Utah Holds Lead At Midpoint Of Montana State Invitational

Sunday, January 26, 2025 • by Curtis Snyder, RMISA

BOZEMAN, Mont.—The team standings are almost identical to last week's Utah Invitational, but the team scoring is a little more bunched up as the Nordic events of the MSU Invitational concluded Sunday here at Crosscut Mountain. For the second straight meet the results were taken out of US Super Tour racing.

Utah holds a solid lead at the conclusion of Nordic racing, but the team scores are a little bunched as Colorado and Denver took race wins on Sunday after the Utes dominated the freestyle races on Friday. When the snow settled, Utah scored 380 points with Denver (338) 42 points back and Colorado (314) also in the mix 66 points back. In contract, Utah is up 57.5 on Denver and 90 on Colorado in the Utes meet held the week before.

Utah did win three of the four races individually and dominated Friday's freestyle races with Erica Laven and Joe Davies picking up race wins. The Ute women went 1-3-4 and the men went 1-2-6 to core over 100 points in both races.

Laven won by just under one minute, one-tenth of a second under one minute, in a dominating performance in the 20K freestyle bogged down by heavy snowfall. Colorado's Tilde Baangman was second with the Utes Selma Nevin and Nina Schamberger taking third and fourth and Colorado's Astri Lunde rounding out the top five.

Davies win was by a much smaller margin and he edged out teammate Brian Bushey by less than two seconds with Colorado's Will Koch taking third and a pair of Pioneers Elijan Weeing and Florian Knopf rounding out the top five, ahead of Utah's third scorere in sixth place with Zachary Jayne.

Laven completed the sweep with another win in the 7.5K classic races on Sunday, again in dominating fashion by over 30 seconds. Colorado placed two on the podium with Baangman and Lunde to rack up 92 points and the race win, while UAA's Beth Granstrom and Denver's Maja Moland rounded out the top five.

Denver used a 1-2-7 race to pick up the team win in the men's 7.5K classic race with Kirkeng getting yet another college win on the season, ahead of teammate Knopf. Davies was third and Bushey fourth for the Utes and Colorado's Koch put the same five in the top five as Friday's freestyle race.

The action will not return back to the alpine side for the first time in a few weeks as they will conclude this MSU meet at Bridger Bowl Feb. 4-5. The alpine teams will then quickly head to Utah to put a wrap on that meet on Feb. 8-9 with an extra qualifier on Feb. 7 while the Nordic teams will concurrently close out the DU meet on Feb. 8-9.

With four regular seasons meets started by not finished, three of the four will wrap up in a period of a week before racing returns to Alaska to close out the regular season and the RMISA Championships in mid-February.

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