YELLOWSTONE, Mont. — The University of New Mexico Nordic squad opened up its 2015-16 preseason with a Thanksgiving trip to Yellowstone, Montana to compete in Super Tour Sprint and Freestyle races at the Yellowstone Ski Festival. The Festival was hosted at the Rendezvous Ski Trails.
The meet served as a good chance to hit the tracks in a fun race that the collegiate season doesn’t host in the sprint, and then a more traditional freestyle race. All in all it was a great opening meet.
In the sprints, UNM has Nikolas Rombock and Brenna Egan compete in the Junior Division, with Egan coming in third place and Rombock sixth. For Egan, it was her first event as a Lobo, and the Park City freshman finished the 1500 meter sprint in 3:07.66. Rombock, another freshman but from Dresden, Germany, was sixth with a time of 2:45.08.
The top finisher in the sprints for the women was Eva Sever Rus, who made it all the way to the semifinals. In the sprint races, each racer posts a qualifying time, with the top 30 advancing to one of five quarterfinal races. From there, the top two finishers (out of six) in each quarterfinal advance to one of two five-person semifinal races. From there the top six make the finals.
Sever Rus, a 2014 national champion from Logatec, Slovenia, had a qualifying time of 3:07.9, good for 14th overall, and then she won her quarterfinal race to advance into the semis. However, that’s where her day ended as she finished fifth in her heat, giving her an official placing of ninth. Two other Lobos got to the quarterfinals in Julia DeVaux, a freshman from Villard de Lans, France, and 2015 national champion and senior Emilie Cedervärn of Falun, Sweden. Devaux had a qualifying time of 3:12.6 and she finished fifth in her quarterfinal race, placing her officially 23rd. Cedervärn qualified 19th, just ahead of Devaux, but she finished 26th overall after finishing sixth in her quarterfinal race.
Kati Roivas, another freshman, this from Liperi, Finland, just missed the quarters, finishing 33rd.
On the men’s side, no Lobo got to the quarterfinals with Menges, Slovenia junior Aljaž Praznik finishing 43rd out of 135 competitors. Kyle Beling, a sophomore from Park City, was 75th.
On Saturday, the stakes changed from a short 1,500 meter sprint to a regular race, and the men’s Nordic squad posted solid results. Praznik was the top finisher for the Lobos with a 33rd place finish, and he was followed by Rexford, New York rookie Austin Huneck, who finished 46th in his first Lobo race.
Rombock and Beling finished within two places of each other in 59th and 61st, meaning all four Lobos finished among the top half of the field of 142.
On the women’s side, Cedervärn looked right at home, finishing in third place with a time of 27:42.6, 35 second out of first. Cedervärn last year won five of her last six races, including the NCAA title in the Nordic Classical race. Kati Roivas turned in a great result coming in 19th and Brenna Egan was 48th.
Nordics Get Fall Campaign Underway in Yellowstone
