CCSA Regional Championships Report

by Corey Coogan
February 23, 2006

It used to be that the Northern Michigan University ski team virtually owned Central Region; no other team had any hope of recording victory against them.  Not so anymore.  At last weekend’s Central Collegiate Skiing Association Regional Championships, it was all University of Alaska-Fairbanks.  Fittingly, the temperatures were as Fairbank-esque as the Great Lakes Region has been able to provide in this uncharacteristically mild winter.  The championships were hosted by Michigan Tech on their trail system that is prepared to host the 2006 Junior Olympics in a couple of weeks.  On Saturday, the classic individual start competitions took place in a snowstorm and strong winds with temperatures around five degrees Fahrenheit.  Despite the falling snow and not terribly cold temperatures, the snow had the squeaky slowness characteristic of much colder temperatures.  For Sunday’s mass-start freestyle races, the temperature warmed to a mild ten degrees under sun and a light breeze, although the snow remained somewhat slow.  

The awards ceremony following the classic race was an interesting visual illustration of UAF’s dominance.  Of the ten athletes receiving top-ten All-Region honors, five were from UAF.  Spectacularly, every one of the UAF women who raced skied into the top-ten; it appears that to make the traveling team at UAF, one should be able to record an All-Region result.  

In the women’s five-kilometer classic, home team star Kristina Owen, just back from Under-23 Championships, won the event by five seconds over UAF’s Pavla Havlova (18:30 to 18:35).  NMU’s Tami Kochen took third in 18:41.  UAF skiers Johanna Turunen (18:45) and Aurelia Korthauer (18:59) finished in fourth and fifth to secure the team victory for the Nanooks.  NMU was second in the team competition, as Laura DeWitt finished sixth and Jennifer Wygant eighth to round out the team scoring.  DeWitt’s finish earned her valuable CFIS points (CCSA qualifying points) to put her perilously close to NCAA qualification heading into the final day of competition.  Such was also the case for UAF’s fourth scorer Julia Coulter, who finished seventh.

The men’s race offered the much-anticipated match-up between UAF’s Marius Korthauer and NMU’s Bryan Cook.  Korthauer has taken the CCSA circuit by a storm as of late and won the bulk of the races at Itasca and Telemark.  Cook, back from Under-23s, seemed the only CCSA collegian with a chance of matching Korthauer’s speed.  In the individual start ten-kilometer, Cook proved himself the faster racer, even though he started before Korthauer and thus received less split information than he would have had he started later.  Cook’s time of 31:48 was nearly thirty seconds better than Korthauer’s second-place 32:16.  St. Olaf freshman Karl Nygren had a spectacular race that demonstrates why he deserves to attend NCAAs, as he finished third by the narrowest of margins, just one tenth of a second behind Korthauer.  UAF athletes Erik Wickstrom (32:49) and Bart Dengel (32:53) finished in fourth and fifth to wrap up the men’s team title for the Nanooks.  The NMU team finished second with Phil Violet (sixth) and Gus Kaeding (ninth) scoring.  MTU was close behind in third (placing two of their athletes immediately behind Violet and ahead of Kaeding).  Aaron Ditty (7th), Erik Mundahl (8th), and Adam Airoldi (14th) scored for MTU.  

In Sunday’s women’s mass-start 10-kilometer skate, the race for the win quickly came down to just two athletes, UAF’s Johanna Turunen and NMU’s Tami Kochen, as they broke away early and by the end gapped the third place finisher by a minute and thirty seconds.  Turunen led most of the race, and in the end Kochen appeared to easily win the sprint.  Interviewed after the race, Kochen said, “The race was a lot of fun.  We went out hard.”  She explained that she went into the race with a plan, which she indeed executed, “If there was a pack, I was going to stay in it.  I planned to dig down on the second lap.  I knew it was going to be tough.”  Despite the cold weather, Kochen had fast skis: “They were really fast.  I thought the snow would be a lot slower.”  With NCAA’s approaching, Kochen, CCSA Regional Skate Champion, reports her goals, “Shooting for top-ten is a for sure goal.  I’d like to have a podium finish in there as well.”
MTU’s Kristina Owen picked up her second podium of the weekend by skiing to third in the skate.  UAF’s teammates Pavla Havlova and Julia Coulter came in next, in fourth and fifth, again earning the team win for UAF.  Coulter’s result also put an exclamation point on her desire to qualify for NCAA Championships.  NMU was second again, as Jennifer Wygant (sixth) and Laura DeWitt (ninth) wrapped up the team scoring.  

The men’s 15-kilometer was an opportunity for Cook and Korthauer to go head to head.  These two athletes, in addition to MTU Assistant Coach Karl Walczak, who was competing open class, broke away from the rest of the field in the middle of the second 7.5 km lap.  Pushing the pace, Korthauer and Walczak, dropped Cook about a kilometer from the finish, thus deciding the collegiate race right there.  Korthauer opened up a six-second advantage at the finish to take the overall, as well as collegiate, win in 41:37.  Cook’s time was 41:53.  UAF’s Erik Wickstrom was third among the collegians in 42:39.  Teammate Bart Dengel finished fourth in 42:47.  Thus, by putting three athletes in the top-five, UAF easily took the team title for the second day.  NMU was second again, as Phil Violet and Adriann Ostrander came in seventh and ninth, respectively.  

It didn’t take much math at all to determine the overall team champions on the weekend.  The UAF Nanooks return to Fairbanks with the CCSA Region Champions trophy in their possession.  

At the close of the races, SJU/CSB Coach Dave Johnson wrapped up the task of calculating the athletes best-four CFIS point races in order to name the region’s selections for NCAA Championships.  After coaches received Monday and Tuesday to check calculations and appeal if necessary, athlete names were forwarded to NCAA today, Wednesday, February 22.  Look for a press release on Skinnyski.com as soon as CCSA makes the list available.  
    
Team Results:

    Women: 1. UAF 146, 2. NMU 137, 3. GAC 107, 4. UWGB 95, 5. MTU 94, 6. STOLAF 78, 7. CSB 51, 8. SCSU 36, 9. FIN 8

    Men: 1. UAF 149, 2. NMU 136, 3. MTU 112, 4. UWGB 91, 5. STOLAF 91, 6. GAC 79, 7. SJU 52, 8. MAC 21, 9. FIN 21