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HOUGHTON, Mich. (csssaints.com) -- St. Scholastica sophomore Sharmila Ahmed (Savage, Minn./Burnsville HS) came into the NCAA Central Regional Championships ranked sixth in the NCAA qualification points standings of six available spots to the NCAA Skiing Championships from the central region.  With Saturday's classic mess and Ahmed finishing 16th, she dropped to the seventh spot on the list with one day remaining to qualify; the women's 10km freestyle mass start.

The entire Saints women's team was looking to shake off Saturday's nightmare, not just Ahmed, and the Saints came out swinging.

The pace on the first of two five kilometer laps was never remotely cordial.  From the gun, the field seemed to sense the inevitable—that it was today or never for NCAA qualification.

Ahmed sat at the back of a huge lead group the first lap that slowly dwindled to the finish, with teammate, senior Sarah Allen (Duluth, Minn./Duluth East HS (Northern Michigan)), drifting just off the back of the main pack of roughly 15.  Ahmed never really contended near the front, managing the blistering pace being set at the front by the top two seeded skiers, Northern Michigan's Rosie Frankowski, and Alaska Fairbanks' Aly McPhetres.

At the halfway point, Ahmed sat in 10th, running just seven seconds back of the leaders at the end of the main group.

“At that point, I thought it could go either way,” said Saints head coach Chad Salmela.  “I saw both NMU girls—[Mary Kate] Cirelli and [Hannah] Boyer—who we knew needed to beat Shar to make NCAAs, just marking her every move, and then Shar let them get ahead, and I thought that might be the end of the story.”

But Ahmed repositioned herself, and on the next downhill section Salmela scrambled to, she had moved to the front of the field in second.  By six kilometers, Ahmed was still in contention with the leaders up the course's largest climb, but running back in seventh with both NMU skiers on the NCAA bubble with her, marking her again.  When Ahmed made a move on the penultimate climb back to the front of the field, she nearly came apart.

“I went on that climb and just tried to go, and then I died,” recounted Ahmed.  “I wasn't sure I could recover.”  Both skiers passed her for what Ahmed feared would be the last time.

Up ahead, McPhetres and Frankowski renewed their rivalry from the week prior in the 15km freestyle, with McPhetres edging the Wildcat out once again for the win in a time of 31:13.2 to Frankowski's 31:17.3.  Northern Michigan's Jordyn Ross finished third in 31:18.2, with all three cementing their spots for the NCAA Championships.

Coming into the final 200 meters, Ahmed trailed both Cirelli and Boyer, and sat in ninth, but one final wind carried her past both skiers on the uphill finishing stretch, nearly catching Alaska's Rebecca Konieczny for sixth, with Ahmed crossing the line seventh, in a time of 31:33.4, two-tenths of a second behind the Nanook and two-tenths ahead of Cirelli; 2.6 seconds ahead of Boyer, and just 20.2 seconds off the winner, McPhetres.

"It was maybe the best race of my life," said Ahmed after the race.  "Maybe not the best result-wise, but it was probably my best race I've ever had."

Salmela concurred.  "Sharmila learned a lot from this race today.  I think her talent and ability have yielded results that sparkle and shine a little more than this one.  But if you have to pick a day that she looked into her soul as an athlete and had to find what she was truly made of, I think she will remember this race her whole life."

Saints senior, Sarah Allen (Duluth, Minn./Duluth East HS (Northern Michigan)), closed out the year with a spectacular finish in 14th place in a time of 32:21.9.  Freshman Chelsey Youngberg (Duluth, Minn./Duluth East HS) finished 19th in 33:00.5, to round out the Saints scoring.  The Saints finished fourth on the day behind winners Alaska Fairbanks, Northern Michigan, and Michigan Tech.

"It was a wonderful turnaround for the team today," said Salmela.  "When you botch a day so badly like Saturday, it's so nice to put good skis on your skiers feet that allow them to do what they can do.  We've finished third in this field this year and beat Tech a few times, but today was perhaps the clutch rebound performance of the year even if the team results aren't the best we've had.  It was a stellar day and I'm proud of this team to a woman today."

With nearly a dead heat between Ahmed, Cirelli, and Boyer for the final two spots, the athletes and coaches simply had to wait to see how the points would shake out from the final race of the season to select the NCAA qualifiers.

“We thought it wasn't very likely Shar would qualify after the race,” confessed Salmela.  “She skied a heck of a race today.  She did everything she could do to make it happen, and I just didn't care what the final NCAA qualifying story was.  She went out and beat the girls she needed to beat to go.  We just suspected it was not by enough time.”

The qualifying points system rates each race by which skiers finish in the top five, which establishes a “penalty,” upon which the time back from that penalty of the winner, determines race points for each skier.  This system is designed to quantify a performance rather than just a race finishing place, to determine which skiers over the season actually ski the best consistently over their best two classic and best to freestyle races.

“Saturday's race, thank goodness for Shar, wasn't a good points race,” said Salmela.  “In the end, the race penalty was poor, and it didn't determine much in the NCAA hunt”

But Sunday's race points were very good; in fact the best penalty of the year with the best two skiers at the front of the field, yielding the best points.  In fact, when the points were finally calculated and the athletes were ranked in order of best two of each technique, both Cirelli and Boyer shot past Ahmed on the ranking list, but Ahmed also shot past Alaska's Raphaela Sieber, who had come into the final race day ranked fourth in the standings.  Sieber mustered only a 16th place finish on Sunday's crucial day of qualification, finishing 1:15 down to Ahmed.

“To be honest, we didn't even notice how far back Sieber was,” confided Salmela.  “We were so busy thinking about the bubble skiers that we never thought to look at someone who was sitting in fourth on the points coming into today.  But regionals always yields great points, or at least one of the days usually does.  The qualification process is designed that way so that the skiers skiing the best right before the nominations are made for the Championship are usually the ones who qualify.  I had to go back and look at the results, and realized as soon as I saw the time back for Sieber, that the scuttlebutt about Sharmila taking the last qualifying spot looked realistic.  You just can't be 1:15 back on the final day.  We just didn't have our eye on that storyline!”

The final points calculations are up for protest for a 24-hour period.  Salmela, who is one of two members on the NCAA regional committee and NCAA Skiing Committee member, must field any protests and check their validity before submitting the nominees to the NCAA.  “We implemented new rules this season so that the points get checked by teams more regularly, almost like race results, and then they become official,” according to Salmela.  “That has led everyone to checking the math all season long, not just at the end after the final day, so I feel pretty strongly that the qualifying list will stand through tomorrow.”

As of Sunday night, Ahmed appears to be on her way to the 2013 NCAA Skiing Championships after a rollercoaster weekend of regional competition.  Nominees will become official Monday afternoon, March 25th.  If the nominees are ratified, Ahmed will become the first female Saints skier to qualify for the NCAA Skiing Championships.

The NCAA Skiing Championships will take place March 6-9, in Middlebury, Vt., hosted by Middlebury College.