While many of its athletes have been spread out over the first quarter, the DU ski team is back in action as a unit, as the Nordic team wrapped up the CU Spencer Nelson Invitational on Sunday and the Alpine team began the DU Invitational on Saturday.

“Early season has a lot of athletes doing some early season races above the collegiate level,” said alpine head coach Andy LeRoy. “Some even race at the World Cup.”

LeRoy was referring to sophomore men’s alpine skiers Trevor Philp and Luke Laidlaw, who competed for Canada and Australia, respectively. Now back at DU, Philp and Laidlaw will look to help the team capture a record 22nd national championship.

After the first day of competition in the DU Invite, the Pioneer men’s and women’s alpine teams held a commanding lead. The first day featured the giant slalom races, with DU earning 253 overall points, putting them 60 points ahead of second-place Utah.

Both the men’s and women’s teams led the giant slalom contest, with the men scoring 127 and the women 126. Freshman Kristine Haugen paced the women’s team, recording not only the fastest overall time, but also the fastest runs in each of the two rounds, finishing in 59.07 and 1:02.85.

Behind Haugen, the women’s team placed three other racers in the top 10. Sophomore Devin Delaney finished fifth, while freshmen Teagan Palmer and Tianda Carroll finished sixth and ninth, respectively.

On the men’s side, three racers finished in the top five, with sophomore Trevor Philp finishing second overall with a race-best 1:01.94 second run. Sophomore All-American Espen Lysdahl finished fourth and senior Grant Jampolsky finished fifth.

Sunday brought more of the same for the Pioneers as they racked up 204 points in the slalom, bringing their two day total to 457, putting them on top. Lysdahl led the men’s squad with a second-place finish as Haugen recorded a third place finish.

“It was a good day,” said LeRoy. “Maybe not as good as yesterday, but I’m excited to have capped off a good week.”
Meanwhile on Sunday, the Nordic team put the finishing touches on a second-place finish at the CU Spencer Nelson Memorial Invitational, scoring 188 points, bringing the team total to 808.5. The Pioneers fell short of host team Colorado, who scored 878 points.

The Spencer Nelson Memorial Invitational marked the team’s first conference competition of the season and the team hopes to win another championship, according to LeRoy.

“We need to just continue the hard work and come together as a team,” said LeRoy. “It should come as no surprise if we come away with another championship.”

The DU Invitational will continue in Minturn with Nordic races being held on both Saturday and Sunday.