QUALIFIER RESULTS | FINAL RESULTS

HOUGHTON, Mich. (csssaints.com) - Prior to Tuesday's 1.5km U.S. National Championships classic sprint race, no St. Scholastica men's skier had finished better than 25^th at the event. Junior Joe Dubay (Coon Rapids, Minn./Andover HS) and sophomore Reitler Hodgert (Bend, Ore./Summit HS ) piggy-backed the mojo of women's skier Anita Kirvesniemi to set a new standard for the Saints men's ski team with 22^nd and 24^th place finishes in the 1.5km classic sprint at the U.S. National Championships Tuesday.

In a sprint event, each athlete starts by trying to qualify by time, racing the sprint course against the clock. The fastest 30 times in the field advance to six quarterfinals in which the first two skiers across the line advance as well as the fastest two skiers from the quarterfinals who were not in the top two. The same happens in the semifinals, whittling the field down to six athletes in the finals to determine the winner and rank order. All skiers outside the top 30 end the day in the order they finished the qualifier.

The day started with a bang as Hodgert crossed the qualifying line in 14^th, only to be bumped a few skiers later by Dubay who crossed the line 12^th with times of 4:34.39 and 4:35.74, respectively. They would end the qualifier ranked 13th and 16th, and draw different quarterfinal heats.  

The qualifier was won by Haakon Hjelstuen, a Norwegian exchange student at Michigan Tech, in a time of 4:23.22. Hjelstuen eventually ended the day third in the finals with Dakota Blackhorse von Jess, Hodgert's summer training partner, claiming the National Championship title.   

While not an NCAA nor CCSA event, Dubay's qualifier time was the sixth fastest in the field by a collegiate skier, while Hodgert's was the seventh, scoring huge points for the Saints in the U.S. Nationals College Cup standings. The College Cup is an annual friendly competition between NCAA programs to crown the best collegiate team at the championships. The 2015 event includes the 10km Freestyle results and the qualifier results from the 1.5km classic sprint. After day 1 the Saints sat in seventh. Senior Paul Schommer (Kimberly, Wis./Kimberly HS) rounded out the College Cup scoring for the Saints in 47^th overall in a time of 4:42.79, the 23^rd fastest collegiate skier

Head coach Chad Salmela was admittedly surprised and quite happy with the day's efforts. "If anyone told me we were going to have our best showing by a lot at nationals in a classic sprint, I guess I wouldn't have ever guessed that one," joked Salmela. "With several classic sprints on the schedule this season and some folks I know are good classic sprinters, we've done a little sprint specific training in the process of trying to bring on distance performance, but not so much that I'd have expected what happened today."

Prior to Tuesday, Paul Schommer (Kimberly, Wis./Kimberly HS)'s 25^th place finish in the 30km freestyle at the 2014 U.S. Nationals was far and away the best Saints finish at the event, after eight years in attendance. Tuesday saw three skiers eclipse that standard on a single day. "It's simply a great day for Saints skiing," summarized Salmela. "As the head coach, you are going to have good days and bad days, and they tend to blind one of the other at the time. So for today, we'll say 'thank you very much,' bow our heads, and try to make Thursday a good one as well."

The Saints finish out their stint at the national championships with a CCSA and NCAA qualifier as part of the championship 30km mass start classic on Thursday.