Some good and some bad came out of the second day of the NCAA Ski Championships for the University of Utah.
It was good in that the Utes were able to keep the overall lead after four events. It was not so good that Vermont, the Utes' chief rival, back in 6th after the opening day, made up a lot of distance and moved into second.It's apparent, now, that this race, as so many have, will come down to Utah vs. Vermont.
After the classical cross country on Thursday, Utah leads with 364 points, followed by Vermont 353, University of New Mexico 326, University of Colorado 294, University of Denver 214 and Middlebury 213.
With the exception of Utah, there was a complete reshuffling of teams. After the GS on Wednesday, it was Utah, Colorado, Denver, New Mexico, Middlebury and Vermont. The Catamounts were 49 points behind the Utes at this point.
Utah's Havard Solbakken brought Utah its second individual championship in the men's 10K classical. He skied the course in 30 minutes, 39.2 seconds.
But then Vermont's dominance showed. The Catamounts placed 2-4-5 for the men. Utah's Sten Grahn came in 7th, Marcus Nash was 13th and Peter Klofutar was 15th.
Vermont made up the most points in the women's race.
Mina Turvo of Alaska/Anchorage won the 5K race in 15:38.8, followed by Leanne Luhta of Northern Michigan in 16:01.4. But then came the Vermont train - 3-4-5, all within 12 seconds of each other.
Utah's best was Eva Segerstedt in 8th with a time of 16:31.3. Teammates Ingvil Snofugl was 20th, Anne Sofie Broers was 21st and Ulriki Svenstedt was 27th.
One thing that hurt the Utes was that this race turned into a wax event. Four inches of snow fell overnight, followed by freezing Thursday morning. This, says Utah head coach Pat Miller, "Made it very difficult to wax.
"It was an ugly day," he continued. "Conditions were bad. Vermont did surprisingly well, considering, but then they're used to this."
Ute alpine coach Gordon Perry said the snow was so bad the skiers couldn't train, "but did a little free skiing. It was too dangerous to train. There was the new snow and on top of that a crust of ice."
For the eastern schools, it was more of a routine waxing day. The strong showing of eastern schools in the standings showed.
The slalom was skied today. This is one of Utah's better events, but Vermont is also recognized as a strong slalom team. On Wednesday, however, Vermont had a number of problems in the giant slalom.
And, even though conditions are expected to be rock-hard and icy, Perry feels it won't hurt Utah's chances of extending its lead.
"Even though we're a western school, most of our skiers actually do ski better on hard snow. I think we'll do well," he added.
The fact that Vermont is so strong in cross country means that the Utes will have to build up a sizable lead if they hope to repeat as national champions. Especially in light of the fact that the freestyle cross country, scheduled Saturday, is their weakest event.