Steamboat Pilot & Today

Keystone — A pair of 16-year-olds from the Steamboat Springs Win­ter Sports Club crashed the party at the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association Championships on Friday at How­elsen Hill. Michaela Frias and Haley Piske more than held their own with the college women in a 5-kilometer cross-country ski race.

The race was won by defending NCAA champion Antje Maempel, of the University of Denver, in a time of 16 minutes, 37 seconds.

Frias placed 12th, one spot ahead of former U.S. national champion Alexa Turzian, of the University of Colorado. Piske placed 23rd, ahead of part of the collegiate field.

“I just tried to ski as best as I could,” Frias said while waxing her skis after the race. “I know I caught the two girls, or women, ahead of me, but the woman behind me passed me.”

Molly Newman, another Win­­ter Sports Club junior skier, was 35th, and Betsy Neal placed 39th.

Friday’s races, which attracted 300 athletes, combined the final qualifying race for the Junior Olympics, scheduled for March 8 to 14 in Presque Isle, Maine, with the last collegiate ski race before the NCAA championships. CU will host the NCAA finals on the same course here March 10 to 13. The event was last here in 2006.

The collegiate race attracted athletes from the University of New Mexico, the University of Utah, Montana State Univer­sity, the University of Nevada-Reno and the University of Alaska-Anchorage. CU’s Matt Gelso won the men’s 10-kilometer race. Elliot Neal, of the Winter Sports Club, placed 46th.

A pair of Winter Sports Club alumnae also skied well for their universities. Mary Rose turned in her best result of the season for CU, placing 20th, and two-time NCAA qualifier Sarah MacCarthy, of the University of Utah, ranked 17th.

To put Frias’ race in perspective, Turzian was a 2009 first-team All-American in freestyle cross-country and a second-team All-American in classical racing. She won a U.S. National Championship in a skate race in Houghton, Mich., in 2007. And Turzian has been a strong competitor on the mountain collegiate circuit.

Winter Sports Club coach Brian Tate said Frias has been gathering momentum late in the season.

“Michaela, the last three races, has risen to a different level of fitness,” Tate said. “Her skiing has improved with every race.”

Frias’ best finish at the Junior Olympics in Truckee, Calif., in 2009 was a second place in a mass start freestyle race.

The competition resumes today at Howelsen with a 20-kilometer skate race for the college men and a 15-kilometer race for the women. The junior skiers will not compete at those distances, but will ski in their own shorter races.