RENO, Nev. Eight members of the University of Nevada skiing team have qualified for the 2008 NCAA Skiing Championships, set for March 5-8 in Bozeman, Mont.
Nevada will send three men and two women for the alpine races and one man and two women for the Nordic races. The maximum number of skiers that a school can qualify is 12.
Qualifying for the men’s alpine events were freshman Greg Berger-Sabbatel (Saint Maurice, France), senior Cameron Barnes (Canmore, Alberta, Canada) and freshman Shane Collins (Truckee, Calif.). Junior Katie Lyons (Reno, Nev.) and senior Jaana Valimaki (Rovanicmi, Finland) will represent Nevada’s women’s alpine team. This year will mark the fourth career NCAA appearance for Barnes, who earned All-America honors in the men’s giant slalom last season. Valimaki and Lyons will both ski in the NCAA Championships for the third time in their careers. This season will mark the first NCAA invitation for Berger-Sabbatel, who won both the slalom and the giant slalom at last week’s NCAA West Regional, and Collins.
On the Nordic side, senior Paige Brady (Anchorage, Alaska) and junior Chelsea Holmes (Girdwood, Alaska) qualified in the women’s events, and junior Lutz Preussler (Seiffen, Germany) will represent the Wolf Pack men. Holmes and Preussler will be making their third NCAA appearances, while Brady will compete for the second time in her career.
The 55th Annual NCAA Championships will be hosted by Montana State University at Bridger Bowl and the Bohart Ranch Cross Country Center, the same courses that held the NCAA West Regional last week. The event begins on Wednesday, March 5 with the men’s and women’s Nordic freestyle races, while the men’s and women’s giant slaloms will be run on Thursday, March 6. Nordic competition concludes with the men’s and women’s classical events on Friday, March 7 followed by the men’s and women’s slalom which wrap up the championships on Saturday, March 8.
Nevada heads to the 2008 NCAA Championships looking to turn in its seventh top 10 finish in its last eight years. Last season, the Wolf Pack turned in a 10th-place finish at the 2007 NCAA Championships, which were held in Jackson, N.H. Wolf Pack skiers earned three All-America certificates last year, including one from Barnes in the giant slalom and a pair by Scott Hume in the slalom and giant slalom.
