Photo Credits: Stephen R. Cloutier & Clarkson Creative
LAKE PLACID, N.Y. - The Saint Michael's College skiing program claimed a school-record 11th place among 22 schools when the NCAA National Collegiate Championship ended on Saturday with the final day of Nordic races. Four Alpine skiers singlehandedly accounted for the finish while also shattering a school mark with 145 points.
Sophomore Eirik Kveno (Asker, Norway/Dønski VGS) earned All-America in both the giant slalom and slalom this week, while junior Simen Strand (Høvik, Norway/Dønski VGS), sophomore Helene Kristoffersen (Rælingen, Norway/Dønski VGS) and first-year Gray Flanagan (West Burke, Vt./Green Mountain Valley School) were also All-America in GS. The quartet finished the NCAA Championship with five All-America qualifications after the Purple Knights had only six All-America accolades in program history entering the week. Eight of those 11 have now occurred the past two seasons.
Saint Michael's, which had totaled a school-record 108.5 points at the 2022 NCAA Championship, had never finished higher than 12th at the national meet, reaching that placement in 2018. The Purple Knights had previously taken 13th in 1988, 2019 and 2022, with Alpine skiers accounting for every point during the top-13 finishes.
The Alpine squad scored seventh-place points (145) across both days of competition on Wednesday and Friday, trailing only the University of Vermont (185), which qualified six skiers, among East teams. Saint Michael's easily finished ahead of regional powers Dartmouth College (112) and the University New Hampshire (101), both of which sent six Alpine skiers to NCAAs, and Middlebury College (94), which also qualified four competitors. The Purple Knight men tied for third among Alpine squads at the championship, netting 107 points to tie Montana State University, while trailing only the University of Colorado Boulder (124.5) and UVM (146). Kristoffersen's women were 11th (38), including sixth in the East. She singlehandedly bested three-qualifier team Dartmouth (34) while narrowly trailing UVM (39) and New Hampshire (50), which also sent three representatives.
The Alpine squad allowed Saint Michael's to finish fifth overall among East Region programs while taking third among schools that sent qualifiers for only one discipline: the University of Alaska Fairbanks' six Nordic skiers totaled 268 points, and Westminster (Utah) College's sextet of Alpine competitors netted 225.
The Purple Knights were within range of eighth-place New Hampshire (234) and 10th-place Middlebury (215), both of which sent 10 qualifiers. Saint Michael's finished ahead of numerous other schools that had a larger number of competitors, with the University of Alaska Anchorage's 10 skiers totaling 130 points, Michigan Technological University's six racers scoring 67 points, and Colby College's six qualifiers tallying 58 points.
The College's four Alpine skiers combined for five All-America finishes, good for eighth at the NCAA Championship and third in the East. That figure was impressive when compared to many of the schools Saint Michael's trailed, as Dartmouth posted nine All-America showings and UVM six despite both qualifying the maximum 12 skiers. Alaska Anchorage's 10 nabbed four honors, New Hampshire's 10 totaled a pair, and Colby's six recorded one.
One hundred forty eight skiers took part in Alpine and Nordic races at the NCAA Championship, with 34 female and 34 male Alpine skiers competing, including 17 apiece from the East Region. At least three Saint Michael's Alpine skiers have qualified for the NCAA Championship six times since 2016; prior to that, neither the Alpine nor Nordic squads had ever sent more than one to an NCAA Championship. Fifteen of the 23 qualifiers in College history have come in Gus MacLeod's '02 13-year tenure as Alpine head coach, with those 15 accounting for 27 qualifications.
