Utah skier Joe Davies has been absent from some meets this year for the Utes, but it was for a good reason.
Davies, a a Nordic skier, started just four meets for the Utes. The reason he missed the others? He was competing in the skiing World Cup, where he made six starts and finished in the top 20 four times.
“It’s always a super interesting kind of season going back and forth between World Cup and college racing. Racing at the World Championships was kind of a lot of stress and pressure at least on my end,” said Davies, who still earned All-RMISA first-team honors in his limited time with the Utes.
“So for me, getting to come back to the college scene and see all my friends and be with the Utah team, I think it helped a lot with the nerves. It felt really, I felt like I was back at home.”
On Saturday, in the final event of the NCAA skiing championships, Davies’ World Cup skill and experience paid off as he helped Utah reclaim the title and avenge its narrow loss to Colorado last year.
Davies finished the men’s 20K freestyle with a time of 43:33.9, over a minute ahead of second-place John Steel Hagenbuch of Dartmouth (44:44.1).
Utah teammate Brian Bushey wasn’t far behind, finishing in third place with a time of 45:11.3, and Zachary Jayne rounded out the Ute participants with a 10th-place finish (46:07.9).
“That was just incredibly special, and I mean, we as a Nordic team today, we just absolutely crushed it. Having Brian in third and Zach not very far behind to have that highest scoring men’s team was just more than we could have hoped for,” Davies said.
With 95 team points in the men’s event, the Utes had a 56-point lead heading into the women’s 20K freestyle but needed the women’s team to perform well to seal the championship.
Behind a second-place performance by Erica Laven, who finished the race in 50:49.6, a fifth-place finish by Selma Nevin (51:30.6) and a 19th-place finish by Celine Mayer (53:51.5), the women’s team put up 78 points to finish first in the event and bring home the NCAA championship.
“I think it’s always some nerves. We knew we had a stable lead and we went out there with confidence but still knowing that we needed to do good, and every teammate was just saying to us, ‘Go out, have fun and do your best. That’s all you can do,’ which helped a lot with the nerves,” Laven said.
“When I came into the finish and waited for both Selma and Celine, I wasn’t really thinking about (the title), and then when we all passed the finish line, we saw the whole team standing there and just screaming that we won, which was, I got so warm in my whole body after that and I was so happy.”
Over the four-day event, Utah scored 590 points — besting second-place Colorado (513) and third-place Dartmouth (508) — to earn its fourth national championship in the past five years and 17th overall national title.
“I mean last year for sure, you realize it’s a lot more fun to win than finish second, so we were kind of feeding on that all year long that we need to come back and get another title here, so that really inspired us. Very special to win this, ” Utah director of skiing Fredrik Landstedt said.
After two days in third place in the standings, including being down 61 points to first-place Colorado after the opening day of competition, Utah took control of first place on Friday.
A giant slalom win by Johs Braathen Herland that boosted the men’s team to a No. 1 finish, followed by a first-place finish by the women’s team, led by Kaja Norbye and Claire Timmermann slotting in fourth and fifth place, respectively.
“They really came out charging the third day and put us in the lead, which was great,” Landstedt said.
The Utes sealed the championship on Saturday with good performances in the 20K freestyle.
“This was just such an awesome moment with the team at the end of the women’s race when we realized we’ve got it,” Davies said. “Yeah, obviously last year was super painful with such a tight loss, but it really meant a lot to come back and prove how good we are by winning with such a large margin this year, and also for me, my last college race, so it’s super meaningful.”