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By Journal Sports Staff
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colorado -- Junior Ian Torchia not only became a four-time All-American on Saturday afternoon, more importantly he became Northern Michigan University's seventh all-time NCAA champion in nordic skiing at the NCAA Skiing National Championships held at Steamboat Ski Resort and Howelsen Hill.
Torchia won the men's 20-kilometer cross country freestyle race in the meet's final event.
Ironically, Torchia had drawn the No. 1 bib prior to the race's start, maybe portending his first-place time of 54 minutes, 21.0 seconds.
The Wildcats' most recent national champion was Frederik Schwencke in the 20K classic in 2015, while their most recent freestyle champion was Eric Soderman in 2012.
This was Torchia's second All-American performance at the meet and NMU's 97th in its program history. Torchia earened another first-team All-American award when he came in fifth on Thursday in the 10K classic in 28:23.3. That matches the two All-American awards he earned in 2016.
The NMU men's and women's teams combined to score 179 points, the highest total among teams without alpine competitors. The meet standings combine nordic and alpine disciplines and put Northern in fifth place. Denver won the overall crown with 604 points.
The Wildcats had two more second-team All-American performances at the meet, both coming on Thursday. Senior Vivian Hett was 10th in the women's 5K classic in 16:00.5, while freshman Kjetila Baanerud was 10th in the men's 10K classic in 28:48.8.
Competition was held in alpine -- downhill -- skiing on Wednesday and Friday while nordic -- cross-country -- was held Thursday and Saturday.
On Saturday in the men's 20K freestyle, NMU sophomore Lars Soensterud was 13th in 54:58.4, while Baanerud was 18th in 55:43.0 among the 40 racers as both also scored points for Northern.
In the women's 15K freestyle on Saturday, Hett was 20th in 46:34.3, junior Nicole Schneider 24th in 47:22.8 and senior Kristen Bourne 27th in 47:42.8.
For the women in the 5K classic on Thursday, Schneider was 20th in 16:27.9 and Bourne 30th in 17:03.2.
Among the men in Thursday's 10K classic, Soensterud was 28th in 29:53.9.
Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.