Posted: Feb 26, 2023

Huskies Repeat As NCAA Central Region Champions

Saturday Photos

ISHPEMING, Mich. -- After entering the second day of the NCAA Central Regional Championships in first place in the team standings with 133 points, Michigan Tech would decide their fate to repeat as Central Region Champions at the Al Quaal Recreation Center, in Ishpeming, Michigan, over the weekend. In total, the Huskies had five podium finishes, along with the men's 5km freestyle interval start champion in Skylar Patten.

The combined team race was incredibly close, with the Huskies winning with 245 points, just behind was Northern Michigan with 244 points, while College of St. Scholastica was just as close with 242 points.

freestyle Interval Start

Houghton native Anabel Needham started off the NCAA Central Regional Skiing Championships with a silver finish in the women's freestyle interval start to be the low-stick on the day for the Huskies.

Olivia Laven and Henriette Semb also made big contributions to the team score, placing fifth and eighth, respectively.

Skylar Patten handled the men's freestyle interval start, winning the event by over 45 seconds. The next finisher was junior Henry Snider, who had probably the best second lap of the race to move up to take silver and mark two Huskies on the regional podium.

Senior Adam Witkowski and freshman Wes Campbell had solid contributions to the team scores following fifth and sixth-place finishes.

Classic Mass Start

Following his win in the freestyle interval start on Saturday, Patten contended for the victory in the 20km classic Mass Start on Sunday, coming under a second shy of a weekend sweep, taking second-place behind College of St. Scholastica's Zach Jayne.

Colin Freed was the next finisher for Michigan Tech moving up six spots in the final 5km to place ninth overall.

Yanik Pauchard was the third Husky to cross the finish line, good for 13th in the field.

Needham backed up her runner-up finish in Saturday's freestyle interval start, with a silver performance in the classic mass start just six seconds behind the winner, Merle Richter of Northern Michigan.

Needham worked her way through the race, gaining the second position in the final 5km.

Semb, who had the fastest first lap, covering the first 5km in 19:00, held on to finish seventh overall.

Olivia Laven was the third finisher for the Huskies staying within the top-15 for the entirety of the race, finishing in 13th place.

Quotable

"We are so proud of this team for coming away with the overall combined team win by one point over Northern Michigan and only a few points ahead of College of St. Scholastica in what was probably the most competitive regional team race in a long time," said head coach Tom Monahan Smith.

"It was a really crazy end to the championships and it was awesome to see the leadership behind Skylar Patten and Anabel Needham and really help the team get the win. We had Colin Freed come back after being sick all week and he had a really tough race and Yanik Pauchard also came up big to help the team score.

We had a really tough day just because we only had four women complete the race and it was really challenging for the team this week in that regard, so we're really proud of the women that competed out there and represented the team. We're really proud of the team to be able to compete in two hard race days after having nearly half the team out sick this week, making it tough for us coming into the championship weekend.

We had an outstanding day as a team on Day One and both the men and overall standing really helped to be able to carry us through the weekend.

We qualify a full team which is a big deal for our program, really psyched to be qualifying three men and three women to represent Michigan Tech in the Skiing Championships. We also had the next three guys in qualifying position as well to show the incredible depth of our men's team.

Overall it was a crazy weekend but it was a really prideful weekend and we're really psyched to be able to take home the team win.

I believe if we can come away with a team win with having as tough as a week as we did with sickness leading up to the Regional Championships, I think our student-athletes that are getting to go to the NCAA Championships to represent the Michigan Tech are going to have a lot of confidence and will be as well prepared as they possibly can and when we have great preparation we know we can ski really fast and compete with anyone."

Overall team standings

Team | D1F | D2F | D1M | D2M | Total

MTU | 063 | 070 | 057 | 055 | 245

NMU | 064 | 045 | 070 | 065 | 244

CSS | 061 | 064 | 053 | 064 | 242

UWGB | 024 | 033 | 020 | 027 | 104

SCSU | 010 | 000 | 013 | 000 | 023

All-Conference/All-Region Honorees

With both the CCSA Conference Champions and the NCAA Central Regional both concluded, the postseason accolades begin to come in. In total, the Huskies saw 10 student-athletes named to the CCSA All-Conference to go with seven All-region honorees.

All-Conference First Team

All-Conference Second Team