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https://cubuffs.com/news/2024/3/9/s...-national-ski-championship-with-epic-comeback
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Buffs Claim 21st National Ski Championship With Epic Comeback
By:
Curtis Snyder, Associate AD/Athletic Communications
NOTE: CU Historian and Emeritus SID David Plati assisted with this report.
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS – Colorado's
Magnus Boee won the individual national championship in the 20K classic race and all six Buffaloes finished in the top 11 Saturday, fueling a comeback for the ages and giving CU its 21st National Championship in skiing. The Buffs came back from a 51-point deficit for the title, the program's first championship in nine years, and successfully pulled off the second-largest final-day comeback in NCAA Ski history.
Down to the four-time defending champion Utah Utes entering the day, the CU women took to the course first and were motivated by a subpar day on Thursday and after
Hanna Abrahamsson finished fourth,
Anna-Maria Dietze fifth and
Weronika Kaleta ninth, CU cut that 51-point lead down to 17. CU also slipped behind Denver after the slalom races, and this is the first time in the coed era of the championship a team moved from third to first on the final day.
That set up a battle of the two of the best men's Nordic team's in the nation, and they didn't disappoint. Boee won his third individual NCAA Championship, joining an elite list in CU history, and
Will Koch took third and
Johannes Flaaten 11th while Utah went sixth, seventh, and eighth, and when the math was calculated after Flaaten crossed the finish line, CU had outscored Utah 94-75 to win the meet with 569.5 points, just two point ahead of Utah's total of 567.5.
"It feels surreal," CU head coach
Jana Weinberger, who became just the second female coach credited with a ski national championship, said. "That was very close, very nerve racking, everybody did what we had to do. We came back from our not-so-great day on Thursday and it turned out well."
Weinberger has now been a part of three of the biggest comebacks in NCAA skiing history, all in different roles. In 2006, CU was down 52 points after the first day and 30.5 at the midpoint, which before the 57-point deficit this week was the largest deficit overcome at the halfway point of the championships. Weinberger won both NCAA Championships and led the Buffs to the title in 2006. In 2013 as an assistant Nordic coach, the Buffs came back from the largest final-day deficit in history, 54 points, and now in her first season as the head coach (she was interim coach for the majority of the 2023 season and named the head coach after the season), her Buffaloes orchestrated the largest midpoint and second largest final-day comeback in history.
"I feel like the emotions are higher today then they were when I was an athlete back in 2006 or as an assistant coach," Weinberger said. "I'm just really glad that Anna-Maria and Magnus, who have been here for five years now, get to leave with a ring, it's been such a draught for us."
The nine-year draught between titles is the second-longest in program history, behind an 11-year draught from 1960-71 before the Buffs rattled off an NCAA record eight straight championships, and just ahead of an eight-year draught that former coach Richard Rokos inherited from 1982-90. Like Rokos, Weinberger wins in her first year at the helm, and is the third such coach to do so, joining Tim Hinderman, who won the 1979 title taking over for Bill Marolt.
Weinberger joins Hinderman and Marolt as former members of the ski team to lead the team to a national championship as the head coach. Marolt won four individual titles, but Weinberger and Hinderman are the only two to win a national championship as an athlete and head coach and Weinberger is the first to win as an athlete, assistant coach and now head coach.
It's also the closest final score in the coed era of the championship, just surpassing the 1998 championship when the Buffs topped Utah by just 2.5 points, 654-651.5. It's the closest since an actual tie between Colorado and Dartmouth back in 1976 and technically it's the fifth-closest NCAA Ski Championship of all time, although aside from the tie in 1976, the other three happened in the 1960s when the scoring system was dramatically different and based on a percentage behind the leaders. In 1958, Dartmouth topped Denver by .6, in 1967 Denver beat Wyoming by .8 points and in 1964, Denver beat Dartmouth by 1.4 points.
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The men's race was especially dramatic because, after the women did what they had to and outscored Utah by 34 to pull within 17 points, it was neck and neck the entire race. Boee and two DU skiers went early in the first run to push the pace, and he recognized that Utah wasn't keeping up, so he encouraged the DU skiers to work with him to widen that gap.
