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NCAA Ski Championships (Hosted by the Buffs in Steamboat Springs, March 9th-12th)

AztecBuff

AztecBuff

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Thought I'd start the thread now for next week's ski Championships, as the 1st articles and video I could find have been released. I (or I assume whoever else finds anything) will add more info (schedule, live timing links, etc.) as it becomes available.

No surprise at all, but the defending national champion Buffs were one of the eight schools given a full 12 skier team allotment for Steamboat. CUbuffs.com article with the news, and who the 12 are, is at http://www.cubuffs.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=600&ATCLID=210771009 . A general NCAA article on selections nationwide is at http://www.ncaa.com/news/skiing/art...omens-skiing-committee-announces-championship.
(Assume probably one of the toughest things for the Buff coaches each year is selecting which 3 athletes are going to compete in each of 4 disciplines (Men and Women each fielding 3 athlete Alpine and Nordic groups) during the championships out of the 6-8 athletes who compete in each of those races during the season.)

The start of the cubuffs.com article-
"
INDIANAPOLIS —The NCAA Tuesday announced the 148 student-athletes from 21 schools that will participate in the 2016 NCAA Ski Championships, the 64th annual championship, hosted by the University of Colorado in Steamboat Springs, Colo., from March 9-12. CU qualified a full 12-skier squad.

The Buffs squad will be on the younger side with just five upperclassmen, including four seniors and one junior to go along with three sophomores and four freshmen with five Buffs making their NCAA debuts. The dozen Buffs this season combined for 13 race wins, 32 podium appearances, 49 top five finishes and 78 top 10 finishes.
...
"
___________________________________________________

There is also a 7 minute 20 second video interview with Buff head coach Richard Rokos previewing the Championships at http://www.cubuffs.com/mediaPortal/player.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=600&id=5114607 .

___________________________________________________
Schedule (From http://www.ncaa.com/news/skiing/article/2016-01-24/2016-skiing-championship-schedule ), I added Mountain time (MT) conversion. (Times corrected 3/9/16)-
Wednesday, March 9
Men’s Giant Slalom, 1st run – 11 a.m. Eastern (9:00 AM MT)
Women’s Giant Slalom, 1st run – 11:45 a.m. Eastern (9:45 AM MT)
Men’s Giant Slalom, 2nd run – 2 p.m. Eastern (12:00 MT) ???
Thursday, March 10
Women’s 5k Freestyle – 11:00 a.m. Eastern (9:00 AM MT)
Men’s 10k Freestyle – 12:30 p.m. Eastern (10:30 AM MT)
Friday, March 11
Women’s Slalom – 8:30 p.m. Eastern (6:30 PM MT)
Men’s Slalom – 9:15 p.m. Eastern (7:15 PM MT)
Saturday, March 12
Men’s 20k Classical – 11 AM Eastern (9:00 AM MT)
Women’s 15k Classical – 1 p.m. Eastern (11:00 AM MT)

Note- Schedule with links to live results and video available at http://www.cubuffs.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=600&ATCLID=210781667 .

Live free video of the races will be available through- http://www.ncaa.com/liveschedule

Various twitter links-
CU Skiing- https://NOPE/cubuffsskiing
RMISA (CU's Conference)- https://NOPE/rmisa

SCORING- Just because I forget how skiing is scored every new year, wanted to quote what I wrote in the thread for last year's NCAA championships-
"Scoring in NCAA Skiing- the top 30 finishers of each race earn points. The scores earned for the top 8 finishers from 1st through 8th are 40 (for 1st place)-37-34-31-29-27-25-23. After that, the 9th through 30th places earn one point less for each lower place finish, so for example 9th place earns 22 points, 10th place 21 points, etc., all the way down to the 30th place finisher, who earns 1 point."
(Note-at the NCAA championships, teams can only bring 3 athletes of each gender for each type of skiing (Alpine and Nordic), so all their finishes count. For these earlier season races with more than 3 racers per team competing in each event, only the top 3 finishers for each team get their finishes counted when calculating their team's score.)
 
