PARK CITY, UTAH – JC Schoonmaker capped a stellar career for the University of Alaska Anchorage ski team with a third-place finish in the 20-kilometer freestyle race at the NCAA National Championships Saturday.
Schoonmaker, who represented the United States at the Beijing Olympics, showed great patience during the early laps of the race skiing in the middle of the lead pack. The Tahoe City, Calif., native would move up over the later laps until he found himself in the lead group of three heading into the final climb.
Ben Ogden of Vermont, who partnered with Schoonmaker in the team sprint relay at the Beijing Olympics, attacked on the climb and skied away for the win in 43:00. Samuel Henry of Utah was second (43:07), with Schoonmaker third in 43:13.
Espen Persen earned his second All-American honor of the week finishing eighth in 43:35.
Magnus Noroey was 21st (44:44).
The women's 15-kilometer race started at a blazing pace with all three skiers from Utah going of the front with Sophia Laukli winning in a time of 36:35.
UAA skier Astrid Stav was in the pack of chasing skiers and earned All-American honors with a ninth-place finish in 38:58.
Pascale Paradis just missed All-American honors finishing 11th in 39:33. Tuva Bygrave was 29th (41:37).
"We had some great performances today," said associate head coach Trond Flagstad. "The skiers really came through when it mattered the most and moved us up to fifth place overall. It was fun to see JC on the podium in his last college race. It was well deserved from an extremely hard working student-athlete. Espen pulled another top-10 performance and showed that he is a championship skier. Astrid had a super solid race and made the top-10 and all American. Pascale was skiing in the top-10 for a long time and just missed out on All-American in the last few kilometers of the race. Pascale's best race of her college career. All in all it was a great finish to our 2022 NCAA campaign."
UAA finished fifth in the team standings.
"This team battled from start to finish this year," said head coach Sparky Anderson. "It was a wild week with points coming from all four components. We absolutely needed everyone. Men. Women. Alpine. Nordic. We are one team. Finishing fifth is never our goal, but we beat a lot of great teams this year. Five All-Americans and JC on the podium. Incredible. So proud of our team. Fifth in the country is no joke. We're for real."
