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By Journal Sports Staff
DULUTH, Minn. — With its skiers taking the lion’s share of podium spots over two days, the Northern Michigan University women’s nordic ski team easily won the team title at the two-day Salomon CXC Cup that finished on Sunday in Duluth, Minnesota.
The Wildcats were consistent, scoring 70 points on Saturday and another 72 Sunday for a total of 142. Michigan Tech was team runner-up with 60 and 60 for 120, while host St. Scholastica was third with 100.
In addition, NMU also carried off the combined team title which included both men’s and women’s competition with 283 points as Tech had 245 and St. Scholastica 187.
The NMU women were able to place three of their skiers in the six positions for the final heat of Saturday’s sprint races. The competition began with five quarterfinal heats as top finishers advanced to the semifinals. The best finishers in the two semis then advanced to the six-skier finals.
In the final, Northern’s Merle Richter won by more than three seconds, completing the course in 3 minutes, 23.69 seconds. Runner-up Mia Case of St. Scholastica finished in 3:26.79, while NMU also had the third- and fourth-place finishers — Lauren McCollor clocked 3:29.47 and Victoria Klevan Dybwad 3:29.53. The finals were rounded out by MTU’s Marie Soelverud Wangen and Catherine Snow.
In the quarterfinals, Richter won her heat by less than a second in 3:21.38, as did McCollor in hers in 3:27.45.
Richter was again a winner in her semifinal by less than a second in 3:20.65, while McCollor was second in 3:22.30 and Dybwad third in 3:22.47 in the other semi.
Richter posted the second-fastest overall time in the quarters and fastest time in the semis.
Six other NMU skiers also participated among the 30 total competitors on Saturday. In the quarterfinals, Northern’s Henriette Nilssen earned the “lucky loser” title as one of the top two fastest third-place finishers as only the top two places from each heat were guaranteed to advance. She clocked 3:24.22 in Richter’s heat.
Also advancing for the Wildcats’ was Flisa Ravald, who was second in her heat in 3:25.96, while teammate Jordan Parent was second in another heat in 3:30.58.
Not advancing out of the first round was NMU’s Ella Niznik, who was third in her heat in 3:29.23; Pearl Harvey, who was fourth in her heat in 3:37.59; and Kolibri Drobish, who was sixth in her heat in 3:45.47.
In the semis, with the top two advancing and the other two fastest times, Nilssen was fifth in the faster heat in 3:28.63 and Parent sixth in that same heat in 3:31.42. Ravald was sixth in the other heat in 3:35.55.
Sunday was an even better day for the Wildcats in the classic interval start event as NMU swept the three podium spots with a different finish from Saturday and a different skier making the team’s top three.
McCollor was the gold medalist on this day along the 7.5-kilometer course in 20:49.6, posting cumulative lap times of 3:55.4, 8:10.4, 12:25.7 and 16:37.5 before coming home for her final result.
She beat out Richter by just a half-second as Richter timed 20:50.1, while Nilssen was third in 21:05.7.
Nilssen beat out the rest of the field by nearly 10 seconds as MTU’s Anabel Needham was fourth in 21:14.5.
Richter made a big rush in her final lap before coming up just short of McCollor. She started about two seconds behind McCollor after the first lap in 3:57.8 and was barely more than a second back after two laps in 8:11.6. But she dropped off by nearly five seconds after lap 3 in 12:30.4 and was more than eight seconds back in 16:45.8 after lap 4. But she made up more than seven seconds on the final lap to finish as runner-up.
Nilssen’s first four lap times were 3:59.1, 8:13.2, 12:33.2 and 16:52.1.
Also for NMU, Dybwad was sixth in 21:20.6, just two-tenths of a second behind fifth-place Wangen of Tech. Northern’s Drobish was seventh in 22:06.5, Parent eighth in 22:15.9, Harvey 21st in 23:13.9 and Niznik 26th in 23:43.7.
This day’s field included 112 finishers and 124 in total who started.
Next up for the Wildcats is the Cable CXC Cup event on Saturday and Sunday, the second Central Collegiate Ski Association event to be held in Cable, Wisconsin.
Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is [email protected].