ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — All season long, the UNM Nordic squads have carried the flag for The University of New Mexico Lobo ski team. Then on a day where two high scoring Nordics were home sick, the alpine squad answered the bell with a pair of career marks.
Courtney Altringer turned in the best performance of her four-year career, coming in second place for her first ever podium, and Carl-Johan Öster picked up a career-best fourth place finish on the men’s side as UNM’s alpine squad combined for their best day of the season as UNM is in fourth place halfway through the Drew Judycki Memorial/Jade Enterprises/UNM Invitational.
Colorado has the lead at the turn with 344 points, followed by Utah with 316, Denver with 278 and New Mexico with 265. Rounding out the scores are Alaska-Anchorage in fifth at 183, Montana State in sixth at 175, Westminster in seventh at 133, Wyoming in eighth at 79 and Colorado Mountain in ninth at 12.
UNM is missing an estimated 80 points as Emilie Cedervärn, a three-time winner of the RMISA Nordic circuit and UNM’s career wins leader, and Austin Huneck, who has run a strong second or third for UNM all season, are both out with an illness.
While the Nordics went first and put up solid scores, it was the alpine squad that turned in the performance of the season, as the men scored 61 points and the women scored 79. The men hadn’t scored more than 49 points in any race this season, and they hadn’t scored more than 47 in a slalom. For the women, the 79 points marked the third time this season breaking the 70-point mark, but it was only the second time all season scoring more than 70 in a race, topping the 72 in the giant slalom in Colorado.
Leading the way to that 79 points was Courtney Altringer. UNM’s only female alpine senior, who is looking to get back to the NCAAs after missing them last year, turned in a career performance. Altringer, who finished fifth in her last outing at the Colorado GS qualifier, was sitting sixth after her first run, but tore past almost everyone ahead of her, coming in third in the second run. That put her 0.05 ahead of third place Roni Remme of Utah. Her previous top finish was fourth in 2014.
She wasn’t the only Lobo on the women’s side to have a solid day, as Sydney Staples picked up her fifth top 10 of the season with a ninth place finish, and Katharine Irwin had her best slalom of the season with an 11th place finish. Irwin hadn’t finished better than 25th in the slalom this season. That rounded out UNM’s scorers, but Sara Ottosson. Karoline Søvik Myklebust finished in the top 20, coming in 14th and 16th.
On the men’s side, Carl-Johan Öster just missed his first career podium, coming in fourth place, besting his previous best of seventh, and it was easily his best slalom of the season, topping his 16th place finish in Colorado. Rob Greig came in 17th for UNM and Patrick Brachner hit the to 20 on the mark to round out the scoring trio for the Lobos. Tyler Theis was 22nd, Alex Barounos was 26th and Nick Veth with 30th. For Barounos, that was his best slalom finish of the season as well.
Over at the Enchanted Forest, rookie Petteri Vaherkoski turned in a near career-best performance as well. With the warm temperatures changing some of the strategy of the 10K race, Vaherkoski, starting 10th in the interval start, finished just five seconds out of fourth place. For Vaherkoski, it’s his third top 10 of the season, and second in the classical, coming in fifth in Montana. Aljaž Praznik battled back cramps to still pull a top 10 finish, coming in ninth. What was missing was Austin Huneck, who is third on Nordic in points with 106, having scored in all six races. Huneck was back in Albuquerque with a cold, but Niklas Rombock turned in his best performance of the season with a 21st place finish, scoring the first 15 points of his career. Kyle Beling rounded out UNM’s men with a 30th place finish.
The women, without Cedervärn, still had a pair of top 10s in Kati Roivas and Eva Sever Rus in a short 5K Classical race that saw the temperature soar to the point that several competitors raced in t-shirts, tank tops, and a few in just sports bras under their bibs. Roivas came in ninth and Sever Rus 10th, and Julia Devaux scored the first points of her college career with a career-best 14th place finish. Brenna Egan finished 28th. Devaux has three top 20 finishes in the freestyle, but this was her first in the classical.
The invitational concludes tomorrow with the alpine races starting at 9 a.m. in Red River (Copper) and the Nordic at 9 a.m. in the Enchanted Forest.
NOTES: UNM is the two-time defending champion of this event … Roivas now is four-for-four in her career in top 10 Classical finishes … Staples now has 13 top 10 finishes in the last two seasons after just one as a freshman … with Rombock scoring for UNM, all five male Nordic’s have scored.
Altringer, Öster with career marks at UNM Inv. Day One
