DENVER—The Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association announced the winners of eight MVP awards, given to each gender and discipline across the league with ski skiers winning those eight awards.
Denver's Andreas Kirkeng and Montana State's Tilde Baangman swept the Nordic freestyle and classic MVP awards while the alpine side was more spread out with Colorado's Filip Wahlqvist, winning the men's slalom MVP, Utah's Kaja Norbye the women's slalom MVP, Alaska Anchorage's Leon Nikic the men's GS MVP and Denver's Sara Rask the women's GS MVP.
The MVPs are awarded based on which skier accumulated the most NCAA Qualification points throughout the regular season races, which included five races in slalom, giant slalom and classic races and four in freestyle.
Kirkeng dominated both competitions on the men's Nordic side, earning 174 out of a possible 200 points in the five regular season classic races, winning three of the five and taking fifth and seventh in the other two. Second place was 39 points back. In the men's freestyle race, he won by 28 points, winning two of the four races and taking second and fifth in the other two.
Baangman also had solid leads in both women's Nordic competitions. She won the classic title with 178 points with two wins, a second, third and sixth place finish throughout the season. The next highest skier was 39 points back at 139 points. In freestyle, she won the competition by 30 points, scoring 138 points with one win, a second, third and sixth place finish.
Wahlqvist won the men's slalom award despite having one DNF throughout the season. In the other four races, he won two and was second and fifth, edging out Jeremie Lagier from Westminster, who was the only skier to finish all five regular season slalom races.
Norbye was in a tight race in the women's slalom race, ending up with a 12-point win after hitting the podium in all five slalom races throughout the season with two wins, one second and two third place finishes. She edged out DU's Nora Brand, who also had two wins with three fourth place finishes.
Nikic's win in men's GS ended up being the closest of the eight competitions, as he won by just two points over Mikkel Solbakken and Wahlqvist was just 10 points back. Nikic had a solid lead entering the final GS race last week ahead of the RMISA Championships and with Solbakken winning that race and Wahlqvist second, both were aiming for the title. Nikic had an unfortunate mishap on his first, run, his first of the season, but held on to finish 19th. Had he finished 22nd or lower, Solbakken would've won the award. Nikic hit the podium in the other four races with two seconds and two thirds.
The women's GS race was also close with Rask surging past Westminster's Hanna Saethereng in the final race of the season, also taking place late last week. Saethereng led Rask 136-119 and needed an eighth place or better finish to secure the win. She finished 12th and Rask won to take the MVP. Had Rask finished third, Saethereng also would've won.
The RMISA Skier await the NCAA Selection process, which will be announced Tuesday. A total of 68 athletes will be selected from the RMISA, 17 in each gender and discipline. The NCAA Championships will close out the collegiate season March 6-9 in Steamboat Springs, Colo., hosted by the Buffaloes.