Utah Takes Day 1 Lead At NCAA Championships

Wednesday, March 6, 2024 • by Tanner Feith, RMISA

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo.—The Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association currently has the top three performing teams after the first day of races at the NCAA Ski Championships. The week started off with the Giant Slalom race on Wednesday. The Utah Utes currently hold the team lead with the host, Colorado Buffaloes, and Denver Pioneers following close behind.

Utah leads with a team score of 154.5 followed by Colorado with 137.5 and Denver in third with 133. Vermont is fourth with 101 and then fifth place Westminster sits at 82 points.

Two more RMISA schools, Montana State and Alaska Anchorage, currently sit in sixth and seventh place respectively with 78 and 70 points. Alaska Anchorage is currently the top-performing team for a school with one discipline participating in Steamboat Springs.

Utah took home the first and second place finishes of the Men's Giant Slalom race at Mt. Werner. Mikkel Solbakken became just the second skier in NCAA history to win a National Championship for two different teams (Westminster and Utah). Sindre Myklebust nearly took first place from his teammate, finishing seven-hundredths of a second slower than Solbakken.

Denver's Christian Oliveira Soevik put together two great runs on the first day to take home third place and First-Team All-America honors. Steamboat's own and current Denver Pioneer Trey Seymour finished in 20th on his home hill.

Colorado's Magdalena Luczak had a dominating performance finishing with the fastest time of the women in both of her runs propelling her to her second Giant Slalom National Championship. Luczak's large 1.18-second margin of victory helped the Buffaloes climb to second place in the team standings. Denise Dingsleder finished tied for second place with a time of 1:55.69 picking up her third All-America honors.

Utah's Madison Hoffman led the charge for the Utes in the women's division with a fantastic performance on her second run. Her time of 55.57 ranked ninth among the 34 skiers.

Denver had all three women skiers finish top-ten helping them storm into third place in the team standings. The two-sport star for the Pioneers, Liv Moritz, finished in fifth place with a time of 1:56.23 and picked up her first All-America honors as a collegiate athlete.

Nordic teams kick things off tomorrow at Howelsen Hill with the 5K women's and men's freestyle races starting at 10 a.m. Alpine returns to action Friday at Howelsen Hill with the night slalom races starting at 6:40 p.m.