DU has created a skiing dynasty.
With 20 national championship wins, the Pioneers ski team has more national team titles than any other Division I competitors. Photo by: Lincoln Benedict/EISA
On March 14 the Pioneers ski team won its 20th NCAA national championship — more than any other Division I ski team and the fifth-highest number of championships won by any collegiate team in any sport.
The championship was the team’s first winning meet all season. “What we’ve learned as athletes is that we prepare all season and improve throughout the season,” says alpine head coach Andy LeRoy, adding that the team put its energy into the meet that mattered most.
Indeed.
Coming into the final day of the 56th NCAA Ski Championships in Bethel, Maine, three teams were within three points. Denver pulled away in the final two events, beating second-place University of Colorado-Boulder by 56.5 points. New Mexico, Alaska-Anchorage and Vermont rounded out the top five.
The rivalry between DU and CU wasn’t new this year; the two have shared dominance over American collegiate skiing for more than a half-century. Together, they have a combined 36 national titles in 56 championship meets. Colorado won a record eight consecutive titles in the 1970s; Denver won seven in a row in the 1960s.
“It’s definitely a milestone in the course of DU history and skiing history altogether,” LeRoy says of the championship. “I’m proud and honored. To continue the legacy is pretty sweet.”
Helping make that milestone was Antje Maempel, who became the second DU women’s skier to sweep the Nordic titles. (Lisbeth Johnsen took the classical and freestyle titles at the 1996 NCAA championships.)
Maempel, a sophomore business major from Stuelzerbach, Germany, beat CU’s Alexa Turzian by just 0.5 seconds in the 15K freestyle. She also won the 5K classical, marking the 72nd and 73rd NCAA individual skiing titles in DU history. She was named MVP of the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association.
“Every team member trained hard and did the best job when it counted,” Maempel says, adding that the team’s obstacles were particularly challenging this year. In addition to tough snow conditions all year, especially for alpine skiers, “we lost half the men’s team due to graduation,” Maempel says.
Leif Haugen, a first-year international business major from Lommendalen, Norway, led DU’s alpine team, placing second in the men’s giant slalom and third in the slalom.
Along with All-Americans Maempel and Haugen, Harald Lovenskiold earned All-American first-team honors in classical, Annelise Bailly earned first-team in freestyle and second-team in classical, and Mike Hinckley earned second-team honors in the men’s freestyle.
The victory marked the Pioneers’ sixth national championship since 2000. DU also won in 2001, 2002, 2005 and 2008. The Pioneers have won 27 Division I NCAA team titles overall — 20 in skiing and seven in hockey.