Gabriel Rivas
Buffs Ski Away From Field, Win Montana State Invitational
BOZEMAN, Mont. — Five more top 10 finishes, led by junior Gabriel Rivas’ third place effort in the men’s slalom, paved the way for the University of Colorado ski team to win the opening meet of the winter, as the Buffaloes claimed the Montana State Invitational here Sunday afternoon.
Colorado won the meet with 903 points, outdistancing New Mexico (835) and Denver (822). Utah claimed fourth with 713, followed by Alaska-Anchorage (706), Nevada (608) and Montana State (599); with Whitman and Wyoming dropping out of NCAA-sanctioned competitions, there are just seven schools in the west with NCAA programs.
CU did not have an individual winner in any of the eight events, a bit unusual, but was buoyed by 21 top 10 efforts, while New Mexico managed 16 and Denver 12. The Buffs did have four runner-up finishes.
The win was the 48th in 118 meets under 20th year head coach Richard Rokos, his seventh in a season opener; it was only CU’s second season opening win since 1999.
“Our goals aren’t changing, the first is to qualify as many skiers as possible for the NCAA Championships and improve those seeds of those who have qualified,” Rokos said in noting the Buffs have already qualified a handful of performers after just one meet. “But winning a meet of this kind does help to build our confidence.
“It is good to see the guys skiing fast overall, and we have the potential to ski well against anybody,” he continued. “The girls were good again, consistent again and in general are skiing well. The good thing is we still have some room for improvement. The Nordics performance in this meet was nothing short of outstanding, so we are off to a good start.”
http://www.cubuffs.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=600&ATCLID=204870601
:thumbsup: