Utah Moves Into Lead at Halfway Point of NCAA Championships

Thursday, March 12

Midway, Utah / Soldier Hollow Nordic Center

9 a.m.

University of Utah

7.5K Classic (I)

Making her NCAA Championships debut, Utah's Witta Walcher placed fifth in the women's 7.5K classic.

Photo by: Jackson Bilawa/Utah Athletics

Utah Moves Into Lead at Halfway Point of NCAA Championships

3/12/2026 1:57 PM | Skiing

Results Championship Central Photo Gallery

Lavén and Melbye turn in national runner-up results in 7.5K classic

MIDWAY, Utah – Erica Lavén and Mons Melbye of the Utah Ski Team each turned in national runner-up results as the Utes raced 7.5K classic interval start events on Thursday as part of the National Collegiate Skiing Championships at Soldier Hollow Nordic Center.

"Very good day for us, overall," said director of skiing Fredrik Landstedt. "The team really came together, and as a group they all had good races and scored some good points for us. So overall it was an incredible day."

Today's race results put Utah into the lead for the meet-long team standings. Utah now has 299.5 points for the week, giving the Utes an 11.5-point advantage over Colorado. Denver (208.5) is in third place. Utah is in a good spot for the halfway point of NCAAs, but a lot of skiing remains in the four-day meet. The stage shifts back to alpine on Friday with slalom races before the national meet culminates with 20K freestyle mass starts on Saturday.

Landstedt continued, "Mons had an incredible race. He was fighting for the victory the whole way. So for his first NCAA race it was very impressive. Zachary Jayne, of course, was very good. He's been a little sick the last week so we're hoping this will get it going for Saturday. And then Max Kluck came in and really pulled through for us today, racing very well. That was incredible and really helped the team score. Then, for the women, Erica is pretty much always up there. She didn't have her best day, but still second in NCAAs so that's really good. And then Witta is just a dark horse and has been getting better all year, so for her to be fifth at NCAAs, that's something nobody could have predicted. Sofia, too, didn't have her best day but she really fought hard, and being top 10 in NCAAs is a great result."

Lavén, Melbye and Witta Walcher each picked up first-team All-American honors for their results today, while Zachary Jayne picked up a second-team nod for his top-six performance in the men's race. Overall for the meet, Utah's nine All-Americans is tied with Colorado for the lead, while Utah (5) currently has the top spot for first-team accolades.

Men's Race
Utah was led in the men's classic by Mons Melbye's silver medal after Melbye put down an interval start time of 18:31.0, putting him 5.7 seconds behind back-to-back men's classic champion John Steel Hagenbuch of Dartmouth.

Zachary Jayne gave Utah a sixth-place performance (18:57.9) and Max Kluck finished in a tie for 16^th after clocking a three-lap time of 19:47.5. It gave Utah 78.5 points as the Utes won the men's race, edging Colorado by 2.5 points.

Melbye, who was making his first NCAA Championships appearance, was the 11^th athlete out of the gate in the interval start. He was six-tenths of a second behind Hagenbuch after one lap and stayed within three seconds after two loops around the course. Melbye never fell below second place at each of the splits.

"I just love racing here," Melbye said. "I know (the course) quite well, trained a lot (on it), and because of the shortage of snow have competed (on it) a lot, as well...So, it was a good pre-run at the regionals, and I learned a lot from regionals and put it to practice here at the NCAAs and got a better result, so I'm happy."

The front pack was tight after one lap with Jayne sitting fourth but only 2.6 seconds behind the race leader. His final lap time was fourth-best in the field as he came into the finish corral sixth overall for the day. Kluck was 19^th after the opening lap but climbed over his final two trips to finish 16^th.

Women's Race
Erica Lavén took a silver medal with her three-lap time of 25:11.0 and Witta Walcher made a splash in her nationals debut with a top-five result (25:56.1).

Sofia Pedersen, also making her first NCAA Championships start, placed ninth for Utah (26:50.7). No other school had more than two athletes in the top-13, a key factor in Utah winning the team race with 88 points.

Lavén said, "I feel like the last few days and the week have been really warm, and we haven't really been expecting (the snow) to freeze. But for the guys today it was really nice conditions. We thought it would be really firm for the girls, too, but getting a little slushy it got way harder than we thought it would. But we still just managed it and pushed all the way through."

Lavén was in third place after her opening lap behind Rosie Fordham of UAF and Denver's Eve-Ondine Duchaufour. The trio all were within 2.8 seconds at the first split but Fordham hit the gas pedal on the final two laps to pull away. Duchaufour was unfortunately unable to finish the race.

It was Walcher's third top-five result of the season, helped in part by a final lap that was third-best in the field. She was seventh after the first lap of the interval start, climbed to sixth heading into the home stretch and took fifth in the final results. Pedersen was in 12^th place at each of the first two splits and fought her way into the top-nine as the race came to a close.

Next Up
Day three of the NCAA Championships take place on Friday as the focus shifts back to alpine. Slalom races will begin at 9 a.m. from the Spencer F. Eccles Olympic Mountain Center at the Utah Olympic Park.

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