Zimmer, Resnick Earn All-America Honors on First Day of NCAA Championships

Wednesday, March 8

Lake Placid, N.Y.

Dartmouth College

NCAA Day One

Oscar Zimmer and Allie Resnick, 2023 GS All-Americans

Oscar Zimmer (left) and Allie Resnick

Photo by: NCAA

Zimmer, Resnick Earn All-America Honors on First Day of NCAA Championships

3/8/2023 3:17:00 PM | Skiing

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Dartmouth ended the day in eighth place in the team standings

By: Rick Bender

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — On the first day of the NCAA Skiing Championships hosted by St. Lawrence, Dartmouth freshman Oscar Zimmer finished fifth in the men's giant slalom while Big Green sophomore Allie Resnick placed sixth in the women's GS to highlight the day for the Big Green. Both skiers earned All-America honors for their efforts, Zimmer on the first team and Resnick the second, helping Dartmouth finish with 61 points, good for eighth place.

Colorado jumped out to the team lead with 139.5 points with Denver (117.5), defending champion Utah (115) and Montana State (108) lumped together behind the Buffaloes. Westminster edged out St. Michael's — the top-scoring team from the East today — for sixth place by a 97-95 margin, while Vermont is just ahead of the Big Green with 67 points.

Skiing conditions were near-perfect with a hard, consistent surface and temperatures in the upper 20s for most of the day. Sophomore Allie Resnick began the event, and she set quite the pace with a time of 1:06.57 on her first run. That time held up until Westminster's Hannah Saethereng squeaked past her by three-hundredths of a second, and Sara Rask of Colorado topped that time as well. But it was Utah's Madison Hoffman that took the lead with an impressive time of 1:04.78, and by the time the first run was complete, Resnick was sitting in fifth. Senior Gwen Wattenmaker, who fell during a practice run yesterday, managed to complete her journey down the slopes in 1:10.15 to put her in 24th, while sophomore Carly Elsinger took a hard fall after about seven gates and was taken off the course on a stretcher.

In the men's race, Zimmer was the fifth skier on the course, and he zipped through the gates to take a brief lead with his time of 1:04.58. Fellow EISA skier Joachim Lindstoel from Vermont was the first to eclipse his time by a mere five-hundredths of a second, but Colorado's Filip Forejtek laid down the time to beat at 1:03.34. Zimmer closed out the first run in sixth place, thanks in part to posting the fastest time over the last stretch, while the other Big Green entrants weren't as fortunate with sophomore Oliver Morgan catching a ski for a DNF and freshman Cooper Puckett getting disqualified for missing one of the last few gates.

In the afternoon, not much changed in the top 10 from the women's morning run. Resnick put together another good time at 1:07.17, the eighth fastest, leaving her in sixth place with a combined time of 2:13.74 to claim her All-America honors. Hoffman cruised to the individual title, winning by more than a second over Rask with her time of 2:10.66. Wattenmaker, meanwhile, gritted out another run and placed 26th in 2:18.26.

Competing in her first NCAA Championship, Resnick reflected on the pressure of the event after her second run. "The nerves come into play before I get into the gate," said the native of Vail, Colorado. "Once I'm in the gate, I've done this so many times that the routines and habits take over and I can just do my thing."

The times from top to bottom were much closer on the men's second run with only 1.33 seconds separating the top 25 times (compared to more than a three-second differential on the first run). Zimmer, who hails from Oslo, Norway, nearly stumbled about halfway down but was able to recover, then had another slip just before the home stretch, yet still managed to climb up a spot in the standings into fifth place with his combined time of 2:08.11, just seven-hundredths of a second ahead of St. Michael's Simen Strand. Forejtek, with a one-second lead, made sure he did not make a mistake and posted the 24th-fastest time, but it was still good enough to win the race more than a third of a second ahead of his Buffalo teammate, Louis Fausa, in 2:07.16.

"I was a little stressed out when I stumbled near the top of the course, but I tried to extend myself on the rest of the course," Zimmer said. "I had a little mistake down near the end as well so I was a little surprised I finished as high as I did."

The racing continues tomorrow at Mt. Van Hoevenberg with the freestyle Nordic races, 10K for the men at 10 a.m. and 5K for the women at noon. Both races can be viewed online and live scoring is available, all through the NCAA website, or visit the Dartmouth skiing schedule page on the official website of Big Green athletics, DartmouthSports.com, for direct links.

Notes: Dartmouth has had at least two skiers earn All-America honors in every NCAA Championships of the co-ed era (since 1983) except for 2021 when the Big Green did not ski due to the pandemic … nine of the 12 Big Green skiers competing this week are experiencing the NCAA Championships for the first time, which means skiing against the Western schools for the first time as well, including Zimmer whose father skied for Colorado … the Big Green have won the NCAA title three times, most recently in 2007.