Ski team caps off year with first NCAA title for UNM
March 22, 2004
UNM's ski team has gone down in history as the first Lobo team to win an NCAA title in the school's history.
Solid performances from the Alpine and the Nordic teams helped secure the title for UNM at the 2004 NCAA Skiing Championships held in Truckee, Calif. on March 10-13. Head coach George Brooks said it was a strong team effort that was the key to success.
"The reason we won is because everyone contributed," he said. "We had the right group of coaches and athletes. It was a special group and we didn't need to win the championship to know that. This was a complete team effort."
The momentum started with captain Jennifer Delich's gold-medal performance in the women's giant slalom on the first day of racing, placing UNM in third. The Lobos moved up to second after the Nordic events on day two.
"The first day we got started right, and we became more positive each day coming down to the end," Delich said.
Freshman Lars Loeseth followed up Delich's terrific performance with a third-place finish in the men's slalom on day three, putting the Lobos in the lead for good.
On the final day of competition, the Lobos were poised for their first title. The Nordic team secured gold by taking bronze in two events. Sophomores Geir-Endre Rogn and Trine Lundamo finished third in the men's 20K and in the women's 15K.
"We felt a lot of pressure on the last day to win," Nordic coach Fredrik Landstedt said. "We knew it would be hard, but we came into the competition expecting to win."
UNM won with 623 points - 42 ahead of last year's national champions, the Utah Utes.
Delich, a senior who was an All-American in 2002, was the only UNM skier to capture an event. This was the first time in her career she won the giant slalom.
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"I was confident I could do well but wasn't expecting to win," Delich said. "The feeling was awesome."
Ski Racing magazine released a preseason coaches' poll in January ranking the top schools in NCAA Division I Alpine and Nordic skiing. UNM was selected to finish fifth overall, but the Lobos had aspirations for an NCAA title since the beginning of the season. Assistant Alpine coach Brandon Dyksterhouse created signs that read "UNM Ski Team - 2004 NCAA Champions. Think about it" and posted them in the coach's office and on hotel doors wherever they raced.
"Our guys have put in the effort from the beginning, and we felt we were the team to beat coming into NCAAs," Dyksterhouse said. "I wanted to instill a championship attitude in our team early."
Bringing the crown to UNM puts the exclamation point on an impressive tenure for Brooks. Brooks skied for UNM from 1967-70 and took over as head coach in 1970. Brooks came closest to winning a title in 1992 with a second-place finish.
"I couldn't have written a better script," Brooks said. "I looked at a map three years ago of the states with national championships, and New Mexico was devoid of one. I am a native of New Mexico and happy to bring back the state's first national championship."
UNM finished the season with 10 All-Americans and 11 academic All-Americans.
Cross country: New Mexico takes home team’s first national title
November 23, 2015
Women’s cross country’s finished the season on Saturday the same way it started: as the best in the nation.
The team captured its first national championship by winning the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships at ‘Tom’ Sawyer State Park in Louisville, Kentucky. It is also UNM’s second national title in any sport, joining the 2004 skiing national champions.
Head coach Joe Franklin said he is happy for the team. He said the women accomplished something great, and it means a great deal to the University, to Albuquerque and to New Mexico.
“To do what these women did is very special,” Franklin said. “The joy on their faces after this race shows that it’s going to be something they remember for the rest of their lives.”
The team finished by placing two runners in the top 10, four runners in the top 15 and all five scorers in the top 25. In comparison, second-place Colorado didn’t place any runners in the top 10, and its fifth scorer finished 65th. UNM finished with a team score of 49, which was 80 points better than its closest competitor.
Courtney Frerichs (19:48.0) was the first Lobo to cross the finish line in the six-kilometer race, coming in fourth place, followed by teammate Alice Wright (19:53.1) in fifth. Rhona Auckland (20:07.1) and Calli Thackery (20:07.3) came in 13th and 15th, respectively.
Molly Renfer (20:17.5) rounded out the scoring, placing 24th. Heleene Tambet (20:40.4), 74th, and Whitney Thornburg (20:55.4) 109th, finished better than several schools’ top scorers.
Previously, UNM’s top individual performance at nationals was a 12th-place finish in 2013 by Sammy Silva. Franklin said Silva was a fantastic runner and teammate, and laid the foundation for this team to continue building on.
Frerichs said she had no idea that they set new school records. She said everybody ran amazingly and things ended up about as perfect as could be, but the team had to overcome a less-than-perfect start. She said wearing the turquoise uniforms allowed her to follow her teammates as they charged ahead.
“I know at two (kilometers) I was a little panicked, but Molly and Alice did a fantastic job of getting up to the front,” Frerichs said. “All the schools started to cheer for us because they realized what we were about to do before we did.”
Notre Dame’s Molly Siedel (19:28.6) capped her collegiate career by turning in the best individual time, holding off Boise State freshman Allie Ostrander (19:33.6). Although Notre Dame placed another runner in the top 10, it only had one other runner in the top 100.
This season, no other school came close to matching New Mexico’s model of consistency, depth and team running. It’s a model that the head coach said takes a team of mature individuals to buy into, and they have gone all in.
He said the clock has started ticking toward the goal of competing at nationals in 364 days. For now, the goal for the team will likely be the same: just have fun.
