Complete Results
Team Scores

ISHPEMING, Mich. – The St. Scholastica men's Nordic skiing team could not duplicate its performance from Friday, but still managed a fourth place in Saturday's 15km classic race at the NCAA Central Regional Championships at the Al Quaal Ski Area.

Freshman Paul Schommer (Appleton, Wis./Kimberly HS), who finished second overall in yesterday's 10km skate race finished 15th overall with a time of 42:40.9. Schommer was edged out by teammate Jeremy Hecker (Andover, Minn./Andover HS (Minnesota-Twin Cities)), who was 14th overall with a time of 42:34. John Wessling (Maple Grove, Minn./Maple Grove HS) was the final Saint skier to score in 21st place with a time of 43:07.3.

“A couple of falls hurt Jeremy (Hecker) and Paul (Schommer) and they lost the pack after the first lap,” said head coach Chad Salmela. “But the cool part was that Joe Dubay (Coon Rapids, Minn./Andover HS) went out and tried to pace those guys back to the front and in doing so sacrificed his own race. It wasn't the day we wanted, but the guys did a good job of damage control.”

At the beginning of the day, Schommer and Hecker were in position to qualify for the NCAA National Championships in three weeks, but will have to now wait and see if they make the cut.

According to Salmela, the preliminary numbers put both Schommer and Hecker in good position, but nothing will be determined until a couple of days.

Northern Michigan University once again dominated with four skiers in the top five and six in the top 10. For the second consecutive day, Erik Soderman won the race, posting a time of 40:48.2, edging the University of Alaska Fairbanks' Jonas Loeffler by seventh-tenths of a second.

The Wildcats won the event with 85 points. Alaska Fairbanks bounced back from yesterday's fourth place to finish in second today with 80 points. Michigan Tech was third with 69 points and St. Scholastica ended with 59 points.

The CSS men's program had its best year of its six years as a program and will welcome everyone back next year. The second place finish yesterday was a program-best at the regional championships and they also won an event earlier this season.

“We set numerous program firsts and potentially may have two guys qualify for nationals,” said Salmela. “We did all this without much snow. We have only skied classic as a team less than five times since the New Year and that has cost us in races. So if you look at what we have done, compared to our competitors who have had plenty of snow to work with, this season has been incredible”

As mentioned, both Hecker and Schommer will now have to wait and see if they will qualify of the NCAA National Championships in Bozeman, Mont. March 8-10th. Expect that announcement to come sometime in the next couple of days.