Hanover, N.H. - The University of New Mexico Ski Team finished the 2003 NCAA Skiing Championships in fourth place overall today with a final score of 541.5. The Lobos were passed by Vermont and Colorado on the last day of competition. Colorado finished in third place with 546.5 points, just five points ahead of UNM while UV was 9.5 points ahead of New Mexico with 551. The Lobos placed 10th and 4th in mens and womens Slalom respectively. Utah ran away with the Championships, totaling 682 points in the meet.

Bad luck hit New Mexico early when freshman Alexander Freberg lost his back binding on his right ski, three-quarters of the way through his first run. The broken binding sent him flying and his ski darting down the hill into the crowd. Luckily Freberg was able to walk away from the crash and the runaway ski was stopped. However, because of his fall, Freberg was not able to finish the race and had to record a DNF, earning no points for the Lobos. Sophomore Gottfried Schwarzmueller led UNM with a 20th place finish. Freshman Christain Jensen recovered from a missed gate to finish 26th in the race.

Mens Alpine Slalom Top-10* Individual Finishes
|Place|Skier|Team|Time|Points|
|1|Bradley Wall|Dartmouth|1:40.28|39|
|2|James Cochran|Vermont|1:40.30|38|
|3|Scott Kennison|Vermont|1:40.55|37|
|4|Patrick Biggs|Dartmouth|1:40.72|36|
|5|Eric Rygg|Middlebury|1:40.8|35|
|6|Jed Schuetze|Colorado|1:41.06|34|
|7|Pierre Olsson|Utah|1:41.94|33|
|8|Mark Heinrich-Wallace|Williams|1:42.45|32|
|9|Jernej Bukovec|Utah|1:43.01|31|
|10|Dominick Schweiger|Utah|1:43.34|30|
|20|Gottfried Schwarzmueller|New Mexico|1:48.58|20|
|26|Christen Jensen|New Mexico|1:54.25|14|
|--|Alexander Freberg|New Mexico|DNF|--|

Top-10 Earn NCAA All-American Honors

Mens Alpine Slalom Team Standings
|Place|Team|Finishes|Points|Total Points|
|1|Dartmouth|1-4-22|39-36-18|93|
|2|Vermont|2-3-28|38-37-12|87|
|2|Utah|7-9-17|33-31-23|87|
|4|Colorado|6-11-21|34-29-19|82|
|5|Denver|10-13-25|30-27-15|72|
|6|Middlebury|5-12-DNF|35-28-0|63|
|7|Nevada|16-19-23|24-21-17|62|
|8|Williams|8-24-x|32-16-x|48|
|9|Colby|15-30-DQ|25-10-x|35|
|10|New Mexico|20-26-DNF|20-14-0|34|
|11|New Hampshire|14-DQ-x|26-0-x|26|
|12|Western State|18-x-x|22-x-x|22|
|13|Whitman|27-x-x|13-x-x|13|
|14|Alaska-Anchorage|29-x-x|11-x-x|11|

In the NCAA Championships, teams have to throw out thier bottom three scores. This means that the Lobos were able to throw out Frebergs zero he recorded when he fell, and two scores of 2 and 4 from the mens Nordic team. Every team has to throw out their three lowest scores before the final tallies are calculated. Below is a full list of the final team standings from the 2003 NCAA Championships.

Overall Standings
|Place|Team|MFR|WFR|MCL|WCL|MGS|WGS|MSL|WSL|Subtotal|-3 Low Scores|Total|
|1|Utah|53|92|78|104|109|103|87|99|725|-43|682|
|2|Vermont|100|14|83|7|88|82|87|80|551|-0|551|
|3|Colorado|57|81|78|83|63|62.5|82|63|569.5|-23|546.5|
|4|New Mexico|75|94|54|95|49.5|72|34|74|547.5|-6|541.5|
|5|Denver|49|58.5|64|81|54|75|72|90|543.5|-21|522.5|
|6|Dartmouth|57|28|74|46|73|47|93|58|476|-4|472|
|7|Nevada|40|87|28|53|30|33.5|62|40|373.5|-0|373.5|
|8|Middlebury|56|14|48|11|84.5|55|63|32|-0|363.5|
|9|Alaska-Anchorage|70|59.5|91|43|28|10|20|10|-0|331.5|
|10|New Hampshire|61|27|41|25|54|42|26|31|307|-0|307|
|11|Northern Michigan|52|77|52|78|0|0|0|0|259|-0|259|
|12|Alaska-Fairbanks|63|74|48|69|0|0|0|0|254|-0|254|
|13|Colby|0|0|0|0|68|61.5|35|73|237.5|-0|237.5|
|14|Williams|0|22|0|31|35|54.5|48|38|228.5|-0|228.5|
|15|Western State|8|8|4|8|16|30|22|22|118|-0|118|
|16|Bates|25|23|35|10|0|0|0|0|93|-0|93|
|17|Whitman|0|0|0|0|0|19|13|20|52|-0|52|
|18|Montana State|0|5|0|3|0|12|0|25|45|-0|45|
|19|Harvard|0|13|0|21|0|0|0|0|34|-0|34|
|20|Michigan Tech|13|0|2|0|0|0|0|0|15|-0|15|
|21|Wisconsin-Green Bay|0|2|0|5|0|0|0|0|7|-0|7|
|22|St. Cloud State|0|1|0|4|0|0|0|0|5|-0|5|

