

The west dominated the second team honors garnering four of the five.  After Smith, Colorado’s Rune Oedegaard took seventh in a time of 57:32.3, edging out Denver’s Andrew Dougherty (57:34.3) while Dartmouth’s Sam Tarling took ninth in 57:41.8 and Sjur Prestseater 10th in 58:00.4.

The Utes have scored 522 points in the meet and maintain their second-place position by 12 points over Dartmouth. Vermont is in first place heading into the final day with 614 points through three events, 98 points ahead of Utah.

Women’s Race

The women’s 15km classic was much more dramatic as Vermont’s Amy Glen duked it out with Dartmouth’s Sophie Caldwell. The two were neck and neck all the way to a photo finish that determined Glen as the race victor. The two colleges claimed the historic feat of securing the top six spots in a championship Nordic race between only two schools for the first time ever.

It was Glen’s second photo finish of the season as she was the runner-up behind teammate Lucy Garrec at the Dartmouth Carnival in similar fashion. But in this instance she was declared the winner by a margin of less than two inches in distance or the blink of an eye in time, for the first collegiate race victory of her career.

She attributed her success to more than just skill, hard work, and good equipment, “I got lucky, I guess. [This title] stands for my team. We definitely feed off each other, and it’s been awesome.” Caldwell showed no signs of disappointment in her second place result when she remarked, “I’m still really excited because it was a fun race, probably the most fun I ever had.”

Garrec was also pleased with her third place finish and ecstatic with the placement of her teammates as well as the three skiers from Dartmouth. She said, “We never know. We always think maybe we’re not skiing at the same level as the girls in the West. So you know you can be in the mix, but that doesn’t always mean third or fourth; it could also mean eighth.” Rounding out the historic top six sweep were Dartmouth’s Annie Hart in fourth, Vermont’s Caitlin Patterson in fifth, and Big Green skier Erika Flowers in sixth.

Highly favored RMISA athletes Maria Graefnings of Utah and Eliska Hajkova of Colorado both struggled and finished seventh and tenth, respectively.

Full results HERE.

With files from Utah Skiing, C.J. Feehan and Curtis Snyder