RMISA Championship Results (Through Six Events)
DENVER, Colo. — After six podium finishes that included five seconds and a third, no one would blame Vegard Busengdal if he felt snake bit. If he did, he bit back. Busengdal led after the opening run and then finished it off with a near perfect second run to capture the RMISA slalom title and help UNM stay in fifth place at the RMISA Championships, hosted by the University of Denver.
The Lobos have 367.5 points through six events (all four alpine and two Nordic). Colorado leads with 499, followed by Denver at 464.5, Utah at 447 and Montana State at 418.5. Alaska Anchorage follows UNM is sixth at 273.5, with Alaska-Fairbanks (112) and Wyoming (51) rounding out the field.
Busengdal’s win paced a fantastic day by the men’s alpine squad, which scored 84.5 points to finish second behind Colorado. Along with Busengdal’s 40 points, Rob Greig finished eighth, scoring 23 points, and Isak Klein tied for ninth for 21.5 points.
Patrick Brachner was 15th for UNM with Tyler Theis 21st and Alex Barounos 24th.
In women’s alpine, Sydney Staples had a great finish, coming in sixth place and setting up nicely for NCAAs. She scored 27 for the Lobos, and she was followed by Katharine Irwin (16th for 17 points) and Taylor Grauer (21st for 15 points). Karoline Søvik Myklebust stumbled but finished the course to come in 25th, and Alexandra Sjöström didn’t finish her opening run.
The other big story of the day for UNM was in the Nordic women’s 5K, where Krista Niiranen proved her RMISA MVP honor wasn’t a fluke with a second place finish, grabbing 37 points. Those points were critical as UNM had four skiers out with injury, meaning the only other scorer was Brenna Egan, who finished 31st for 13 points. UNM finished sixth in the women’s Nordic, but had one other skier been healthy enough to just finish, they would have finished fourth.
For the men, Aljaž Praznik and Petteri Vaherkoski were 12th and 13th respectively, scoring 19 and 18 points, with Arnaud Guyon tacking on 13 points with a 20th place finish. Niklas Romback (23rd) and Kyle Beling (33rd) rounded out the field.
The 2017 RMISA championships continue on Sunday with two events, 15K and 20K Nordic freestyle (www.4cornerstiming.com).