UW Men’s Nordic Ski Team Maintains National Lead; Cowgirls Remain Second

At the halfway point of the United States Collegiate Ski and Snowboard Association (USCSA) Championships, both University of Wyoming teams maintained their hold on first and second places after Wednesday’s competition.

The UW men’s and women’s teams were both second in the classic sprint competition on the Mount Bachelor course in Bend, Ore.

The Cowboys were second with 41 points behind front-running Paul Smith’s College (PSC), of Paul Smiths, N.Y., but maintained the overall team lead in the race for a USCSA national championship. After two races, the UW men have a team-low 41 points, while St. Olaf College of Northfield Minn., is tied for second with PSC at 54 points. Colorado Mesa University (CMU), from Grand Junction, Colo., is fourth with 65.

St. Olaf continues to dominate the women’s side of the competition after scoring in single digits for the second straight day with seven points and a total 13 overall. The UW women are second after having their best day Wednesday scoring 14 points. The Cowgirls have 44 points overall. PSC and Western Colorado University in Gunnison, Colo., are third and fourth with 96 and 105 points, respectively.

It was lightly snowing when the teams arrived for the classic sprint race, and then it started snowing harder. The sprint has a qualifying round and then five quarterfinals of six competitors, followed by two semifinal rounds of six each. The A final featured the top six competitors from the semifinal round, and a B final had the next half dozen qualifiers.

“The snow played havoc with this event, truly causing issues with kick wax and glide, and athletes mindsets,” UW co-head Coach Christi Boggs says. “I can say that our success Wednesday was due to pure Wyoming grit, both from the support staff and the athletes. It was brutal conditions, and everyone just dug in and got the job done.”

The UW men qualified six team members for the top 30: Kaleb Simonson and Diego Labotos, both from Lander; Jack Jendro and Eliot Kramer, both from Minneapolis, Minn.; and Laramie’s Austin Quillinan and Emmitt Gray. Matthew Ahrndt, of Casper, barely missed the qualifying heats, finishing 33rd, and Sean Kraemer, of Evergreen, Colo., was 46th.

Simonson, Jendro and Quillinan qualified for the semifinals, and Simonson went on to the A final to place fourth in that heat. Both Jendro and Quillinan went to the B final and finished ninth and 10th, respectively. Gray finished 13th; Labotos was 16th; and Kraemer took 24th.

Boggs says the UW women “crushed it Wednesday,” when all four Cowgirls qualified for the heats and the semifinals. Lander’s Shayla Babbits took third place overall; Casper sisters Sammy and Eleanor Veauthier were fifth and sixth, respectively; and Wren Hybertson, of Boulder, Colo., came in eighth.

The teams have a rest day Thursday, and Friday’s action resumes with a 15km class race. Saturday winds up the week’s competition with a team sprint.