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Cubuffs.com official preview article now out and available at http://www.cubuffs.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=600&ATCLID=210784227 .

"
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — The 63rd Annual NCAA Skiing Championships are set to begin here Wednesday, with defending champion Colorado looking to be the first school to win back-to-back titles in six years.

The Buffaloes are looking for their 21st national crown in the sport, and back-to-back titles for the first time since 1998-99. Denver is the last team to repeat, doing so three straight years from 2008 to 2010. CU is coming off a second-place finish in the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association championships, an event that also doubled as the NCAA West Regional.

Colorado has had a bit of a rollercoaster ride this winter, but still managed to win one invitational (New Mexico) and finish second in three others. Injuries, illness and some personal matters took a greater toll than in recent years, and just when it appeared the Buffs would be back at full strength, the team lost senior Jessica Honkonen to a knee injury in the first day of alpine training here last Saturday.

“Going back to the beginning of the season, we had a blend of a new team and an old team,” CU head coach Richard Rokos said. “This was actually a very unique situation, we have very little middle ground on the Alpine side. We have four newcomers and seven actually departing so it’s very unique. On the Nordic side, it’s not such. We have one graduating and the rest are all new freshmen or juniors. The season has been interesting to the degree that we have had injuries and have gone through some trials and tribulations, not having a (healthy) full team ever. The NCAA’s would have been the first time we had everyone in the same place at the same time and then we lost Jessica. But it will be interesting.”

CU, Utah and Denver were the dominant teams in the west this winter, with just 202 points separating the schools over the four regular season meets plus the regional; it was even closer between the Utes (3,187 points) and the Buffs (3,138). Utah won three meets with CU and the Pioneers splitting the other pair. In the east, Vermont won four of the six carnivals as they term them, with Dartmouth claiming the other two. All five of the aforementioned schools qualified full 12-skier teams and count all among the favorites in Steamboat.

...
"
 
The Championships have begun!

Live timing for the Men's Giant Slalom (GS), the 1st race, available at http://ussalivetiming.com/race/usa-co-mt-werner-ncaa-championships_2152.html , and direct link to the live video is http://www.ncaa.com/live/player?vid=2016/2323&date=2016/03/09 .

The agony of defeat already hitting one skier, as last year's GS individual champion, from Middlebury College, has already skied off the course. 2 Buffs safely down so far, but they are 2 of the slower finishers out of the ~10 who've made it down early in the 1st of 2 runs. (Looks like there are 34 skiers competing in total in the Men's GS.)
 
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Buffs definitely need to do some work on the men's GS, as they are 16th, 19th and 30th after the 1st run. Hope they can move up some in the 2nd run.

(As reference, last year's cubuffs article for the GS races that year were that they were "disastrous almost all around" for the Buffs, and the men finished 6th, 16th and DNF, and the women 11th, 19th and 21st. OF course, the Buffs won the overall championships anyway, so no one race will be "THE" determining factor. However, with the Nordic teams maybe not quite as deep/ experienced as last year overall, I assume it will help a lot of the CU Alpine side can provide more points this year.)

Live timing for the women's GS, which is just about to start its 1st run, will be at http://ussalivetiming.com/race/usa-co-steamboat-ncaa-championships_2153.html .)
 
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Women in a little better shape than the men after the 1st run, as they're in 4th, 16th and 23nd. DU and Utah, who are the Buff's main competition from the West, both in much better scoring position, however.

Edit- Per video feed, 2nd runs will start at 11:30 AM MT.
 
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Not looking like it's going to be a good GS result for the men, as the fastest 1st run Buff skies out. With ~1/2 the racers down, a Buff has the fastest 2nd run, but unfortunately he had problems in the 1st run, so probably will still probably finish in the 20's overall.

On the bright side, the 1st Ute down also had issues, so will not be earning many points.
 
