MINTURN/BEAVER CREEK, Colo. – A day after struggling to get four top 10 finishes, UNM picked up six on the day, including three top fives and the first career podium finish for Kati Roivas, as UNM finished fifth at the RMISA Championships/NCAA West Regional.
New Mexico altogether had a better day than Friday, despite missing top slalom skier Courtney Altringer and UNM’s two top Nordics in Emilie Cedervärn and Eva Sever Rus. In the Nordic 15K Classical, Kati Roivas finished third for her first career podium finish and making her five-for-five this season in top 10s in the Classical. She scored 34 points for UNM, with Julia Devaux coming in 21st for 15 points and Brenna Egan 23rd for 14 points.
On the men’s side, the Lobos recovered from a tough day in the freestyle to get three top 10s in the 20K classical. Petteri Vaherkoski finished eighth, a hundredth of a second ahead of teammate Aljaž Praznik, and then Niklas Rombock continued his torrid stretch with a 10th place finish, easily his best career mark. In fact for Rombock, it not only was his first career top 10, it was his first career top 20 finish, as his best was 21st last week at the Drew Judycki Memorial/Jade Enterprises/UNM Invitational. That gave UNM 66 total points, good for third in the men’s classical.
On the mountain, Sydney Staples had a career-best tying mark of fourth place, scoring 31 points for UNM. She looked to be joined by Karoline Søvik Myklebust, who was fifth after the first run, but she was DQ’ed, knocking her out of the championship chase. That left Kat Irwin as UNM’s number two skier, and she finished 13th, her second top 20 in a slalom this season, a two spots from her career mark there.
Taylor Grauer recorded a second consecutive top 20 mark in the slalom, and was UNM’s third scorer again for the second straight slalom. Sara Ottosson had a second run bobble and was 22nd overall. Altringer, who crashed on Friday, sat out as a precaution.
The real drama for UNM was on the men’s alpine side as Carl-Johan Öster, who has been on a blistering pace lately, was in first after the opening run. He skied well, but he was hurt a bit as the times started to slow, and he finished in fifth place overall, giving him six consecutive top 10 finishes. He picked up 29 points for UNM. The Lobos overall scored 60 in the slalom, but it could have been more. Rob Grieg was fifth after his opening run, but a slip on his second run knocked him all the way down to 23rd, scoring 12 points as UNM’s third finisher. UNM’s second finisher was Patrick Brachner, whose brilliant second run was fifth overall and catapulted him to a career-best 12th place finish and 19 points.
NOTES: Rombock’s top 10 made him the seventh Nordic and 13th Lobo overall to record a top 10 finish this season … Roivas has never finished below 12th in a collegiate race … The last time UNM skied and didn’t get a point from either Eva Sever Rus or Emilie Cedervärn was the 2013 NCAA Championships.
Top Five Finishes Highlight Final Day at RMISAs
