The weekend of January 28th and 29th brought the teams of the CCSA to Duluth, Minnesota for the Duluth Hilltop Invite hosted by the College of Saint Scholastica. Saturday’s race, 5k and 10k individual freestyle for women and men respectively, went as planned but the Sunday classic distance was changed to freestyle due to an insufficient amount of snow. This change left only the first day as a CCSA/NCAA qualifier point race causing some teams to leave after the first race.

Starting the day off with the women’s 5k, Nicole Schneider from Northern Michigan captured another freestyle victory with a time of 13:19 followed by her teammates Vivian Hett (2nd) and Sophie Schimpl (3rd). “I thought it was a good day of racing for our team. All of our athletes were out there giving it all they had on a fast icy course.” added NMU assistant coach Shane MacDowell.

Michigan Tech women were led by Carolyn Lucca finishing 11th, a few seconds ahead of her teammate Sonja Hedblom (14th). The fastest woman from the College of Saint Scholastica was Kelsey Dickinson (12th) followed by Green Bay’s Bree Mucha (13th) only three seconds behind. The top finisher from St. Olaf College was Bri Olsen (32nd).

Michigan Tech’s Gaspard Cuenot clocked in at 24:24 during the men’s 10k freestyle which secured him a first spot on the podium. His performance, along with his teammates Tom Bye (4th) and Tomi Mikkonen (9th), helped MTU to score the most points among the men’s teams.

Second place went to Reitler Hodgert representing Saint Scholastica and coming in third was Lars Sonsterud from NMU. University of Wisconsin Green Bay was represented by Kyle Marshal coming in 12th and Tyler Radke from St. Olaf finished 38th.

Even with the Northern Michigan and Michigan Tech men’s teams leaving the night before, there was not a lack of competition on Sunday. Kyle Marshall from UWGB placed 2nd with a time of 24:54 in the men’s race, and he was the top CCSA skier that day. Chasing down Marshal were Jack Christianson (4th), Samuel Boardman (10th) and Gerrit Garberich (14th), all skiing for the College of St. Scholastica. Tyler Radke from St. Olaf moved up to 21st from the previous day.

On the women’s side, the fastest CSSA skier was MTU’s Carolyn Lucca who took 3rd place with her time of 28 minutes flat. The closest collegiate skier to Lucca was Sadie Paterson (7th) skiing for UWGB. In the field of St. Scholastica’s women, Nicole Gilman was their top finisher coming in 17th.

Visit itiming.com to see complete results.

The weekend of racing at the Birkie Trailhead near Cable, WI brought yet another challenging competition upon the skiers as well as coaches from CCSA and Midwest high schools.

Day one started with the men’s classic 10k individual start. With temperatures around 36 degrees and raining, the course quickly deteriorated despite the best efforts of the organizers.

Adam Martin, representing Northern Michigan University, dominated the field with a winning time of 30:24.5 and a comfortable margin of 28 seconds on his teammate, Fredrik Schwencke, placing second. Another Wildcat placing within the top five was freshman, Zak Katterson (4th). The Saint Scholastica and Michigan Tech men were led by Ryan St. Clair (9th) and Gaspard Cuenot, rounding out the top ten respectively. “I have to give credit to Gaspard for battling hard after making a poor choice to double pole.” said Michigan Tech’s coach Joe Haggenmiller.

The women’s 5k was taken over by NMU placing eight skiers into the top ten. The fastest collegiate skier was NMU’s Vivian Hett (2nd) with the time 17:58.0 ahead of her teammates Nicole Schneider (3rd) and Sophie Schimpl (4th). The top MTU woman was Sonja Hedblom taking 12th place. With all the NMU women and majority of men placing in the top ten, Sten Fjeldheim said: “I am very happy with the performance of our team. We took our focus away from making the teams for Junior and U23 World Championships which certainly reflected on our results.”

Day two kicked off with the men’s 20k freestyle mass start. MTU’s Gaspard Cuenot topped the field in an exciting final sprint against NMU’s Adam Martin (2nd) and Fredrik Schwencke (3rd). His winning time was 58:39.4. Zak Ketterson (4th) and Leo Hipp (7th) were two other Wildcats finishing in the top along with Kyle Marshall (8th) from University of Wisconsin Green Bay and David Jaszczak (9th) from Michigan Tech.

