Seawolf Invitational Results | UAA Invitational Results
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Maybe it took a little getting used to. After weather canceled Thursday’s slalom, all RMISA skiers competed in two slalom races on the same hill, first for the third and fourth events of the Seawolf Invitational, and then the first and second events of the UAA Invitational. While UNM did well in both, New Mexico sits in first place in the UAA Invitational after a brilliant late afternoon on the mountain that saw senior Sydney Staples earn the first podium of her four-year career, highlighting an amazing day on the slopes.
The Lobos scored 168 points for the slaloms, giving them a nine-point lead over Denver. It’s easily the most points scored in any set of races this year, either alpine or Nordic, for New Mexico. It came in the afternoon after UNM scored a respectable 111 points in the morning that went to the Seawolf Invitational. UNM sits fifth in that Invitational, 40 points behind Colorado with the Nordic races scheduled for February 7-8 in Alaska.
Staples and Karoline Søvik Myklebust finished second and fourth as the Lobo women’s alpine squad took first place in the slalom, giving the Lobo women their first event win since February 8, 2014 when the women took first in the slalom at the Jade Enterprises/UNM Invitational. Staples had a previous best of fourth place, and her season-best finish prior to the race was 13th.
The second place finish ended a fantastic day for her, as she finished seventh in the earlier slalom that counted for the Seawolf Invitational. The two top-10s were the first of the season for her, and they gave her 17 in her four-year career. Myklebust was 16th in the morning run but her fourth place finish was also a season-best and it marked her seventh career top-five finish.
The key cog in the win though came from perhaps UNM’s most improved alpiner, Taylor Grauer. Despite never finishing higher than 15th in a race in her career and skiing out of the morning race, Grauer floored it in the afternoon and picked up a career-high 18 points with the best finish of her career, coming in 14th. It marked her third top-20 of the season and was enough to propel UNM to the win.
Katherine Irwin was 18th in the afternoon run and finished didn’t finish the morning run, while Alexandra Sjöström had a tough go with a pair of DNFs.
It wasn’t just the women’s side that was stellar, as the men’s team just missed their first event win (ironically also on February 8, 2014 in the slalom at the Jade Enterprises/UNM Invitational) by a single point, scoring 82 to Colorado’s 83. Busengdal, who saw his amazing streak of top-10s end at seven when he skied out in the morning run, got right back to where he is used to, earning a podium finish with a second place run, equaling his season-best with his third top-2 finish.
The bigger story was Patrick Brachner. El Braxo as he is known easily had his best day of his collegiate career. Brancher entered the races with zero top 10 finishes in his career, and ended with two. He took fifth in the morning run, giving the Lobos 29 points, topping his entire 2017 point total. Then in the afternoon he provided the perfect complement to Busengdal, coming in sixth place for 27 points. Those point combined with Tyler Theiss coming in 13th put UNM in second the race.
Theiss’ 13th place finish was easily the best finish of his two-year career, as he had a top finish of 18th last year. However Theiss actually topped that in the morning by finishing 17th. Nick Veth was a non-scorer for UNM, but that certainly doesn’t diminish his career-best finish as he recorded his first career top-20, coming in 18th after getting a DNF in the morning. Alex Barounos rounded out UNM’s finishers in the afternoon with his 25th place finish after a morning DNF.
Nearly lost in it all was Isak Klein, who didn’t finish his afternoon run, but he certainly finished his morning run, finishing a career-best eighth for his first top-10 finish.
The UAA Invitational continues as the alpine squads revert back to the giant slalom tomorrow. Live results can be found on live-timing.com.