"We had nothing to lose," Boee said. "The DU guys were pushing it fast but I wasn't struggling to keep up. I looked back and saw Joe (Davies), the best Utah skier, was dropping off, I was literally saying 'they're dropping, let's go.' We were rotating pulling and trying to widen the gap."
At the 5K mark, Boee had the lead and Koch was fourth behind the lead pack. Utah was fifth, seventh and ninth and Flaaten was 11th. If the race ended there, CU would've outscored Utah 91-76, but come up one point short in the team standings. On the second lap, Boee took matters into his own hand and pushed off the front of the pack.
"The second lap, I just kept pushing and widening the gap then all of the sudden, Denver was dropping back," Boee said. "From then I never looked back and kept pushing. Once I started getting a big gap. All you need to do is not pull up, keep focusing on your technique, don't think about victories or anything, just think about your skiing. You have two laps left, one lap left, maintaining the lead. That's all I did and I had a great day, great skis, it was just an incredibly good day to have a good day."
With Boee out in front, Koch had passed one of the DU skiers and at the 10K mark, he was third, but Utah had moved up to fourth and fifth and despite Flaaten moving up to ninth, Utah's third skier was eighth and if the race ended there, CU would've outscored Utah 96-83 and lost the meet by four points.
On the third lap, Boee and Koch held their positions and Flaaten was falling off trailing back that consisted of the three Utes, Drolet and Hagenbuch. At the 15K mark, Drolet and Hagenbuch had moved ahead of the three Utes and Flaaten was in 10th place, which would've made the score 95-75 and the Buffs were then up three points in the overall team race.
Flaaten, meanwhile, was in a new battle with two other skiers for 10th-12th positions on the final lap. Boee cruised to victory, Koch held off both Drolet and Hagenbuch, who had pulled away a bit from the Utah trio. Flaaten finished one spot lower but otherwise the 15K positions held for a two-point CU victory.
"I'm not shocked, I'm just super happy we made it and it actually happened," Boee said. "It's one thing to be capable of doing it, it's another to go out and do it. We win as a team and lose as a team. It's never about blaming, but there are times we all know we could've done better. We've had a few championships the past few years where there were some what-if's,and to be honest, I thought we may have another one. But as a team we mobilized, ended up on top and it worked."
Boee's race is one of storybook legend. In his fifth season having finished second twice at the NCAA Championships, Boee picked up his first win of the season and becomes the first skier in CU history to win a race in five different seasons, taking until that final race in his final season of eligibility to make that a reality.
"This whole year, I knew I had it in me, but the skis weren't good one day or I just didn't have the shape that day," Boee said. "So just getting both right on the last day of national championships is a dream come true."
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SCORING BREAKDOWN: Here is how the 2024 championship broke down; the Buffaloes were first overall in women's team scoring, Nordic scoring, and Nordic men's scoring and were second overall in women's alpine scoring and overall men's scoring. CU won the women's giant slalom, men's slalom and both classic races Saturday as a team. CU scored the second most points on the first day for GS, third most on the freestyle day, second most in slalom and the most in classic.
MEN'S TEAM SCORING: Utah 317, Colorado 284, Denver 255, Dartmouth 198, Montana State 144, Vermont 115, New Hampshire 107.
WOMEN'S TEAM SCORING: Colorado 275½; Utah 250½, Denver 236, Dartmouth 201, Montana State 185, Vermont 185, Alaska-Anchorage 172.
ALPINE POINT LEADERS: Utah 286½, Denver 283, Colorado 275½, Alaska-Anchorage 172, Vermont 153, Montana State 146, Dartmouth 141, Westminster 136. Men's Leader: Utah 152 (2nd—Denver 124). Women's Leader: Denver 159 (2nd—Colorado 157.5).
NORDIC POINT LEADERS: Colorado 295, Utah 281, Dartmouth 258, Denver 208, Montana State 183, Alaska-Fairbanks 175, Vermont 147.
