The Lobos have placed within the top-10 out of 140 collegiate ski teams throughout the United States continuously for the last 30 years, said Fredrik Landstedt, the head coach for the men’s and women’s UNM alpine and nordic teams.
Landstedt has been the head coach for the UNM ski team for eight years. He said he felt confident in the team’s ability to make it to the NCAAs this year.
“We have been doing good this year for sure,” Landstedt said. “The UNM ski team has placed fourth for 12 years in a row (at the qualifiers) ... and last year we were third.”
This year they hope to advance and do better, he said. UNM placed third in the NCAAs last season.
“We have a really strong team. It all comes down to those four days of the championship,” Landstedt said. “You have to have a bit of luck; we have the right people that I think could do it.”
The team competed in the University of Utah Regional this weekend in Park City, Utah. That region tends to be the most competitive and has the best teams in the country, he said. UNM out-places many teams from Utah and Colorado in the NCAA, which he sees as quite a feat.
Part of the success is attributed to the diversity of the team, he said. Landstedt works to pick the best skiers not only domestically, but internationally too.
Landstedt said the team has skiers from Slovenia, Norway, Germany and many other countries.
The team’s placement is dependent on the success of the top three out of each of the team’s divisions: women’s alpine, women’s nordic, men’s alpine and men’s nordic, he said.
Frank Mercogliano, the assistant athletics director for communications, said the team had placed fourth out of eight teams this weekend in Utah.
Mercogliano said he expects the team to move forward to the NCAAs easily, as they have every year before.
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“They are the only team in the school’s history to win a national championship, the 2004 national championship,” he said.
The team was missing a few of its top skiers this weekend, he said, but that didn’t stop them from doing well.
The first meet of the season is always a little shaky, he said. The team seems to struggle at the mountain in Utah; they struggled last year as well.
Despite the team’s setback, they continuously do well enough to place at least 12 skiers for the NCAAs, he said. That is three from each of the two divisions from both men and women.
Mats Resaland, a senior nordic skier for the UNM ski team, said he has been competing for the last two years. While he has competed in alpine and nordic, he said he prefers nordic skiing.
Resaland said he came to UNM from Norway for the diversity in the ski team and academics. He placed at the NCAA every year he has competed, and said he hopes to continue that trend. The senior placed third in the 20K freestyle last season and was runner-up in the 10K classic in 2013.
Before he came to UNM, he said he felt that skiing was an individualistic sport, but after competing with the UNM ski team he realized the importance of working together.
Each person has a unique strength, and they use that to help each other out, he said.
“I think we have a really great team, and it seems like everyone has done a really good job this year. I am excited to get started on my last season,” Resaland said.
The NCAA tournament will take place in Lake Placid, New York at the beginning of March.
Moriah Carty is the assistant culture editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at cultureassistant@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @MoriahCarty.
