MINTURN, Colo. – Martin Bergström finished second in the men's 20-km freestyle to lead the Utah ski team on the final day of the RMISA Championships/NCAA West Regional, as Utah placed third overall at the meet.
For Bergström, it was his fourth podium of the season. The Utes had three skiers in the top 10 with
Oscar Ivars earned a season-best eighth-place finish while
Martin Mikkelsen finished ninth.
Jacob Engström placed 14
th with
Logan Diekmann in 15
th.
The women had three skiers in the top 10 of the 15-km race with
Merete Myrseth in sixth,
Natalia Müller in eighth (her third top-10 finish of the year) and
Guro Jordheim in ninth.
Leah Lange finished 14
th while
Josefin Nilsson was 25
th.
Utah had 601 points, trailing winner Colorado (672) and second-place Denver (664.5). Montana State finished fourth (512.5) with New Mexico fifth (456.5).
"Overall I am very pleased with how we skied this weekend," Utah Director of Skiing
Kevin Sweeney said. "Everybody was charging, there's no doubt, although we made a few mistakes, and the competition is just really, really tight. On the Nordic side, it was difficult not having senior captain
Kevin Bolger starting, but in the big picture everybody did rally and we certainly had some great results. We also learned a bit more about ourselves and a bit more about our competition. So in that light, I think it was a good event for us. We're definitely hungry and looking forward to the NCAA Championships. I would definitely say we were on our toes and we're not sitting on our heels disappointed with third, even though I think we all wanted to score a little bit higher. But I think that's important. We're charging, we're skiing well, we defined our NCAA selection and who's going to be going to the NCAA Championships, so was a good meet for us and I'm happy with that. Regionals is also the last RMISA competition for many of the seniors, which is an emotional event but it's also fun to see."
The NCAA Championships will be held from March 8-11 in New Hampshire. Skier selections will be announced on Monday afternoon by the NCAA.
