Feb. 28, 2006

RENO, Nev. -

Qualifiers for Next Week's NCAA Skiing Championships

Eight members of the Wolf Pack squad have qualified for next week's NCAA Skiing Championships, the NCAA Skiing Committee announced today.

Nevada will send three men and one woman in the alpine events and three women and one man in the nordic events to compete in the NCAA Championships, which will be held March 8-11 in Steamboat Springs, Colo. The maximum number of qualifiers is 12 per school: three men and three women each in the alpine and nordic disciplines.

Qualifying for the alpine events were sophomore Cameron Barnes (Banff, Canada), freshman Scott Hume (Whistler, Canada), junior Luke Patterson (Banff, Canada) and sophomore Jaana Valimaki (Rovanicmi, Finland). Nordic qualifiers include sophomores Lutz Preussler (Seiffen, Germany) and Eva Bohmova (Liberec, Czech Republic), freshman Chelsea Holmes (Girdwood, Alaska) and junior Sally Johnson (Anchorage, Alaska). This year will mark the second NCAA appearance for Barnes, Johnson, Patterson and Valimaki, while it will be the first career NCAA appearance for the rest of the Nevada contigent, which is coached by Tom Arnstein (alpine) and August Teague (nordic).

The alpine events at the NCAA Championships, which is being hosted by the University of Colorado, will run March 8 and 10 with the men's and women's giant slaloms being held on Wednesday, March 8 at Mt. Werner and the men's and women's slaloms on Friday, March 10 at Howelsen Hill. The nordic events will be held March 9 and 11 at Howelsen Hill. The women's 5K and women's 15K classical races will be run on Thursday, March 9 and the men's 20K and women's 15K freestyle events will be held on Saturday, March 11.

Highlights of the NCAA Skiing Championships will be shown on CBS at 1 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturday, April 22. CBS Sports Presents Championships of the NCAA will feature highlights of 17 different NCAA championships from the winter season.

Last year, Nevada finished ninth at the NCAA Skiing Championships, while the University of Denver won the 2005 national title. The Wolf Pack had three skiiers earn All-America honors last season, including Tiina Salo (second) and Quincy Young (fifth) in the women's slalom and Patterson (seventh) in the men's giant slalom.