Men's Leader: Colorado 177 (2nd—Utah 165). Women's Leader: Dartmouth 141 (2nd—Vermont 123)
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ALL-AMERICANS: Ten of the 12 Buffaloes here earned a combined 14 All-America honors in the meet, seven netting first-team status:
Magdalena Luczak (giant slalom and slalom),
Hanna Abrahamsson (classical),
Magnus Boee (classical), Anna-Marie Dietze (classical),
Denise Dingsleder (giant slalom),
Will Koch (freestyle) and
Filip Wahlqvist (giant slalom). Three others earned second-team nods:
Johannes Flaaten (freestyle),
Weronika Kaleta (classical) and
Ryder Sarchett (slalom), while Boee (freestyle), Dietze (freestyle), Koch (classical) and Wahlqvist (giant slalom) also earning second-team honors in their other disciplines. Top five finishes earn skiers the first-team accolade, while finishing sixth through 10th nets a second-team honor. Overall, Colorado now has 561 All-America honors in its history (316 men, 245 women), 322 first-team accolades (180 men, 142 women).
LEARFIELD DIRECTORS' CUP: Colorado picked up 100 points in the Learfield Director's Cup Standings, jumping from 46th place into a tie for 17th with 224 total points; skiing as always is the first NCAA winter championship completed (indoor track finishes up Saturday night). Utah moved from 77th to 29th (178), giving the Pac-12 seven schools in the top 30. North Carolina led the final fall standings with 372.5 points, just ahead of Stanford (371); Texas (344), Notre Dame (343) and Tennessee (292.5) round out the top five.
LOOKING AHEAD: Seven of the 12 student-athletes who competed for the Buffaloes in the 2024 championships are scheduled to return for the 2025 season; the only exceptions being two five-time letterwinners
Magnus Boee and
Anna-Maria Dietze (Nordic),
Weronika Kaleta (Nordic), and
Denise Dingsleder and
Julia Toiviainen (alpine) who both lettered as graduate transfers from Westminster in their one season at CU. Four of the 12 who skied for CU here were freshmen.
FUTURE SITES: The 2025 meet will return to the east with Dartmouth College set to host for the first time since 2003; Montana State will host the 2026 event.
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NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM RESULTS (FINAL): 1. Colorado, 569.5; 2. Utah, 567.5; 3. Denver, 491; 4. Dartmouth, 399; 5. Montana State, 329; 6. Vermont, 300; 7. Alaska Anchorage, 274; 8. New Hampshire, 192; 9. Alaska Fairbanks, 175; 10. Middlebury, 159; 11. Westminster, 136; 12. St. Michael's, 81.5; 13. Michigan Tech, 74; 14. Colby, 67.5; 15. Harvard, 62; 16. Bowdoin, 35; 17. St. Lawrence, 27; 18. Northern Michigan, 14; 19. Boston College & Nevada, 10; 21. Plymouth State, 9; 22. Bates, 6; 23. Williams, 1.
WOMEN'S 20K CLASSIC (39 Collegiate Finishers): 1. Jasmine Drolet, DAR, 1:02:38.2; 2. Haley Brewster, UVM, 1:02:41.5; 3. Sydney Palmer-Leger, UU, 1:02:41.8; 4.
Hanna Abrahamsson, CU, 1:02:46.5; 5.
Anna-Maria Dietze, CU, 1:02:51.1; 6. Kendall Kramer, UAF, 1:02:51.5; 7. Tilde Baangman, MSU, 1:03:03.8; 8. Mariel Pulles, UAF, 1:03:42.8; 9.
Weronika Kaleta, CU, 1:04:04.8; 10. Astrid Stav, UAA, 1:04:04.9.
MEN'S 20K CLASSIC (40 Collegiate Finishers): 1.
Magnus Boee, CU, 55:38.0; 2. Florian Knopf, DU, 55:42.1; 3.
Will Koch, CU, 55:55.9; 4. Remi Drolet, HAR, 56:06.1; 5. John Hagenbuch, DAR, 56:06.3; 6. Tom Mancini, UU, 56:21.1; 7. Joe Davies, UU, 56:21.5; 8. Brian Bushey, UU, 56:22.9; 9. Florian Winker, MSU, 56:45.4; 10. Krystof Zatloukal, DU, 56:51.1. Other CU Finisher:
Johannes Flaaten, 56:59.9.
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