Anchorage, Alaska – Safe to say that Emilie Cedervärn has had a pretty good week. She has a chance tomorrow to make it perhaps the greatest in Lobo skiing history.
Cedervärn won her third race in five days, taking home the title in the women’s 5K freestyle, teaming up with teammate Eva Sever Rus, the defending RMISA freestyle champion as the Lobos went 1-2 in the event. The Lobos Nordic squads did very well, picking up 160 points to put UNM in second place, just eight points behind Colorado. However, the alpine squad couldn’t hold that advantage, and heading into the final day and final four events, it’s anyone’s conference title in a ridiculously tight battle.
Overall it’s Utah in the lead with 315 points with Colorado right behind at 307. Montana State is a surprising third at 277, Denver fourth at 268 and UNM fifth at 267. Alaska Anchorage has 238 for sixth and Colorado Mountain is seventh with 23 points.
The day started with the men’s 10K freestyle, and while the tandem of Mads Stroem and Rune Oedegaard finished 1-2 for Colorado for the seventh time this season, UNM stayed within striking distance with great finishes from Aku Nikander, who was fifth, and Mats Resaland, who was 11th. Christian Otto finished 18th, scoring as the third skier for the Lobos, ahead of Aljaz Praznik, who is dealing with a shoulder injury that kept him out of Monday’s race. Praznik was 20th and Kyle Beling was 29th.
UNM was in fourth after that event, but the Cedervärn/Sever Rus train helped UNM leap right back into contention. Jessica Gnüchtel finished 12th, giving UNM 96 points to win the discipline by 15 points over Utah. Anni Nord was 19th for the Lobos as the fourth skier.
Then it was time for the giant slalom, and UNM struggled on the whole. On the women’s side, UNM finished fourth with 62 points, and that took an extraordinary effort. After the first run, UNM had Sara Ottosson and Courtney Altringer in the top 10, and they stayed there, finishing eighth and 10th. However, UNM’s other three skiers had rough opening runs, including Mateja Robnik, who won the giant slalom yesterday in the Seawolf Invitational. She sat in a disappointing 27th after her opening run, but torched the competition in her second run, clocking the fastest time, moving her into 13th overall.
Sydeny Staples and Taylor Grauer also struggled in their opening runs and finished 23rd and 29th respectively.
The men’s giant slalom concluded the day, and after UNM was in third, the Lobos slipped the fifth, although they are just 51 points out of first place and just 13 out of third. Juho-Pekka Pentitnen was 14th, Carl-Johan Öster was 18th and Sean Horner 20th, but UNM finished with just 42 points in the men’s GS, 50 behind Montana State, who won the race.
But for UNM, the story of the day was Cedervärn, who amazingly enough moved her into a tie for fifth on the career Nordic wins list with her third title. She now has a chance to tie Martina Stursova and Ivana Radlova for most Nordic wins in a season. Stursova won four in 2004 and 2005, and Radlova did likewise in 1993. Sever Rus, who finished second, her best finish of the season, won three freestyle races last year.
Notes: This is the sixth RMISA championship meet … UNM has finished third four times and fourth once … Cedervärn on Wednesday became the first female Nordic in school history to sweep Nordic races at an away meet, and now she has a chance to do it again on Saturday … for Sever Rus, it was her 13th top-5 finish of her career in 18races … Mats Resaland broke the 1,000 point mark for his career with his 11th place, 20-point finish. He now has 1,011 points.