Saturday, February 23, 2013 – by Curtis Snyder, RMISA Results Available On Schedule/Results Page BOZEMAN, Mont. – The University of Colorado held off a surging Denver squad to claim the 2013 RMISA Championships and win its fifth meet of the season Sunday with the running of the men’s and women’s slalom races here at Bridger Bowl.
The Buffaloes finished with 905.5 points while Denver moved up a spot to finish second with 859 points by winning both races and having both individual winners to close out the final day of racing before the NCAA Championships. Utah finished third with 805 points while New Mexico used a solid final day to move up into fourth place with 755 points. Host Montana State finished fifth with 738.5 points while Alaska Anchorage rounded out the team scoring with 620 points.
The men got the day started and Denver’s Espen Lysdahl, the men’s alpine MVP, showed why he was by winning the race in a time of 1:50.37. He earned his second straight slalom victory and third of the season. He hit the podium in all six slalom races this season and moved past New Mexico’s Joonas Rasanen to earn the top overall seed for the NCAA Championships in two weeks.
New Mexico’s Chris Acosta took second, his second straight slalom podium, in a time of 1:50.57. Denver’s Max Marno rounded out the podium in a time of 1:50.68 with New Mexico’s Michael Bansmer (1:51.14) and Montana State’s Michael Mackie (1:51.17) rounding out the top five. The top 21 finishers in the race were within two seconds of each other.
The Pioneers won the race with an impressive 131 points, followed by New Mexico with 121 points. Montana State was then a distant third with 98 points and Colorado was fourth with 94 points.
Denver’s Kristine Haugen won the women’s race by more than a second, clocking a two-run total of 1:36.81, ahead of Utah’s Ana Kobal (1:37.93). New Mexico’s Mateja Robnik took third in 1:38.75 with Colorado’s Jessica Honkonen (1:39.35) and New Mexico’s Kate Williams (1:39.93) rounding out the top five.
Much like on the men’s side, Haugen moved past Kobal in a tiebreaker to earn the top slalom and thus top overall seed out of the RMISA for the NCAA Championships. Haugen won her third slalom race of the season while Kobal has two wins and four runner-up performances in the six slalom races.
Denver also won the women’s race, but by a much closer margin, outscoring the Lobos 112-111 while Utah (103) edged out Colorado (100.5) as a rare four teams hit triple figures.
For Colorado, this marks the 12th conference championship under coach Richard Rokos (23 years) and it’s the Buffs 23rd overall championship in the 60-plus year history of the RMISA.
Next up for the teams is to choose the participants for the NCAA Championships, which will be released on Tuesday. For the first time, the west was given its full allotment of 18 skiers for each of the four disciplines, meaning each of the six teams will field full squads for the championships.
RMISA teams have won 15 of the last 17 national championships and last season, all six RMISA teams finished in the top eight of the final NCAA standings. Middlebury hosts this years championship from March 6-9.
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