Obviously a LONG way to go with only one of eight races completed, but doesn't look like a good start for the Buffs with the men's GS. I have them earning ~30 points in the GS vs. 40 last year. Conversely, the probable main competition for the overall championships, Utah and DU, VERY unofficially did marginally better (+7 Utes, +3 DU) than last year. (Of course, with the margin of error in Alpine skiing being so small, and changing rosters, comparing one year to another probably has limited value.)

And, the women's GS 2nd and final run is about to begin.
 
And we have the Buffs 1st VERY good individual result. Congrats to freshman Tonje Healey Trulsrud, who earns a podium 3rd place finish in the women's GS!
 
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The women's GS is over, and UNOFFICIALLY looks like the Buff's finish with a solid ~59 points, or 17 more than they earned in the women's GS last year. Unfortunately, the overall favorite Utes got solid results from all 3 of their skiers (they finished 8th-10th), and earn 66 points. Although DU got a win from their superstar Kristine Gjelsten Haugen, and unofficially earned the most points (67) of the 3 overall favorite schools, they didn't dominate as much as they often do. (One of their skiers had problems in her 2nd run and didn't earn any points.)

I'd say none of the 3 western favorite schools either dominated or knocked themselves out of the overall championship hunt today, but Utah will probably be happiest about their performances overall. In their most recent victory over the Buffs in the recent RMISA Conference/ NCAA West Regional Championships, the Utes (who beat the Buffs overall by 34 points overall), only scored 14 more points than the Buffs in the GS, while they outscored them by 34 points unofficially today, even with the points overall being harder to earn with the Eastern schools added to the field. The Utes also outscored the Buffs by quite a bit in Nordic overall at the RMISA's, so earning less points than them today in Alpine can't make the Buffs coaching staff happy. DU will probably be overall leader overnight, but again didn't gain as many points as they would have wanted from the Utes. DU may be satisfied with their ~34 point lead over the Buffs, however.

Note- it looks like the main contender from the East, Vermont, had problems in the Men's GS, so their title chances took a little hit there. The 4th team from the west, New Mexico, didn't get great points from either the men or women' GS, and typically don't have the Nordic team the other 3 western powers have, so their chances of winning the overall championship decreased some also.

Note- I'll post again later today when official results are posted. (I'll be interested to see how much those results will vary from the unofficial ones I've been using.)
 
Article on today's action- http://www.cubuffs.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=600&ATCLID=210788389 . (Because they were a heavy underdog, I never even mentioned Montana State in earlier posts, but they definitely earned themselves an outside chance for a podium finish with their great day today.)

"
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — The defending national champion University of Colorado ski team will have to rally from behind if it wants to be the first school to repeat in six years, as the Buffaloes had a near-disastrous day in the giant slalom and opened in fifth place.

Montana State ended the first day of competition with its first-ever lead at any stage of the championships since it went coed in 1983; the Bobcats amassed 148 points to own a 10-point lead over Denver (138). Utah, this year’s NCAA West Regional champion, holds third with 123, followed by Dartmouth (92), the Buffaloes (88.5), New Mexico (80.5) and East region champ Vermont (76).

MSU, which was the point-leader in both the men’s and women’s races Wednesday, is just the 10th different school to hold the first day lead (as well as at any point), with the 10-point margin the smallest since 2006, when New Hampshire held a 1½-point lead over Denver.
...
NCAA Skiing Championships (2 of 8 events)— 1. Montana State 148; 2. Denver 138; 3. Utah 123; 4. Dartmouth 92; 5. Colorado 88½; 6. New Mexico 80½; 7. Vermont 76; 8. Alaska-Anchorage 68; 9. New Hampshire 63; 10. Middlebury 48; 11. Colby 25; 12. St. Michaels’ 23; 13. Williams 11; 14. Plymouth State 8.
...
"
 
These freestylee races always seem a little wierd with their (30 second) interval starts. Some racers are still starting while the 1st racers out have already finished.
 
