University of New Hampshire Athletics
Ten Wildcats are in Montana for the NCAA Skiing Championships that start Wednesday. (Alpine photos by Stephen R. Cloutier/PhotoGroup.us)
Insider Report: Moving to Montana
3/10/2020 3:39:00 PM | Men's Skiing, Women's Skiing, UNH Insider
Woodhouse, Kenney Lead 10-Skier Group into NCAAs
DURHAM, N.H. – This is more like it.
The University of New Hampshire ski team is gunning to be one of the Top 10 teams in the country again in the 2020 NCAA Skiing Championships that open Wednesday and run through Saturday at Bridger Bowl and the Crosscut Mountain Sports Center in Bozeman, Montana. Events will be live streamed each day at www.ncaa.com
"I think if we're in that nine, ten, spot, that would be good," said Cory Schwartz, UNH ski coordinator and head coach on the Nordic side. "A lot will depend on those top tier performances. If we can get a bunch of top tens, especially on the alpine side where they have the potential to do that, we'll be closer to the eighth or ninth spot."
Schwartz's team is in much better shape heading into the NCAAs than it was a year ago at this time.
Teams are allowed to have a total of 12 athletes competing in the NCAAs: Three men and three women for the alpine events and three men and three women for the Nordic events.
Ten Wildcats are set to compete in the championships, a full complement of six on the alpine side and freshman Scott Schulz, sophomore Anders Sonnesyn and senior Will Bodewes and freshman Lucinda Anderson are ready to go for Nordic.
Last year, UNH qualified four skiers for the NCAAs, all alpine skiers.
The bounce-back from last season has been impressive.
"It's incredible, especially after last year," Bodewes said. "I think everyone was frustrated last year. The Nordic side people were frustrated themselves and the alpine team was frustrated with us. They had a good year last year and we were just not holding up our end of the deal. To be able this year to kind of turn things around and be performing at the level that we should be has been pretty awesome and it's been pretty cool to have so many people qualify."
Senior Emma Woodhouse and sophomores Lisa Olsson and Fanny Sanderberg will compete in the women's alpine races on Wednesday and Friday at Bridger Bowl. The men's alpine members racing the same days are juniors Patrick Kenney and Will Bruneau-Bouchard and sophomore Crowley Gentile.
Woodhouse and Olson and Kenney and Bruneau-Bouchard were the Wildcat qualifiers at the NCAAs last year at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont.
And while the team was down in numbers, those four racers were very effective and paced the team to an 11th-place finish.
Woodhouse earned All American honors in both giant slalom and slalom and Olsson was named All American in giant slalom. Kenney was an All American in giant slalom.
"Considering the number of racers we had there, it was amazing what PK, Lisa, Emma and Will did," Schwartz said. "Everyone skied solid and they scored a lot of points. This year they're skiing as well if not better and they have even more depth."
Kenney in giant slalom and Woodhouse in slalom each won races on the first weekend of this season at the Harvard Carnival held at Waterville Valley.
"We're in good shape heading into NCAAs," said Brian Blank, head coach of the alpine team. "Everyone's skiing well. Fanny and Crowley really came along this year and are skiing very well. The people we expected to ski well, Patrick and Will and Emma Woodhouse and Lisa, are skiing well. Patrick for sure is having a much better season than he did last year. Emma Woodhouse has three seconds and a win in slalom so she's skiing better than she did last year in slalom."
Hopes are high going into the giant slalom that kicks off the championships Wednesday at 11 a.m., Eastern time.
"It does give us confidence going in," Blank said. "That's what you want, ideally. You want people skiing well and in good position to do well in NCAAs.
All appreciate the switch from a year ago.
"Overall our goal is to continually climb the ladder nationally and we've been going sideways and down a little bit in the last couple of years," Schwartz said. "Last spring, especially on the Nordic side we just did a lot of evaluations and tried to figure out what we needed to change to get back on track. We definitely looked in the mirror and decided that we needed to make pretty much changes to everything. To communications, to training, to developing a strong team. We broke everything down and went to work."
The coaches amped up their recruiting and brought in seven athletes on the Nordic side, five in alpine. They emphasized working together, alpine and Nordic, and focused on training.
"There was a lot of new energy, which the team handled really well and just trained better, trained harder," Schwartz said. "Everything's on the rise. Things are going in the right direction."
Bodewes agreed and is excited about his first NCAA appearance.
"We definitely have some good energy going into it," he said. "There are a lot of fast guys on the whole circuit and right now there are some really good skiers on the East coast. It's cool to be up in the mix with those guys. It's been great."
