Utah Skies To Bronze In Final Day of NCAAs

Saturday, March 12

Stowe, Vt.

3rd

University of Utah

NCAA Championships (15/20 FS)

3/12/2005 12:00 AM | Skiing

March 12, 2005

STOWE, Vt. -- The University of Utah cross country team skied to one of its best performances of the season, skating past Dartmouth and rallying to a third-place podium finish at the 2005 NCAA Skiing Championships.

Denver never looked back as they out-skied the competition to its first-place overall finish, marking its 18th national championship. The Pioneers beatout second-place host Vermont by 47.5-points showing they were the team to beat this season. Utah made an incredible surge in the final day of competition to take home the bronze medal, while the defending national champions New Mexico jumped a spot to finish fourth. Dartmouth dropped two spots to claim fifth.

"The Utes charged and staged a great comeback to place third overall," said Head Coach Kevin Sweeney. "What a day, hard snow all day and a very difficult course. Our goal was to hunt down Dartmouth and Vermont and we closed the gap significantly."

With harsh weather conditions, Utah's men's cross country team finished third overall in the heavily enduring 20-km freestyle. Leading the pack was junior Magnus Carlsson and sophomore Daniel Sonntag as both skiers skated into the top-five and finished with first-team All-American honors. Carlsson ended the year with his best FS finish of the season, racing to fourth overall with a time of 56:11.2. FS specialist Sonntag was right on the heels of Carlsson, finishing fifth in 56:58.4. Casey Simons gave a valiant effort as the sophomore was hampered by illness, but managed to notch 38th with a time of 1:05:10.0.

All-American Daniel Sonntag

"It was snowing very hard for the men's 20-km slug-fest," remarked Sweeney. "Casey battled illness and hung in there for an entire race giving us valuable points in the end. Magnus and Daniel just skied fantastic. It was super exciting as the lead group jockey for position back and forth. Both of them going All-American sealed us in third putting a huge damper on Dartmouth's day. The Lobos skied well and were at our heels but we skied solid and kept in front of them. I'm glad they rallied to fourth."

"This was a good race," said Carlsson. "I had great skies and a great start. I woke up this morning and I felt something today and I went with it. It was a great day."

Sophomore sensation and newly acclaimed All-American Sandra Gredig has been on fire this season and showed it today, finishing seventh overall (48:07.5) in the 15-km FS. Fellow sophomore and newcomer Nicole Naef just missed the cut for All-American honors, but rallied to 11th-place with a time of 48:18.4. Senior Barbro Hatlevik skated in her final FS race of her college career and gave the Utes the edge they needed to surge ahead of the competition. The Vagstranda, Norway, native finished with a combine time of 49:33.8 to place 22th.

"The women skied fantastic and gave the team a great team boost," said Sweeney. "Sandra scoring All-American was huge. Nicole just missed top All-American honors, she had a nasty crash on the sugar chute s-curves, but she recovered and attacked. Barbro skied great giving us a huge momentum going into the men's race."

"This was a pretty tough race today," remarked Gredig. "I started out slow, but it worked out really well. Our training and hard work really paid off this season. I was nervous this morning, but not as nervous as I was last season."

"A super tough championships with weather and all," added Sweeney. "I'm super proud of our results. We hung in there to the end and made it count. We have a pretty darn good feeling right now. Great skiing and a great team all across the board."

For complete individual and team results log on to: Link

NCAA Team Scores: 1. Denver 622.5; 2. Vermont 575; 3. Utah 545; 4. New Mexico 518; 5. Dartmouth 486; 6. Colorado 438; 7. Alaska-Anchorage 436; 8. Middlebury 326; 9. Nevada 303; 10. Northern Michigan 300.