UW Cowgirls Dominate and Cowboys Second at Cross-Country Invitational

For the second straight weekend, the University of Wyoming women’s Nordic ski team swept a pair of cross-country races, while the men’s club was among the top three both days.

At the Western Colorado University (WCU) Invitational in Crested Butte, Colo., the competition opened with a skate half-marathon, which was part of one of the nation’s largest ski race -- the Alley Loop. UW’s Sammy Veuathier, from Casper, was the decisive winner, with Cowgirl teammate Annie Miller, of Minneapolis, Minn., a close second. The Cowgirls’ scoring team was rounded out by freshman Wren Hybertson, from Boulder, Colo., who placed fifth.

The Cowgirls won the day with 8 points, followed by Colorado College (CC) and Colorado State University (CSU) with 34 points each; the U.S. Air Force Academy had 43; WCU scored 44; Colorado Mesa University (CMU) was next with 54; and Denver University (DU) had (63).

The Cowboys’ Kaj Taylor, of Palmer, Alaska, finished the marathon race in second place behind DU’s Max Marond.

“Max and Kaj skied together for a majority of the race, and Kaj pulled Max for a lot of the kilometers,” UW co-head Coach Christi Boggs says. “Max simply had a little more in the tank in the final couple of kilometers, but we were proud of how Kaj skied.”

WCU and CC were the top two men’s teams with 14 and 30 points, respectively, while the Cowboys were third with 30 points. CMU had 44; CSU scored 53; Air Force had 58; and DU tallied 65.

Sunday’s race was a 5km classic college-only race.

The contrast between Saturday and Sunday was extreme, UW co-head Coach Rachel Watson says. Saturday was warm and snowing -- the course was flat and crowded -- with hundreds of college, pro, elite and citizen racers. Sunday’s conditions were better -- the course was a hilly International Ski and Snowboard Federation homologated course, with only college athletes competing.

“I think that the women’s team went into Sunday thinking that it would be hard to better their Saturday performance, but they did just that,” Watson adds.

UW’s Erica Meyers, of Minneapolis, claimed the top of the podium, Miller skied to second, and Veauthier rounded out the podium sweep. With a perfect six-point team score, the Cowgirls were unbeatable, Watson says. In fact, the Cowgirls would still have won the day with their second three skiers. Freshman Shayla Babots, from Lander, placed fifth; Grace Erholtz, of Baxter, Minn., was ninth; and Hybertson took 10th.

WCU was a distant second to the Cowgirls with 41 points; followed by CMU’s 45; CC scored 47; CSU had 48; Air Force notched 53; and DU came in with 58.

With some of their best performances of the season, the Cowboys placed second with 20 points, while WCU had 11. CMU scored 31; CC tallied 33; CSU was next at 59; and Air Force and DU had 65 and 74 points, respectively.

Taylor led the team again with a third-place finish. Laramie’s Austin Quillinan finished eighth, and Sean Kraemer, of Evergreen, Colo., skied the best race of his college career with a ninth-place finish.

Watson says Sunday’s race was a good example of the training that UW’s skiers have done throughout the early season. Summer months are filled with hundreds of hours of volume training, and autumn was hill resistance at lactate threshold. In early winter, the skiers have built their anaerobic capacity with intervals, time trials and high-level racing, Watson adds.

“The skiers’ training was evident in the weekend’s races,” Watson says. “They were able to tolerate the two-race weekend even with a half-marathon on the first day because of their robust base fitness, and they were able to ski with high tempo on even the steepest grades on Sunday. This was due to their technique and cadence training.”

Housed in UW’s Division of Kinesiology and Health, the UW cross-country ski teams integrate scholarship and skiing, with a strong internationalization mission.

“I would like to acknowledge the achievements of the 10 student-athletes from Shanghai University competing for UW’s teams as part of our International Nordic Ski Training Program,” says Andrew Siegel, UW assistant coach of the training program. “These athletes, all of whom have learned to ski within the past six months, raced alongside many lifelong skiers this weekend and did so with a degree of competence and poise far exceeding many of their competitors.”