Allen Lessels
@UNHInsider
Allen.Lessels@unh.edu
The University of New Hampshire ski team is gunning to be one of the Top 10 teams in the country again in the 2020 NCAA Skiing Championships that open Wednesday and run through Saturday at Bridger Bowl and the Crosscut Mountain Sports Center in Bozeman, Montana. Events will be live streamed each day at www.ncaa.com
"I think if we're in that nine, ten, spot, that would be good," said Cory Schwartz, UNH ski coordinator and head coach on the Nordic side. "A lot will depend on those top tier performances. If we can get a bunch of top tens, especially on the alpine side where they have the potential to do that, we'll be closer to the eighth or ninth spot."
Schwartz's team is in much better shape heading into the NCAAs than it was a year ago at this time.
Teams are allowed to have a total of 12 athletes competing in the NCAAs: Three men and three women for the alpine events and three men and three women for the Nordic events.
Ten Wildcats are set to compete in the championships, a full complement of six on the alpine side and freshman Scott Schulz, sophomore Anders Sonnesyn and senior Will Bodewes and freshman Lucinda Anderson are ready to go for Nordic.
Last year, UNH qualified four skiers for the NCAAs, all alpine skiers.
The bounce-back from last season has been impressive.
"It's incredible, especially after last year," Bodewes said. "I think everyone was frustrated last year. The Nordic side people were frustrated themselves and the alpine team was frustrated with us. They had a good year last year and we were just not holding up our end of the deal. To be able this year to kind of turn things around and be performing at the level that we should be has been pretty awesome and it's been pretty cool to have so many people qualify."
Senior Emma Woodhouse and sophomores Lisa Olsson and Fanny Sanderberg will compete in the women's alpine races on Wednesday and Friday at Bridger Bowl. The men's alpine members racing the same days are juniors Patrick Kenney and Will Bruneau-Bouchard and sophomore Crowley Gentile.
Woodhouse and Olson and Kenney and Bruneau-Bouchard were the Wildcat qualifiers at the NCAAs last year at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont.
And while the team was down in numbers, those four racers were very effective and paced the team to an 11th-place finish.
Woodhouse earned All American honors in both giant slalom and slalom and Olsson was named All American in giant slalom. Kenney was an All American in giant slalom.
"Considering the number of racers we had there, it was amazing what PK, Lisa, Emma and Will did," Schwartz said. "Everyone skied solid and they scored a lot of points. This year they're skiing as well if not better and they have even more depth."
Kenney in giant slalom and Woodhouse in slalom each won races on the first weekend of this season at the Harvard Carnival held at Waterville Valley.
"We're in good shape heading into NCAAs," said Brian Blank, head coach of the alpine team. "Everyone's skiing well. Fanny and Crowley really came along this year and are skiing very well. The people we expected to ski well, Patrick and Will and Emma Woodhouse and Lisa, are skiing well. Patrick for sure is having a much better season than he did last year. Emma Woodhouse has three seconds and a win in slalom so she's skiing better than she did last year in slalom."
Hopes are high going into the giant slalom that kicks off the championships Wednesday at 11 a.m., Eastern time.
"It does give us confidence going in," Blank said. "That's what you want, ideally. You want people skiing well and in good position to do well in NCAAs.
All appreciate the switch from a year ago.
"Overall our goal is to continually climb the ladder nationally and we've been going sideways and down a little bit in the last couple of years," Schwartz said. "Last spring, especially on the Nordic side we just did a lot of evaluations and tried to figure out what we needed to change to get back on track. We definitely looked in the mirror and decided that we needed to make pretty much changes to everything. To communications, to training, to developing a strong team. We broke everything down and went to work."
The coaches amped up their recruiting and brought in seven athletes on the Nordic side, five in alpine. They emphasized working together, alpine and Nordic, and focused on training.
"There was a lot of new energy, which the team handled really well and just trained better, trained harder," Schwartz said. "Everything's on the rise. Things are going in the right direction."
Bodewes agreed and is excited about his first NCAA appearance.
"We definitely have some good energy going into it," he said. "There are a lot of fast guys on the whole circuit and right now there are some really good skiers on the East coast. It's cool to be up in the mix with those guys. It's been great."
Allen Lessels
@UNHInsider
Allen.Lessels@unh.edu
Players Mentioned
Nordic
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Nordic
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Alpine
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Alpine
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Alpine
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Alpine
/ Women's Skiing
Alpine
/ Women's Skiing
Nordic
/ Men's Skiing
Nordic
/ Men's Skiing
Alpine
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