UAA Invitational Complete Results
ANCHORAGE, Ak. — Two Lobos picked the perfect time for career-best races, as Rebecca Fiegl earned her first career podium with a second place showing, and Alex Barounos just missed his first podium, finishing in fourth, as UNM’s women won the UAA Invitational slalom race, and the men finished third, moving up to fourth place for the Invitational.
The race was the final race of the regular season, but both teams will compete in the slalom again tomorrow for the final two events of the RMISA Championships. That’s all that’s left of the regular season before the NCAA Championships in Vermont the first weekend of March.
In the women’s race, it was the teams’ third win in the slalom this season. Fiegl was a key to that win, finishing her opening run in second and then staying there, finishing just 0.68 seconds from her first career victory. She finished 0.08 seconds clear of a third-place tie, and that gave UNM enough points to win the race. Fiegl, who was sixth in the giant slalom for the UAA Invitational, picked up a career-best 37 points for UNM. Had she been 0.9 seconds slower, she would have scored just 31, and the extra points three points picked up by Utah would have been enough to give Utah the win.
Fiegl wasn’t alone in the top 10, as teammate Soňa Moravčíková finished in sixth place, scoring 27 points. For Moravčíková it was her eighth top-10 of the season, one more than Fiegl. Hayley Cutler finished 17th for UNM, picking up 16 points. Katharine Irwin finished 20th and Chloe Margue was 24th, with both not scoring points. Antonia Wearmouth didn’t finish her opening run.
On the men’s side, a pair of DNFs in the second run by Vegard Busengdal and Tyler Theis hurt UNM’s chances for an event win, but the skiing of Barounos more than made up for it. The senior from Steamboat Springs had never finished in the top-10 in any race over his first three seasons, but he picked up his third top-10 with a brilliant race. Barounos sat ninth after his opening run, and then he barreled down the mountain in what turned out to be the third-best time of the second run.
His time held up for first through the next four skiers before he finally fell out of the lead, but he stayed fourth, his best career finish. He scored 31 points for UNM, giving him a 91 for the season, the highest total of his career. He also wasn’t alone in the top 10 as Olav Sanderberg finished seventh, recording his fourth top-10 of the season. Sanderberg picked up 25 points for UNM, and Nick Veth turned into UNM’s third scorer with the DNFs by Busengdal and Theis (who were in eighth and 16th respectively after the first run). Veth picked up 12 points, and it marked his first points since 2016 when he was a freshman. Veth finished 21st.
The Lobos finished fourth in the UAA Invitational with 508.5 points. UNM enters the final slalom events of the RMISA Championships in fourth place, just 11.5 points out of third, and a similar day would net them third in the championships.
NOTES: The NCAA Championships will take place Wednesday through Saturday, March 6-9 in Stowe, Vermont, hosted by the University of Vermont … NCAA participant lists will be announced early in the week … UNM has now won nine team races this season, three in women’s slalom, one men’s salom, one men’s giant slalom, three men’s freestyle and one men’s classic.