Photos: Stephen Cloutier (Alpine) & Phillip Belena (Nordic)

COLCHESTER, Vt. - Three Saint Michael's College skiers have been chosen for the NCAA National Collegiate Championship, it was announced on Wednesday, qualifying for an event that involves student-athletes from Division I, II and III. This marks the ninth time in 11 years at least three Purple Knights will attend the championship, with the four-day event beginning on March 11 in Midway and Park City, Utah.
 
Junior Oliver Miatke (Duluth, Minn./Duluth East) became the first Purple Knight Nordic skier to qualify multiple times, after also competing last season in New Hampshire. Sophomore teammate Sam Friday (Carbondale, Colo./Roaring Fork) and Alpine sophomore Isabella Knutsen (Bergen, Vestland, Norway/Norges Toppidrettsgymnas Geilo) earned their first NCAA Championship qualifications. Thanks to scoring done by two Alpine and Nordic skiers apiece, Saint Michael's placed 13th at the 2025 NCAA Championship.
 
Miatke claimed five top-10 finishes this season, all in freestyle events, placing sixth during both the Colby College Carnival mass-start 20K on Jan. 23 and Williams College Carnival 10K on Feb. 13. He also landed a seventh-place performance at the Middlebury College Carnival/Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association (EISA) Championship mass-start 20K on Feb. 21. Miatke added a trio of top-20 classic finishes, topping out with a 15th-place effort at Colby on Jan. 24. He also helped a 3x5K classic relay trio take fourth at Williams on Feb. 14. Miatke has qualified for NCAAs twice after losing his rookie year to injury.
 
Friday surged down the stretch with six consecutive top-25 showings to end the regular season. After taking 13th in the mass-start 15K freestyle at Dartmouth on Jan. 31, Friday was ninth on Feb. 20 in the 7.5K classic and 12th in the mass-start 20K freestyle, both during the Middlebury Carnival/EISA Championship. He joined Miatke for the fourth-place 3.5K classic relay at Williams on Feb. 14. Friday will debut at the NCAA Championship after narrowly missing the cut as a first-year.
 
After missing the 2025 season, Knutsen tallied four top-15 giant slalom finishes as a rookie this winter, including winning the Saint Lawrence University Carnival on Jan. 22. She was also 15th at Colby on Jan. 17 in her first EISA GS race, 11th at the University of Vermont Carnival on Feb. 5, and 12th at Williams on Feb. 13. Knutsen gives the Alpine women a qualifier for the fifth straight year.
 
Of the 29 Alpine or Nordic qualifiers in College history, 17 nods have gone to Alpine skiers during head coach Gus MacLeod's '02 16-year tenure guiding that squad, with those 17 accounting for 36 qualifications. A two-time EISA Alpine Skiing Coach of the Year, MacLeod's charges earned 17 top-20 finishes this winter.
 
Nordic skiing is under the direction of first-year head coach Annika Martell, who helped guide a three-time NCAA Championship qualifier during her four years as an assistant coach at Williams College. Her Purple Knights claimed 19 individual top-20 showings this season, including seven top-10 placements, while the men were among the top five schools eight times out of 12 carnival dates. Juniors Zoe Devine (Ely, Minn./Memorial) and Henrik Wist (Trondheim, Norway/Heimdal VGS) and sophomore Daniel McCollor (Wayzata, Minn./Wayzata) were all among the first handful of skiers to miss the cut.
 
One hundred and forty-eight skiers will take part in Alpine and Nordic races at the national championship. In Alpine, 34 men and 34 women skiers will compete, including 17 apiece from the East Region, and on the Nordic side, 40 men and 40 women were chosen, with 17 each from the East. Alpine begins with GS on March 11 at Utah Olympic Park in Park City, Utah, before slalom will run on March 13. Nordic skiers will compete at Soldier Hollow Nordic Center in Midway, Utah, throughout for the 7.5K classic on March 12 and mass-start 20K freestyle on March 14. The NCAA Championship will be webcast live on NCAA.com/liveschedule. Complete multimedia links will be available through SMCAthletics.com.