Unofficially, looks like a couple great individual Buff finishes in the Women's Freestyle Nordic race, with Ms. Hyncicova finishing with a 2nd (I believe one of her best ever finishes), and Ane Johnsen also earning (2nd Team) All-American status with a 9th place finish.

In the team race, looks like the Buffs may have lost a little more ground, as their 3rd skier looks to have finished outside the points, while it looks like most of their main competitors (except DU) finished 3 racers in at least the top 15. Montana State continuing to bring it, as they get 1st, 4th and 13th. Utah gets 3rd, 6th and 11th; DU gets 7th, 8th and 25th. The Buffs probably did easily move into 4th overall, as Dartmouth didn't earn many points at all.
 
All the racers in the Men's FS have now started with the 30 second stagger start, and 1st racers are in.

Great to see that, after no tweets yesterday, CU ski twitter is alive today and giving some cool pictures and short video.
 
Congrats to Mads Strøm (or Stroem on the cubuffs roster)- NCAA Champion!
Looks like Buff freshman Petter Reistad will also earn All-American honors with a great race, as he's showing in 6th with only a few racers out on the course.

 
In the team race, looks like a back to back overall national championship is looking less likely for CU. As with the women's race, the Buffs don't get the monster points they need in the Men's FS, as their 3rd racer finishes just outside the points. (He came in 31st, with top 30 racers earning points.) I don't think the Buffs lost any more significant ground against the schools ahead of them in this race, but I don't believe they gained significant points either. (The following is not right; see below "EDIT"- From behind, however, I think New Mexico may have (??? I'm totally guessing) just passed CU to take over 4th place overall by just a few points, as they had a great race from their men's FS team, with 2nd, 4th and 9th place finishes from their 3 skiers.)

EDIT- I totally screwed up re New Mexico above. It was Northern Michigan (NMU) who probably won the points total for the Men's FS, not New Mexico (UNM). New Mexico didn't get many points at all in the men's FS (Unofficially I have them only earning 16), so the Buffs are still comfortably in 4th.

I believe I heard in some championships preview the Buffs are generally stronger in the last 2 races of these championships (the slalom for the Alpine skiers and the longer (15Km for women and 20Km for men) classical Nordic races), so hopefully they can show some great fight and at minimum gain a team podium finish when all is said and done Saturday afternoon, as well of course earning some more great individual All-American finishes. (And, of course, especially with the minute margin of error between victory and agony inherent in Alpine skiing, anything can still happen tomorrow.)
 
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Article on today's action- http://www.cubuffs.com//ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=600&ATCLID=210790780

"
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — A strong Nordic showing thanks to a win and a runner-up finish helped the defending national champion University of Colorado ski team move up a spot into fourth place here Friday as the 63rd NCAA Skiing Championship reached the midway point.

Montana State maintained its lead, extending it from 10 to 18 points as the Bobcats have 282 team points through four of eight events. Utah overtook Denver for second place, but just barely as the NCAA West Regional champion Utes have 264 points and the Pioneers 263; Colorado is the only other team over 200 as the Buffaloes have 214.5. East region champ Vermont is in a distant fifth with 154.

MSU, which was just the 10th different school to hold the first day lead, as well as at any point since the sport went coed, became only the seventh to be in front at the midway point, joining (in order) Wyoming, Colorado, Vermont, Utah, Denver and Dartmouth. The Bobcats have never finished higher than seventh at the NCAA’s, which they have done twice, in 2012 as the host and last year at Lake Placid.
...
NCAA Skiing Championship Team Scores (4 of 8 events)— 1. Montana State 282; 2. Utah 264; 3. Denver 263; 4. Colorado 214½; 5. Vermont 154; 6. New Mexico 139½; 7. Dartmouth 126; 8. Alaska-Anchorage 124; 9. Northern Michigan 122; 10. Middlebury 81; 11. New Hampshire 75; 12. Alaska-Fairbanks 38; 13. Colby 30; 14. St. Michaels’ 23; 15. Williams 21; 16. Michigan Tech 19; 17. Plymouth State 8; 18. St. Scholastica 6. Have not scored: Bates, Harvard, Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Women’s 5-Kilometer Freestyle (40 finishers)— 1. Anika Miller, MSU, 13:06.1; 2. Petra Hyncicova, CU, 13:14.0; 3. Sloan Storey, Utah, 13:14.1; 4. Cambria McDermott, MSU, 13:15.5; 5. Emilie Cedervaern, UNM, 13:18.9; 6. Natalia Mueller, Utah, 13:19.2; 7. Taeler McCrerey, DU, 13:19.5; 8. Linn Eriksen, DU, 13:19.7; 9. Ane Johnsen, CU, 13:20.8; 10. Mary Kate Cirelli, UVM, 13:23.6. Other CU Finisher: 32. Jesse Knori, 14:10.0.