The Wildcats were led by Nicole Schneider who completed the course in 49:26.1 followed by Sophie Schimpl (3rd) and Caroline Brisbois (4th). Just outside the top ten placed Elizabeth Evans (11th) from Saint Scholastica, Bree Mucha (13th) representing UWGB, and Carolyn Lucca (14th) from Michigan Tech.

“There were some highs and some lows and are hungry for improvement across the board. I was impressed by our teams tenacity in the physical & technical challenges of skiing in warm rainy weather. We are really excited to bring the CCSA to Duluth next weekend!” said Scholastica’s head coach Maria Stuber.

---

Men’s 10km Classic Results
Women’s 5km Classic Results

Men’s 20km Freestyle Results
Women’s 15km Freestyle Results

Between January 7 and January 12, universities of the CCSA competed at the 2017 Cross Country Championships in Soldier Hollow, Utah. The same site which hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics will also provide courses for the Junior and U23 World Championships starting by the end of January.

The first day of racing kicked off with the women’s individual 10k freestyle on January 7. Nicole Schneider, NMU’s top finisher, took 34th place overall with a time of 29:27.4, followed by her teammate Sophie Schimpl just 0.5 seconds back and Vivian Hett placing 48th. Kelsey Dickinson from the College of St. Scholastica finished 61st and her teammate Nicole Gilman took the 226th spot. Michigan Tech’s women were led by Sonja Hedblom placing 120th followed by Carolyn Lucca 171st and Lisa Koenig 187th. Women who raced for University of Wisconsin Green Bay were Bree Mucha, Sadie Paterson and Madeline McKeefry finishing 181st, 206th and 236th respectively.

The following race was the men’s individual 15k freestyle. Adam Martin from NMU finished 13th clocking in at 36:02. Martin was the CCSA’s highest placing man that day followed by his teammates Fredrik Schwencke 62nd and Zak Ketterson 72nd. Michigan Tech’s men were led by Gaspard Cuenot placing 29th followed by Tom Bye 73rd and David Jaszczak 144th. St. Scholastica’s Reitler Hodgert, finished 116th.

The next race on the program was the classic sprint on January 8. With the temperature hovering around 36 degrees and constantly changing weather conditions, coaches and wax techs were constantly challenged to pick the best kick wax.

Tomi Mikkonen and Gaspard Cuenot from Michigan Tech both qualified for senior heats in 15th and 16th place respectively, both finishing their race in quarterfinals. NMU’s Frederik Schwencke qualified 28th for senior heats as well, advancing to the final round where he took 6th place. Zak Ketterson and Lars Soensterun from NMU qualified for the junior heats.
Nicole Schneider from Northern Michigan also qualified for the junior heats where she managed to win the final round.

The third day of racing, January 10, brought several classic distance races with mass starts throughout the day. First race was the senior men’s 30k followed by the senior women’s 20k, junior men’s 10k and junior women’s 7.5k.

NMU’s Adam Martin finished the 30k in 11th place and clocked in 1:24:35 securing a spot on U23 Worlds His teammates Fredrik Schwencke and Sam Elfstrom placed 23rd and 62nd respectively. Top MTU’s finishers were Tomi Mikkonen 54th and Daniel Wood 84th. Reitler Hodgert from St. Scholastica took 71st place.

The top CSSA’s finisher in the women’s 20k was Kelsey Dickinson from St. Scholastica in 40th place with time 1:12:46. Vivian Hett from Northern Michigan finished 43rd followed by her teammates Caroline Brisbois 46th and Kristen Bourne 50th. Sonja Hedblom from Michigan Tech placed 54th along with Carolyn Lucca taking 64th and Ruth Opplinger in 74th. Bree Mucha racing for UWGB finished 73rd followed by Madeline McKeefry, also representing University of Wisconsin Green Bay.

In the junior men’s 10k race, Zak Ketterson from NMU finished 34th and his teammate Lars Soensterud placed 121st. David Jaszczak from MTU took 95th spot.

Nicole Schneider from NMU placed 23rd in junior women’s 7,5k and St.Scholastica’s Nicole Gilman finished 101st.

Dartmouth College won the College Cup by earning 615 points scored by top three, male and female skiers from each university in the classic sprint and 10/15k skate race. Northern Michigan University tied with University of Denver for second place with 573 points, Michigan Tech placed 13th with 380 points Saint Scholastica 17th with 178 points and University of Wisconsin Green Bay took 18th place, scoring 89 points.