Lake Placid, N.Y. — Mateja Robnik was the first alpine competitor to go at the 62nd NCAA Championships at Whiteface Mountain. She posted an opening time of 1:10.80 and dared anyone to beat her. None could, and Robnik flew through the course on her second run to easily win the NCAA title in the giant slalom, giving UNM a national title for a school record third consecutive season.
Robnik helped UNM pick up 98 points on the day as UNM dropped one spot to fourth place in a very close race for the 2015 title. Utah leads with 241 points, followed by Colorado at 237, Denver at 232, UNM at 204 and Vermont at 192. UNM and Vermont were tied for third after day one.
Robnik excelled on the bottom portion of the race course in both runs, a portion called Draper’s Drop. Robnik’s opening run was punctuated by a final 19.70 on the Drop, the best ending to anyone’s opening run. After she posted her 1:10.80, she watched 33 other skiers try to best that mark, but none could.
Her biggest challenge came from Denver’s tandem of Monica Hübner and Kristine Haugen. Haugen, the two-time defending giant slalom champion (winning the NCAA title in 2013 and 2014), was third after the opening run and was flying down the course with the fastest split in the middle portion of the course. However, she nearly went down at the top of Draper’s Drop and although she was able to right herself and continue, the bobble cost her the title as her final third was slowest of the second run.
Hübner was sixth after her first run, and she turned in the best run of the second go with a 1:11.70 to give her the lead. However, Robnik, needing to record at least the fifth-best run in the second go, and she made it easily. Sitting in good position entering the final third, Mateja hit Draper’s Drop as hard on run two as she did on run one. She turned in the best time again in the lower third, giving her the title with plenty of room, 0.89 seconds, to spare.
“I knew I would have to fight, because we were really close,” in talking about herself, Hübner, and Haugen. “I knew a nice run wasn’t going to be enough. It had to be no mistakes, and it worked out well.”
As for winning the giant slalom as a senior, Mateja had one thought going through her head.
“My one word was ‘finally’, because I’ve had bad experiences at NCAAs. I’ve always made mistakes and I haven’t skied as well as I could. It’s amazing … I wasn’t winning a lot, but I was close a lot of time. This is the greatest place that I could get a win.”
Not to be forgotten, UNM’s Sydney Staples raced to 14th place in her first NCAA competition. Sara Ottosson was on the way to a potential top 10 finish but lost an edge and scarily went off the course into the netting, but she was none the worse for wear.
After the excitement of the women’s race, the men were up as the giant slaloms were both run back-to-back to completion. UNM didn’t place overly high with no top 10 finishes, but all three racers in Juho-Pekka Penttinen (14th), Carl-Johan Öster (18th) and Sean Horner (20th) all finished, making UNM just one of four schools to get all three skiers in. That proved big for points when Colorado, Denver and Utah all had a skier go out in the opening run. Middlebury picked up 74 points, and while Vermont and Denver scored 68 and 67 points apiece, UNM’s 41 was right in line with Colorado, Utah, Dartmouth and Alaska Anchorage.
Day three sees the Championships head back to the Nordic Course and Mt. Van Hoevenburg for the Classical races. The women’s classical 15K mass start will take place at 10 a.m. Eastern time, and the men’s 20K mass start will take place at noon Eastern.
NOTES: Robnik is the 28th all-time national title winner at New Mexico, and the 18th in skiing. She is the 11th female skier to win, and just the second to win the giant slalom after Jennifer Delich in 2004 … it’s the second time in school history that UNM has won a national title in three straight NCAA meets (Robnk in GS-2015; Eva Sever Rus in FS-2014, Joonas Räsänen in SL-2013) but the first time in three different disciplines. UNM won three in 2002-2004 (Marte Dolva in SL-2002, Jimmy Vika in FS-2003, Jennifer Delich in GS-2004) … she is just the sixth women’s alpine national champion as well (Delich, Dolva, and Malin Hemmingson 2007, ’09-10) … Robnik earned first team All-America honors as well, her third All-America honors after second team slalom honors in 2013 and 2014 … the men’s side didn’t record an All-America for the first time since 2009.