Ski Racing - March 26, 2012

the smoothest road to the championship title. Their
captain’s home was swept away by Tropical Storm
Irene flooding in the fall; many athletes underwent
multiple surgeries for injuries throughout the season;
and news of a close friend’s death reached the team
just before the slalom races. Still, triumph overcame
tragedy and the Cats emerged victorious.
Other athletes who faced disappointment last year
also found 2012 to be worth the wait. Erik Soder-
man, the Northern Michigan University nordic skier
who skated to victory in the 10K freestyle by a 25-
second margin, had a less-than-stellar experience
just one year earlier.
“Erik struggled last year at the NCAAs, finishing last
in the classic,” said his coach, Sten Fjeldheim. “I told
him, ‘Wait till next year, you’ll win a championship,’
and look what happened.”
Rebecca Nadler, the lone alpine skier from Har-
vard to qualify for the NCAA Champs, had finished
the 2011 giant slalom event in a heartbreaking 33rd
place out of 35 skiers. She was Ski Racing’s dark
horse pick for the GS win this year, and less than
365 days after her great disappointment, she was
crowned the first national skiing champion to ever
emerge from Harvard. “I hope Harvard just keeps
surprising people,” she said, “until it isn’t a surprise
anymore.”
Vermont’s Amy Glen, a senior who had never won
a collegiate race in her career and who came in sec-
ond to her teammate by photo finish earlier in the
season, patiently awaited word on another photo fin-
ish in the championship 15K classic. Twenty minutes
later, she was declared the winner over Dartmouth’s
Sophie Caldwell by less than two inches in distance,
roughly the blink of an eye in time. That same race
produced an historic result when Vermont and Dart-
mouth became the first two schools to ever lock up
the top six positions in a championship nordic race.
The men’s classic was a bumpy ride for winner Miles
Havlick of Utah. Runner-up in the freestyle event, he
was gunning for a win and spent most of the race
side-by-side with Montana State’s David Norris. At
the end of the second lap while trying to make a
pass, Havlick caught a tip and fell flat on his face.
“My pole was fine until I got into the stadium, and
then I took a big pole plant and it just snapped,” said
Havlick. “I spent a lot of energy trying to catch back
up again.” Havlick had been in the same situation
with Norris at the Colorado Invitational, but he was
outsprinted at the line in that race. “This was revenge
for Steamboat,” he said after taking the champion-
ship win. “I wanted redemption for that.”
The morning before the slalom races, the Cata-
mount team learned that Canadian World Cup ski-
ercross athlete Nik Zoricic had been killed in a crash
during competition in Switzerland. Vermont’s alpine
coach Johnny Davidson had been a teammate of
Zoricic, and Nik’s father had coached Catamount
ace Kate Ryley. Still in shock over the news, Ryley
moved from fifth position after the first run to claim
her first individual NCAA title. Her teammate Kristina
Riis-Johannessen finished in second and Elli Terwiel
was fifth, mathematically sealing the Vermont overall
title even before the men’s second run.
“You really never know, coming out West,” said
Reichelt. “This was the national championship team,
and no one can dispute that; across the board, ev-
eryone pulled their weight. It’s a perfect storybook
ending.”
Where was top-ranked Utah’s storybook ending at
the big show? Maria Graefnings successfully de-
fended her 2011 title in the freestyle race by winning