Buffs Finish Third at UAA Invitational

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Colorado sophomore women's Nordic skier Christian Rolandsen led the Buffaloes with a third-place finish in Sunday's freestyle races, as the Buffs concluded the UAA Invitational with a third place finish at Kincaid Park.

For Rolandsen, it was her second straight podium finish and third overall on the season.

Colorado as a team finished the UAA Invitational in third place with 544 points. Utah won its second-straight meet with 661 points and Denver finished in second with 636.

Sunday's racing was one marked by freezing temperatures, which hovered right around zero degrees, but with the wind chill were between minus 8-11 degrees.

"It was a cold day, not a great day for us, but you know we had some bright parts with Christina skiing well and Jesse (Knori) I think given the conditions skied about as well as one would have expected for her under these conditions that can be really hard on her," head Nordic coach Bruce Cranmer said.

CU's women's team placed second in the 15K freestyle event with 75 points, 16 back of the Utes in first.

Asides from Rolandsen's podium finish, senior Jesse Knori placed eighth for her fifth top 10 finish of the season. Freshman Anne Siri Lervik finished in 13th and Camilla Brautaset was 25th.

"Christina was on and off in the lead the whole race, she ended up just on the low side of the podium, but skied well," Cranmer said.

The men's team was once again led by sophomore Petter Reistad, who finished seventh in the 20K freestyle. He has now finished inside the top 10 in all seven races this year with four appearances on the podium.

Colorado was fifth among the seven schools in the men's freestyle race with 53 points.

Freshman Andrew Potyk for a second consecutive day recorded his best finish of the season, placing 17th on Sunday that topped his 18th-place showing Saturday in the 10K classic race.

Jackson Hill came in 28th, Max Scrimgeour 31st and Ian Boucher 33rd in Sunday's 20K skate.

Despite a challenging day on Sunday, Cranmer said there are some positives that can be taken out of the day and the week of competition at sea level in Alaska.

"I think we certainly had some bright places with Jesse winning (Saturday's classic race) and Christina having two podiums, our relay team winning, so we definitely had some good stuff," Cranmer said. "It was good to get a feel for sea-level tempo, which is a little bit higher. That's all the positive, the only negative is that cold beats us up and it's individual, sometimes people do well in the cold and other people don't. That's just kind of the luck of how things are.

"You can try and plan for it. The only way you can possibly deal with it is try and ski like you are a mummy out there, which is usually not that efficient either. You get so bundled up that you feel like you are not even racing wearing so many clothes… That's just kind of the way it goes sometimes. I think we certainly had some bright spots for sure, couple of low spots, but all-in-all we can learn from it and hopefully be ready for NCAA's, get all healed up, it's over three weeks away so there is plenty of time for everybody to be healthy and strong."

The Buffaloes are now off until the RMISA Championships at the end of the month, which are being held at Beaver Creek, Feb. 24-26. The NCAA Championships follow that, March 8-11 in New Hampshire.

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Players Mentioned

Ian Boucher

Camilla Brautaset

Jackson Hill

Jesse Knori

Anne Siri Lervik

Andrew Potyk

Petter Reistad

Max Scrimgeour