MEN'S RESULTS | WOMEN'S RESULTS

HOUGHTON, Mich. (csssaints.com) – The St. Scholastica men's and women's nordic ski teams wrapped up competition at the U.S. Championships on Tuesday with the Classic Sprints on the Michigan Tech University Trails.
 
Sprint Racing Format
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 five 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.
 
Men
Sophomore Emil Book Bratbak (Asgardstrand, Norway/Lillehammer) led the team in qualifying, posting the 20^th fastest time at 3:53.29. Fellow sophomore Nick Matelich (Bozeman, Mont./Bozeman HS (Montana State)) would also advance to the knockout stage with the 24^th-fastest qualifying time of 3:54.69.
 
In the quarterfinal heats, Book Bratbak would post a faster time than Matelich, but would finish sixth in his heat, while Matelich was fifth in his heat. So when the dust settled, Matelich finished 24^th overall, while Book Bratbak was 26^th overall.
 
Other Saints competing included first-year skiers Joe Lynch (St. Anthony Village, Minn./St. Anthony HS) and Nathan Smoller (Montpelier, Vt./U-32 HS), who both advanced to the knockout stages of the junior races. Lynch beat out Smoller in the quarterfinal heat with Lynch posting a winning time of 4:48.48. Smoller was second at 4:49.57. Both then saw their days end in the junior semifinals.
 
Women
First-year skier Maja Petersson (Solleftea, Sweden/Solleftea Gymnasium) led the women's team in qualifying with a time of 4:55.20. Of the five Saints competing on Tuesday, none would advance to the knockout stages of the senior division, but Mae Barnes (New Hope, Minn./Robbinsdale Armstrong HS) and Rana Kraftson (Bayport, Minn./Stillwater HS) advanced to the quarterfinals of the junior sprints.
 
Barnes placed third in her quarterfinal heat, while Kraftson was fourth in her heat to see their days end.
 
Up Next
The Saints will be off until the weekend of January 18 and 19 when they will host CCSA point races at Mount Itasca in Coleraine.