The Lobos needed a good showing from the womens team to climb back up in the standings. The Lobos are the defending National Champions in the womens Slalom, but were not able to repeat that feat this year, finishing 4th. New Mexico was led by junior Caroline Schichts 13th place finish. Freshman Katrin Spendier placed 16th while junior Jennifer Delich placed 17th.

Womens Alpine Slalom Top-10* Individual Finishes
|Place|Skier|Team|Time|Points|
|1|Liina Johansson|Utah|1:35.03|39|
|2|Jenny Lathrop|Colby|1:36.02|38|
|3|Mia Cullman|Colorado|1:36.20|37|
|4|Hilary McCloy|Vermont|1:36.22|36|
|5|Abbi Lathrop|Colby|1:37.21|35|
|6|Barbara Knor|Denver|1:37.47|34|
|7|Jamie Kingsbury|Vermont|1:37.53|33|
|8|Laura Scripture|Middlebury|1:37.63|32|
|9|Petra Svet|Utah|1:37.86|31|
|10|Sophia Ormond|Denver|1:38.06|30|
|13|Caroline Schicht|New Mexico|1:38.55|27|
|16|Kathrin Spendier|New Mexico|1:39.12|24|
|17|Jennifer Delich|New Mexico|1:39.37|23|

*Top-10 Earn NCAA All-American Honors

Womens Nordic 15K Classic Team Standings
|Place|Team|Finishes|Points|Total Points|
|1|Utah|1-9-11|39-31-29|99|
|2|Denver|6-10-14|34-30-26|90|
|3|Vermont|4-7-19|36-33-21|80|
|4|New Mexico|13-16-17|27-24-23|74|
|5|Colby|2-5-x|38-35-x|73|
|6|Colorado|3-21-33|37-19-7|63|
|7|Dartmouth|15-22-25|25-18-15|58|
|8|Nevada|12-28-x|28-12-x|40|
|9|Williams|18-24-x|22-16-x|38|
|10|Middlebury|8-DNF-x|32-0-x|32|
|11|New Hampshire|26-29-34|14-11-6|31|
|12|Montana State|23-32-x|17-8-x|25|
|13|Western State|27-31-x|13-9-x|22|
|14|Whitman|20-x-x|20-x-x|20|
|15|Alaska-Anchorage|30-x-x|10-x-x|10|

This is the second straight season the Lobos have finished in fourth place overall. The Lobos came into the Championships ranked fifth in the nation and finished ahead of No. 1 ranked Denver. The Lobos leave with a laundry list of awards and accomplishments that include:

All-Americans (6)
Lars Krogsveen - Mens Nordic Freestyle
Caroline Schicht - Womens Giant Slalom
Kristina Strandberg - Womens Nordic Classic
Martina Stursova - Womens Nordic Freestyle and Classic
Jimmy Vika - Mens Nordic Freestyle and Classic
Jenny Wissting - Womens Nordic Freestyle

National Champions
Jimmy Vika - Mens 10K Freestyle
Kristina Strandberg, Martina Stursova, Jenny Wissting - Womens Nordic 5K Freestyle Team Champions

I am very proud of the way our cross-country team performed this year, stated head coach George Brooks, who guided the Lobos to their fifth straight top-5 finish and 11th in the 24-year history of the NCAA Skiing Championships. (Head Nordic Coach) Fredrk (Landstedt) did a tremendous job with the Nordic team and they kept us in the hunt the whole meet. Our Alpine team did not ski they way they did earlier in the season. They just peaked at the wrong time, but we still had a strong showing and I am proud of all our student-athletes.

Lobos Skiing

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