Day One Results – Men’s and Women’s Slalom
Park City, Utah — In a triumphant return after missing most of last season with a broken foot, Karoline Søvik Myklebust picked up her sixth career top five finish, coming in fifth in the women’s slalom at the Utah Invitational, headlining the day for UNM.
She wasn’t alone in the top 10 as teammate Sydney Staples picked up right where she left off in 2015 with a seventh-place finish, her 11th top-10 finish of her career. The UNM women’s alpine squad carried the day for the Lobos, as their 70 points were key as UNM sits sixth overall after the first two disciplines with 104 points overall. The Utah Invitational is a split meet with the slalom and giant slalom taking place January 4-6 and the Nordic races the following weekend on January 10-11.
The Lobo women’s team is a veteran group with four skiers having raced in the NCAA Championships, and that experience showed as all four were UNM’s top finishers. Along with Myklebust and Staples, Courtney Altringer, a 2014 NCAA qualifier and All-American finished 15th and Sara Ottosson, a 2015 qualfier, was 18th.
Katharine Irwin was 25th in her first collegiate race, and Taylor Grauer suffered a DNF in the opening run.
A top-five finish looked remote for Myklebust after opening her first run with a solid showing, coming in 13th, although she was less than a half-second out of 10th at the time. Staples was in seventh after that opening run, while Altinger was in 12th, one slot ahead of Myklebust.
However, Myklebust turned in a stellar second run moving her all the way up to fifth. Ironically, her only finish in a slalom last year was also at the same Utah Invitational, where she finished seventh, which was her last top-10 finish before Monday.
On the men’s side, the Lobos sent six down the mountain, with five of those running in their first collegiate race. UNM’s rookie crop of men’s alpine skiers ended up scoring all of UNM’s men’s alpine points.
Rob Greig finished 24th as the top finisher for UNM, Tyler Theis was 30th and Alex Barounos finished 33rd to account for UNM’s scoring in the discipline. Nick Veth was 34th and was the only other skier to finish for UNM.
Carl-Johan Öster, UNM’s lone returning NCAA participant back was in decent position of 12th after the first run, 2.52 seconds out of first, but he was disqualified in the second run for missing a gate. Youri Mougel was also disqualified after his opening run for missing a gate.
The University of Utah RMISA Invitational continues with alpine events Tuesday and Wednesday. Tomorrow, the women’s squad takes center stage in the giant slalom, with the men going on Wednesday.
NOTES: The only other returning men’s alpine skier that scored points last year was Patrick Branchner, who didn’t race … The University of Utah Invitational was the only meet that Öster missed last year, meaning no Lobo had officially raced at this meet on the men’s side before … Myklebust was competing for the first time since January 27th in the RMISA giant slalom qualifier at Winter Park, Colo.
Overall Slalom Results: Denver 186, Colorado 149, Westminster 147, Montana State 119, Utah 114, New Mexico 104, Alaska-Anchorage 87, Colorado Mountain 19.
Men’s Slalom Results: WMC 90, DU 85, CU 78, MSU 68, UAA 51, UU 48, UNM 34, CMC 0.
Women’s Slalom Results: DU 101, CU 71, UNM 70, UU 66, WMC 57, MSU 51, UAA 36, CMC 19.