Utah Wins RMISA Championship

Saturday, February 27, 2016 • by Curtis Snyder, RMISA

BEAVER CREEK & MINTURN, Colo.—On the strength of their women’s Nordic team, the Utah Utes cruised to victory here Saturday to claim the 2016 RMISA Championships in the 67th annual running of the event that doubles as the NCAA Western Regional.

The Utes were up by as many as 82 points on the field Saturday and held on for a 28 point lead over Colorado, who was then 39 points up on Denver. Utah scored 662 points to the Buffs 634 and Pioneers 595. Montana State finished fourth with 521 points followed by New Mexico (473) and Alaska Anchorage (449) with Colorado Mountain (101) beating Wyoming (83) for the first time.

The men got things started at Maloit Park and Colorado’s Mads Stroem continued his impressive run as he claimed both his fourth straight race win and his fourth straight RMISA Individual Championship. He became the first men’s Nordic skier to sweep the regional meet in back-to-back years.

Stroem did it with an impressive time, as well, beating his teammate by 39.8 seconds in a time of 51:08.6 while Petter Reistad came in second in 51:48.4. That Colorado duo was followed by two Utes and a Seawolf in the top five as Niklas Perrson took third in 51:50.7 and UAA’s Luca Windkler took fourth in 51:53.4 and the Utes’ Kevin Bolger rounded out the top five.

In the women’s race, he Utes dominated both in stature and in time. Veronika Mayerhofer won her second straight race, fourth of the season and 12th of hiscareer. He won by 22.7 seconds over teammate Petter Reistad. Niklas Persson (third) and Moirz Madlener but it would still take it in in person.

Meanwhile at Beaver Creek, the women’s race was coming to an end and Denver’s Monica Huebner takes the slalom championship and find all the skiers by mindset of now their belts.

After Huebner, Maria Gurmudsddottir took second with Kristine Haugen taking third and giving the Pioneer’s two podium appearandces. Sydney Staples from New Mexico and Denver’s Tuva Norbye round out the top five.

On the men’s side, Colorado’s Max Luukko won the regional championship, the first for a CU men’s skier since 2002. Luukko edged out Tyler Shiffrin, who in turn edged out Adam Zika for the podium spots while Sydney Staples from New Mexico and Tuva Norbye from Denver edged out the RMISA Tournament

Next up for the RMISA teams is the 2016 NCAA Championships, hosted by Colorado March 9-12 in Steamboat Springs, Colo.