Men’s 10-Kilometer Freestyle (40 finishers)— 1. Mads Stroem, CU, 22:06.8; 2. Ian Torchia, NMU, 22:17.4; 3. Moritz Madlener, DU, 22:26.6; 4. Adam Martin, NMU, 22:35.2; 5. Saywer Kesselheim, MSU, 22:35.4; 6. Petter Reistad, CU, 22:41.9; 7. Nick Hendrickso, Utah; 22:47.4; 8. Lars Hannah, DU, 22:56.9; 9. Jake Brown, NMU, 23:02.9; 10. Jack Hegman, UVM, 23:03.7. Other CU Finisher: 33. Arnaud DuPasquier, 24:25.3.

"
 
In the Men's slalom after 1 run out of 2, 2 of 3 Buffs had great runs and are in 1st and 5th. (The 3rd must have had a big error and and had to go hike back up the hill a bit, as he's in last and almost 15 seconds behind the leader.)
 
Still unofficial, but Buff women all seem to have solid to great 2nd runs and move up in the final standings from their 1st run positions.

Special congrats to freshman Nora Grieg Christensen. After being a last minute addition to the team when senior Jessica Honkonen hurt her knee a few days before the championships, Ms. Christensen has the fastest 2nd run of anyone in the field, and uses that to earn 1st team All-American status with a 5th place overall finish!

Looks like the other 2 Buffs are going to end up 15th and 16th. While not a disastrous point performance, also not the "great" result that would be needed to gain significant ground on the top 3 schools in the hunt for an overall podium finish.
Note- yesterday's overall leader Montana State didn't score that many points (10th and 19th place finishes), so assume their 18 & 19 point lead over the Utes and Pioneers has been greatly decreased if not lost.

Hopefully the 2 Buffs near the top of the timing after one run in the Men's slalom can combine that with 2nd great runs to score strong for the Buffs.
 
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Buffs unofficially have 2 more 1st team All American performances as Henrik Gunnarsson gets 2nd place overall (losing the individual national championship by an agonizing .02 seconds) and Max Luukko earns a 5th place finish in the men's slalom!

After a tough 1st day, nice comeback by both the Men's and Women's Alpine teams tonight to improve their scores from the 1st day overall by quite a bit.

(After saying above Montana State (MSU) lost the lead after the women's slalom, they come back strong on the men's side and get 6th-8th place, so may (???) have a SLIM lead back over DU or at minimum be VERY close to them, although DU did have the individual race winner so had at minimum a good evening themselves. EDIT- if my VERY unofficial calculations are right, DU still has a lead over MSU going into tomorrow's final (Nordic) races, but by a very tenuous 17 points or so.)
 
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The Men's Classical Race has begun (just went over the 1/4 mark after the 1st of 4 5Km laps completed). Direct link to live video- http://www.ncaa.com/live/player?vid=2016/2345&date=2016/03/12

Direct link to live timing- http://summittiming.com/live_results/data/live_results_for_men.html

For any of you who just love sports in general for the competition and excitement of it all, this championships has some great stories.

