Anchorage, Alaska — Apparently taking a day off didn’t hurt Emilie Cedervärn. The junior from Sweden in her first year at UNM picked up her second win in three days, claiming her fifth consecutive podium by defeating Utah’s Veronika Mayerhoffer by 7.8 seconds in the women’s 5K Classical at Kincaid Park in Alaska. That win was one of four top 10s recorded by UNM’s Nordic squad on the day as the Lobos sit in third place after six of eight events.
Utah has the lead through six events with 466.5 points, and Colorado is next at 438.5. New Mexico is third with 430, Denver fourth at 378, Alaska Anchorage is fifth at 369 and Montana State is sixth at 341. Rounding things out is Westminster College with 121 points and Colorado Mountain College with 22.
After a day off on Tuesday to allow some standing water on the course to freeze, Cedervärn came right back after her 5K freestyle win on Monday. The win marked the fifth Nordic win in the last two years for UNM, as Eva Sever Rus, who finished seventh today, won three times last year. All of those wins for Sever Rus were in the freestyle, as was Cedervärn’s on Monday.
The classical win for Emilie was the first for a Lobo since Polina Ermoshina did it at the UNM Invitational on February 5, 2010, and she is the first Lobo women’s Nordic to win both Nordic races in the same meet since Martina Stursova won both the freestyle and classical at the UNM Invitational in 2005. She is the first UNM skier to ever pull off the feat away from UNM’s home course.
Sever Rus, looking just about fully healed from an early season back injury skied well to a seventh place finish, picking up 25 points for UNM. Jessica Gnüchtel was UNM’s third skier, coming in 18 ( 16th collegiate) and Anni Nord was 25th (23rd collegiate).
“Emilie skied great and she is really dominating right now,” said head coach Fredrik Landstedt. “Eva skied well and was very close to fifth. I was also pretty happy with the men’s race, because Aljaz and Aku will both move up.”
In the men’s Nordic race, Mats Resaland continued his solid senior season with a sixth-place finish, and Aku Nikander was strong in ninth in just his second race of the season. UNM got good support with Aljaz Praznik returning from a shoulder injury that kept him out Monday. Praznik finished 14th and teammate Christian Otto was solid in 19th as he recovers from an illness. Like Praznik, Otto missed Monday’s race. Kyle Beling, fresh off the first collegiate points of his career, finished 34th (29th collegiately).
Wednesday also saw the start of the alpine competition as both men and women had slalom races from Alyeska Resort, and much like the Nordic side, the UNM women finished very strong. Sydney Staples, who could easily be the Most Improved winner for the nation, let alone UNM, finished fourth, tying her career-best finish. It also marked her seventh top-10 finish of the season after having just one as a freshman last year.
Staples was fourth after her first run and did nothing to hurt her position. Joining her in the career-best category was Sara Ottesson. One day after her birthday, she finished seventh overall after a pair of top-10 runs. UNM’s other scorer was Taylor Grauer in 16th, one off her career-best finish. She was 11th after her opening run and stumbled a bit in the second after a slight bobble but still came home clean with a top-20 finish. Her run loomed large when Mateja Robnik DNFed in the opening run and Courtney Altringer did likewise in the second.
On the men’s side, Juho-Pekka Penttinen finished 10th as UNM’s men’s alpiners rebounded from a rough opening run to finish with three top-20s. Carl-Johan Öster was 13th and Sean Horner was 16th as all three Lobos had solid second runs. Öster’s was the most impressive as he turned in the fifth-fastest run of the second go after opening in 21st place. Mark Miller, who was coming off a career-best fifth-place slalom finish at the Jade Enterprises/UNM Invitational, DNFed his second run.
The Seawolf Invitational completes tomorrow with the giant slalom. Then the entire field will do it all over again, this time on Friday and Saturday in the RMISA/NCAA West Championships.