Dupratt Wins GS, CU Leads Utah Invitational

Friday, January 13, 2017 • by Brooke Frederickson, RMISA

HUNTSVILLE, Utah—Utah’s Sam Dupratt won his second race of the season in the men’s giant slalom at the Utah Invitational at Snowbasin on Friday afternoon. Colorado moved back into the team lead with the Utes trailing by just four points.

Dupratt threw down a fast first run to take the win. Colorado’s David Ketterer continued his strong season with a second-place finish, his second podium of the year. Montana State’s Addison Dvoracek scored his best finish of the year with a third-place finish, as did MSU’s David Neuhauser in fourth. The Bobcats won the race with 90 points with four skiers in the top 10, including Morten Bakke in seventh and Jeff Bell in ninth. Colorado’s Max Luukko earned his third top five finish of the year with a fifth-place run. New Mexico’s Vegard Busengdal (sixth) and Utah’s Endre Bjertness (eighth) have both been in the top 10 in every race this year. Denver’s Alex Leever led the Pioneers with a 10th-place finish.

Colorado scored 81 points on the day to pull back into the Utah Invitational lead with 455 total points, and Utah’s 83-point day gives the Utes 451 points for second. Denver fell to third with 439 points followed by New Mexico (369) and Montana State (325) in fifth.

The alpine portion of the Utah Invitational continues on Saturday, Jan. 14, with the men’s and women’s slalom races tentatively scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Live timing is available at www.ussalivetiming.com.

The Nordic races of the Montana State Invitational also get underway on Friday, beginning with the women’s 5-km freestyle at 10 a.m. followed by the men’s 10-km at 11 a.m. Live timing is available here: http://raceresults.sportstats.us/events.xhtml?eventname=2017%20MSU%20Invitational&companies=[9]. The Utes are currently in third at the MSU Invite with 286.5 points behind Colorado (334) and Denver (308).