1) The Buffs in 4th are probably too far back in points to win the championships, but will be trying to hunt for a podium position, although the team in front of them, the Utes, are also very strong in the classical races, so will be hard to catch.

2) The Utes are a ways behind the leaders DU, but are also the traditionally strongest Nordic team, while DU was the lowest scorer of the current top 3 in the recent RMISA championships.

3) Then, maybe most intriguing of all is the Montana State story. Per the NCAA history listing which shows champions and runners-up all time, they've never even finished in 2nd in the overall championships, so with them only 15-1/2 points behind DU, they could definitely make history and earn great glory for the Billings school today.
 
Article on yesterday's slalom action- http://www.cubuffs.com//ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=600&ATCLID=210790780

"
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — Despite three Buffaloes earning All-America honors here Friday night, the defending national champion University of Colorado ski team remained in fourth place through six of eight events in the 63rd NCAA Skiing Championships.

Denver wrestled the lead away from Montana State, which had led after each of the first four events. The Pioneers moved from third into first and go into Saturday’s final two races with 405.5 points to 390 by the Bobcats. Utah slipped back into third place with 362 points, with the Buffaloes fourth with 340.5. The four continued to pull away from the rest of the 23-team field, as Dartmouth is a distant fifth with 257 points.

“Too little too late – we have a little ways to go,” CU head coach Richard Rokos said. “We closed the gap a little bit. For the most part, we had a good race.”

Colorado has come from far behind to win it all before; in fact, in 2013 at Middlebury, Vermont led after each of the first three days had a 54-point lead over the Buffaloes going into the final two events (Nordic freestyle). CU went on to pull off the largest final day rally in the history of the NCAA’s to take home the title, winning by 43 points over Utah and 55 over the Catamounts, meaning a whopping 97-point turnaround on the final day.

So trailing by 65 points might not be out of the question, but it would take another historic rally by the Buffs to defend their title.
...
NCAA Skiing Championship Team Scores (6 of 8 events)— 1. Denver 405½; 2. Montana State 390; 3. Utah 362; 4. Colorado 340½; 5. Dartmouth 257; 6. Vermont 250; 7. New Mexico 207½; 8. Alaska-Anchorage 174½; 9. Northern Michigan 122; 10. New Hampshire 118; 11. Middlebury 103; 12. Colby 70; 13. Williams 52; 14. St. Michael’s 50; 15. Alaska-Fairbanks 38; 16. Plymouth State 27; 17. Michigan Tech 19; 17. Plymouth State 8; 18. St. Scholastica 6. Have not scored: Bates, Harvard, Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Women’s Slalom (33 finishers)— 1. Julie Mohagen, Utah, 1:29.63; 2. Laurence St.-Germaine, UVM, 1:30.00; 3. Monica Huebner, DU, 1:31.06; 4. Mardene Haskell, Colby, 1:31.15; 5. Nora Christensen, CU, 1:31.24; 6. Kristine Haugen, DU, 1:31.27; 7. Alexa Dlouhy, Dart., 1:31.58; 8. Kelly Moore, Dart., 1:31.61; 9. Hannah Hunsaker, Williams, 1:31.64; 10. Jocelyn McCarthy, MSU, 1:31.66. Other CU Finishers: 15. Tonje Trulsrud, 1:32.07; 16. Thea Grosvold, 1:32.48.
Men’s Slalom (33 finishers)— 1. Erik Read, DU, 1:24.66; 2. Henrik Gunnarsson, CU, 1:24.68; 3. Brian McLaughlin, Dart., 1:24.82; 4. Dominique Garand, UVM, 1:24.85; 5. Max Luukko, CU, 1:25.41; 6. David Neuhauser, MSU, 1:25.48; 7. Garret Driller, MSU, and Morten Bakke, MSU, 1:25.59; 9. Guillaume Grand, St. Michael’s, 1:25.71; 10. Endre Bjertness, Utah, 1:25.76. Other CU Finisher: 33. Ola Johansen, 1:40.09.

"
 
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