NCAA Championships Preview

March 8, 2015

The collegiate season culminates this week with the NCAA Championships, March 11-14, at Mt. Whiteface/Van Hoevenberg in Lake Placid, NY.  The NCAAs still follow an old tradition of using a combined score of alpine and cross-country ski teams to determine the overall National Champion for the team title. Because most of the Midwest programs don't have an alpine team, there is no real chance of competing for the big trophy.  However, when scoring just the cross-country races, the Midwest schools are right in the mix, with Northern Michigan finishing second last season by just 11 points.   

Events

Wednesday, March 11, 2015 - Freestyle (individual start)

Friday, March 13, 2015 - Classical (mass start) 

Midwest Skiers

Kyle Bratrud, mens 15K champion, US Nationals, January 4, 2015
The Midwest sends a strong group again this season.  Northern Michigan (NMU) leads the way with a full roster of six skiers, with Michigan Tech qualifying four, Alaska-Fairbanks and St. Scholastica both qualifying three, and St. Olaf sending one.  NMU's Fredrik Schwencke is the top returning skier in the freestyle, finishing 5th in last year's 20K, but if the Midwest regionals were any indicator, teammate Erik Soderman could be the one on the podium.  Joining Soderman could easily be the National freestyle champion, Kyle Bratrud, also from NMU.  In the womens skate race, Alice Flanders, MTU, was 10th last season at NCAAs, and has been skiing even faster this year, and should improve on that standing.  NMU's Jordyn Ross was been running a close second to Flanders, and could crack the top 10. In the classical races, Deedra Irwin, MTU, made the U23 Championships team and skied strong at the regional 15K.  She'll be pushed by NMU's Felicia Gesior and Kris Bourne, with St. Scholastica's Anita Kirvesniemi possibly in hunt for a top 10 finish as well.  Kyle Bratrud had a great performance last year at NCAAs in the classical race finishing 6th, and will receive stiff competition from teammate Fredrik Schwencke who was 10th.  While Alaska certainly isn't in the Midwest, the Alaska-Fairbanks squad does compete in the Midwest division and Logan Hannemann could be cracking the top five in classical race, and possibly the skate as well.

Casting a wider net, there are a number of skiers competing at NCAAs with Midwest roots.  Raleigh Goessling is the 2010 Minnesota State High School Champion, hailing from Cloquet-Ekso-Carleton team, and now competes for University of New Hampshire (update: Goessling was the male EISA Rookie of the Year!).  Kevin Bolger is from Lakeland HS team, is the 2011 Wisconsin High School Champion, now racing for the University of Utah.  Olivia Amber was the Wisconsin State Championship runner-up in 2013 skiing for Northwestern District, and she'll be competing for Colby College.  Finally, there is Alayna Sonnesyn.  Sonnesyn is a former Junior National champion, anchored the dominate Wayzata high school teams, and has had a tremendous freshman year with the University of Vermont and was recently named EISA Rookie of the Year!  One of the names missing from the NCAA roster is Jan Ketterson, older brother to Zak, who had an outstanding regional for Dartmouth, finishing third in the mens skate.

Review the full Midwest squads

Resources