Utah's ski team wins 4th consecutive NCAA national championship

SALT LAKE CITY — It may be March Madness in the collegiate world as basketball takes over the country's attention, but the University of Utah's ski team wasn't ready to concede the attention just yet.

Novie McCabe completed a week for the Utes and won the women's 20K Classic in 1:00:04.3 on Saturday to give Utah its fourth consecutive NCAA team championship as part of the NCAA skiing championships in Lake Placid, New York.

Saturday's win is Utah's 16th national championship all time.

A day earlier, McCabe earned an individual 5K freestyle title to move Utah into second place going into the final day of competition with a 12:46.3 total time. She followed it up on Saturday with a win in the 20K Classic, beating out Colorado's Hanna Abrahamsson (1:00:23.9) and fellow teammate Sophia Laukli (1:00:25.3), who took third place.

Utah's Sydney Palmer-Leger finished in fifth place (1:01:31.2) in the 20K Classic to give the women 103.0 points and to comfortably lift the team to a 526.0 final score. Colorado finished the week in second place with 491.5 total points, and Denver finished in third place with 416.5 total points.

"It's an incredible feeling to pull this one off," said Utah director of skiing Fredrik Landstedt. "It was probably the hardest one in my five years at Utah. Colorado came out and they really performed at a higher level than they have all winter, and it ended up coming down to the wire. I'm very proud of our whole team."

The Utah women carried the team by taking first place in all four races, highlighted by McCabe's wins and Madison Hoffman claiming individual titles in women's giant slalom (2:10.66 total time) and women's slalom (1:49.37 total time).

"It was a really good day out there today," McCabe said on Saturday. "It was fun to ski with both of my teammates for pretty much the whole race. I think we really wanted to really try to work together coming into this and get some good points for the team. I'm really happy with today and proud of how everyone performed."

"It felt pretty special grabbing my first college GS win today, especially with it being the championship," Hoffman said on Wednesday after her individual title. "The snow was firm and the course was fun. I definitely was nervous, but glad I could keep it together for second run after giving myself the lead."

Hoffman's individual title on Wednesday gave Utah a strong start to the week and put the team in third place going into the final three days of races. From there, Utah continued to improve its status before coming into Saturday with a second place standing.

On the men's side, Utah opened up the week with a seventh-place finish in giant slalom by Gustav Vollo, who finished with a total time of 2:08.22. From there, Wilhelm Normannseth finished with a second-place finish in men's slalom (1:50.11).

Luke Jager (23:39.1) finished in sixth Walker Hall (23:51.3) finished in eighth in the men's 10K freestyle, while Samuel Hendry (55:43.0) finished in fourth place in the men's 20K Classic to round out the week and give Utah a push to finish strong down the stretch.

"That was a battle in the men's race, and the conditions got even harder as it got warmer and the course was a little slower, so it was not easy for anyone," Landstedt said on Saturday. "They said it was the hardest race they've ever had."

"We have an incredible coaching staff that works work so hard to make this happen," Landstedt added. "The Alpine coaches, JJ (Johnson) and Mary (Joyce), do a great job for the team to be able to perform at this level at the championship. It's always a bit of a gamble because you only have three spots in each race, so everyone contributes and every few places can make the difference in falling to third, fourth or fifth place."

To see the full results from the week, click here.

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