Junior Christi Nowak (Dayton, MN, Rogers) closed out her historical season yesterday by finishing just one place away from qualifying for the NCAA Championships. With a Nordic season that is comprised of 5 classical and 5 freestyle races, competitors are ranked by their lowest two races throughout the year. The NCAA determines the qualifiers through a point system that calculates a skier’s time as a percentage back of the winner’s time. Nowak’s 11th place finish was the highest finish ever by any Blazer skier in the history of the program. Being named one of the alternates to the championships, the Blazers and Nowak’s future look bright as she still has one more year to qualify for the elusive race.
On Sunday in the freestyle race Nowak paced the Blazers finishing first on the team and ninth overall. Starting out the race conservatively Nowak found herself wedged in the middle in 20th place before finishing in ninth place; the highest finish ever in a NCAA Qualifying race by a Saint Benedict skier.
“I just worked my way up by picking people off”, Nowak said about her finish.
Junior Anna Roessler (Grand Rapids, MN, Grand Rapids) and fist-year Shannon McEvoy (Bloomington, MN, Jefferson) also scored for the Blazers finishing in 21st and 38th respectively. The Blazers sixth place team finish was just behind Division One teams such as Northern Michigan, Michigan Tech and Wisconsin-Green Bay.
With the Blazers season coming to a close, the team can’t help but look forward to a promising year next winter as the team returns many of the skiers who placed in the qualifying races. Junior skiers, Roessler, who finished 23rd on the points list and Katelyn Engel (Plymouth, MN, Wayzata) 43rd, sophomores Stephani Seymour (Plymouth, MN, Wayzata) 38th, and first years McEvoy 45th, Kelly Donahue (Plymouth, MN, Wayzata) 49th, and Marianne Luetmer (Rochester, MN, Mayo) 58th will all return to lead a deep and talented squad that looks to make a bearth in the NCAA Championships.
2-Day Final Results