By all rights, the University of Utah could sleep through the final event today and it would still win the 1993 NCAA Ski Championships . . . the Utes are that far ahead.
As expected the Utes dominated the slalom on Friday and merely widened their already big lead. In three days the Utes went from a 251/2 point lead after the giant slalom, a 611/2 point lead after the classical cross country, and an 821/2 point lead after the slalom.Utah has 607 points to 5241/2 for the University of Vermont.
"We've got a good, strong lead and that's comforting," said Utah head coach Pat Miller. "I'm not amazed at all with our skiing, but I'm pleasantly surprised with our lead here."
Winning the men's slalom was Utah's Mark Bonnell with a two-run time of 1:32.56. Backing him up was John Ethen in 4th (1:33.23), Nicolas Robichon in 5th (1:33.74) and Per Johansson in 6th (1:34.16).
Vermont lost ground, as it has in all the previous events, finishing in 3rd, 7th, 9th and 10th.
After the race Bonnell said he hit his goal. "I wanted to come here and place in the top three in the slalom. I skied relaxed, just like in training. With big races, wins are luck a lot of the time, but I skied hard and really went for it," he said.
Winning the women's race was Gibson LaFountaine of Vermont. She, however, was not backed up by her teammates. One racer was disqualified on the second run and the other two finished in 9th and 38th. LaFountaine's time was 1:41.49.
Utah's top finisher was Heidi Standteiner in 5th. Her time was 1:43.31. Other Utah finishers were Karianne Eriksen, winner of the GS on Wednesday, in 10th, Petra Pirc in 15th and Megan Karnopp in 28th.
The final event will be the freestyle cross country. The men will skate 20Ks the women 15Ks.
With the pressure off, the Utes can go for individual honors. In Thursday's classical cross country, Utah's Luke Bodensteiner won the men's 10K and teammate Marcus Nash was fourth.
By clinching the win today, Utah will regain control of a sport it dominated in the mid-1980s. In six years, Utah won the title five times. The last time it took home the NCAA title was in 1988. In 1989 and 1990, Utah took second, and in 1991 and 1992 it finished third.
The Utes were seeded number one going into this year's event, but illnesses and injuries hit the Utes as they prepared to head for the finals. In the cross country, for example, Utah was only able to start three skiers in both the men's and women's race instead of the allowable four.
"The pressure was on the team to ski well and they did. The skiers did what they needed to do to win," said Miller.
In third was New Mexico with 508, Colorado with 438, Dartmouth with 4021/2, Alaska-Anchorage 392 and Williams with 320.