STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — It says it right on The University of New Mexico ski team poster, “Where Champions Are Made”. This year, champions are going to be made in Steamboat Springs, Colorado at the NCAA Championships, which will be held Wednesday through Saturday, March 9-12 and while it will be a major upset for UNM to win the whole thing, the Lobos can certainly pick up an individual title, something the team has gotten quite good at.
UNM has a string of three straight years with an NCAA individual titlist in skiing, starting the streak back in 2013 with Joonas Räsänen, who won the men’s slalom. In 2014, Eva Sever Rus as a freshman took home the Nordic 5K Freestyle title in Utah, and last year UNM picked up two titles with Mateja Robnik winning the women’s giant slalom and Emilie Cedervärn winning the 15K Nordic classical race.
The Lobos are one of eight squads that qualified a complete 12-person squad (one squad, New Hampshire, also qualified 11).
The Lobos have several candidates that could potentially extend UNM’s school record streak to four straight years. The most obvious candidate is Cedervärn, who has raced just once in the last two meets as she has been recovering from a flu-like bug. Despite being down, her lone race was a ninth place finish in a meet she used as a basic training run. Cedervärn is tied for the UNM career record for Nordic wins with eight (four in both freestyle and classical). Last year she was a two-time All-American, finishing third in the freestyle before winning the classical.
Her teammate Eva Sever Rus has also battled a stomach ailment, but is a former national champion and can never be counted out.
In alpine, Carl-Johan Öster could potentially win a title, despite having zero career podiums to this point. Öster has been on a roll, finishing in the top 10 in six straight meets, and he led the RMISA slalom at the turn in his last outing. On the women’s side, Courtney Altringer has a second place podium finish in the slalom, and Katharine Irwin has a third place podium finish in the giant slalom.
What will work against UNM is the relative youth in terms of NCAA experience. Sever Rus is the only three-time NCAA participant on the squad. Six skiers, Tyler Theis, Rob Grieg, Katharine Irwin (alpine), Austin Huneck, Petteri Vaherkoski and Kati Roivas (Nordic) are all first time NCAA participants.
However, UNM should extend its streak of top nine finishes to 34 consecutive years. Each event at the Championships will score up to 30 places (there are 34 alpine competitors in each event and 40 Nordics) with first place scoring 40 points, and 30th place scoring 1. Following 40 points for first place, scoring goes 37-34-31-29-27-25-23 for places second through eighth. Ninth place is 22 points, and the scoring goes down one point all the way to 30th place.
The top 10 in each event are named NCAA All-Americans, with the top five first team and the places six through 10 second team.
UNM’s NCAA Squad:
Men’s Alpine: Rob Greig, Carl-Johan Öster, Tyler Theis
Women’s Alpine: Courtney Altringer, Katharine Irwin, Sydney Staples
Men’s Nordic: Austin Huneck, Aljaž Praznik, Petteri Vaherkoski
Women’s Nordic: Emilie Cedervärn, Kati Roivas, Eva Sever Rus
Notes: Fans can watch the championships live all week via the NCAA website www.ncaa.com/liveschedule … UNM won the national championship in 2004, and the team finished second in 2006 … that title in 2004 was the only UNM national championship until this fall when the women’s cross country team won the national title … UNM head coach Fredrik Landstedt was an assistant for that 2004 team … UNM has finished fifth, fourth, fifth, fourth and fifth in its five meets this season.
Lobos Head to NCAAs in Steamboat Springs
