Utes ski team claims 3rd consecutive NCAA title following 3-day competition

SALT LAKE CITY — Coming off the 2022 Winter Olympics, where the University of Utah had several athletes compete, the school is celebrating once again.

On Saturday, Utah totaled 578 points over a three-day NCAA championship competition at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, to claim its third consecutive title and 15th overall in program history. Utah beat out Vermont (511.5), Denver (436.5) and Colorado (435) for the national championship. Coming into the final day of competition, Utah held a 27.5 lead over Vermont.

"It's amazing, especially here and winning it at home in front of the big crowds and everybody that's up here cheering us on," Utah Director of Skiing Fredrik Landstedt said. "It's just an incredible feeling. Winning our third straight, it feels great. There's always more pressure when you are trying to do it at home."

Utah's Sophia Laukli, a junior from Yarmouth, Maine, and Novie McCabe, a sophomore from Winthrop, Washington, led the charge for the Utes in their pursuit of its third-straight title. McCabe took first in the women's 5-kilometer classic on Thursday with a time of 13:22.8, followed in second by teammate Laukli, who finished tied with a time of 13:36.3.

In the women's 15-kilometer freestyle event on Saturday to round out the full competition, it was Laukli who came out on top in the race with a time of 36:35.7, followed shortly behind by McCabe in second with a time of 37:09.5. It was Laukli's first NCAA individual championship of her career. The duo combined for 152.5 of the team's 578 points in the three-day competition.

"I knew that it was definitely possible on a good day, but I haven't been racing (collegiately) a lot so I didn't know what kind of shape that I was in," Laukli said. "I knew it was going to be pretty fun to race with Novie and with Sydney (Palmer-Leger) and try to ski away from the pack. I felt really good. I had some really fast skis, so that worked to my advantage and it ended up just playing out really well.

"I thought Novie was really close behind me so I was going to try to ski as fast as I could until the end, but then I saw them handing the flag to me, and so I thought I would take it and hoped it's enough. But it was not until I came down the last downhill it really sank in because I tend to fall when I'm doing well and I was just praying that I would just stay on my feet. It was a great feeling."

Utah' Katie Parker took third in the women's giant slalom with a total time of 2:03.68 over two runs. Colorado's Magdalena Luczak earned the giant slalom title with a total time of 2:02.03, edging out Denver's Katie Hensien, who finished with a total time of 2:03.28.

On the men's side, Gustav Vollo, a junior from Hemsedal, Norway, claimed second in both the men's giant slalom and men's slalom events. Vollo recorded a total time of 1:58.14 in two runs on giant slalom and a 1:53.97 total time on two runs on slalom, narrowly missing out on a first-place finish to Vermont's Mathias Tefre, who finished with a slightly better time of 1:53.69.

Junior Samuel Hendry finished in second in the men's 20-kilometer freestyle with a time of 43:07.9 to earn his fourth top-three finish at NCAA Championship races. Claiming the title was Ben Ogden of Vermont, who finished with a time of 43:00.5.

"I'm really happy with second, especially to such a strong guy like Ben," Hendry said. "Ben is coming off a wonderful season going to the World Cup and the Olympics. He is definitely the biggest guy out there. Thursday we really struggled and probably had our worst day as a team in my time at Utah. So it was great to bounce back today and be in there.

"My strategy for the mass start races is to just expend as little energy as possible early on. If I feel really good I can try to make something happen. But usually it's going to come down to the last climb or second to last climb. I just try to save as much for those as possible."

A full list of the NCAA Championship results can be viewed here.

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