Freed, Hansen named Most Outstanding Skiers
HOUGHTON, Mich. – The Michigan Tech Nordic ski team distributed its annual team awards recently at its potluck banquet. Colin Freed and Greta Hansen received the Most Outstanding Skier awards.
Most Improved Men’s Team: Sam Stertz
- Greatest improvement in CCSA NCAA ranking, moving up 9 positions this season to finish in 13th.
- All-Region finishes in both the classic & skate races at NCAA Regionals.
- Top 10 finish at CCSA Conference Championships in skate 20km.
Sam has an admirable work ethic; he’s truly earned the improvement he saw this season through the consistent hard work he puts into his training every day. This season he also learned how to train smarter to make competitive gains. He’s an outstanding student of the sport, always incredibly thankful and coachable, and unwavering in his motivation and love for skiing.
Most Improved Women’s Team: Bridget Burns
- Greatest improvement in CCSA NCAA ranking, moving up 19 positions this season to finish in 4th.
- Went from not being able to compete in 2024 Conference & Regional Championships due to illness, to winning the individual classic at the 2025 Conference Championships, and helping lead our Women’s Team to the NCAA Central Regional Championship team title!
- Qualified for NCAA Skiing Championships where she scored with a top 30 finish in the skate 20km.
Bridget learned how to balance her life as a student-and-athlete this year that allowed her to make a competitive leap this championship season! The confidence and poise she showed as an athlete through the championship season proved to everyone she’s a championship athlete! The toughest aspect of sport is often being able to compete your best in championship races, and Bridget has one of the best relationships with this challenge as an athlete. What makes her truly thrive in the championship environment is the outstanding perspective and growth mindset she always has as an athlete in this sport. As she said in her NCAA preview herself, she’s always looking forward to going out there giving it her best, using racing as a learning experience, and having fun with her team!
Most Outstanding Men’s Team: Colin Freed
- 4 CCSA wins this season, finishing on the podium in every CCSA skate race!
- Won Swedetown Season Opener – skate 7.5km
- Top CCSA finish at Gitchi Gami Games SuperTour – 15th overall – skate 10km
- 14th place finish at Gitchi Gami Games SuperTour – classic 20km
- CCSA win and 21st place finish at US Cross Country Ski National Championships – skate 10km
- CCSA win at CSS CCSA Invite – skate 20km
- 2nd at CCSA Conference Championships – skate 20km
- 3rd at NCAA Regionals – skate 20km
- Top 20 finish in classic 7.5km at NCAA Championships, helping lead the team to Top 10 Men’s Team finish.
Colin was a force to be reckoned with this year. He told us he was going to win races, and then he just went out and did it. It has really been a pleasure to coach such a highly motivated individual these last four years, but also just someone who just loves getting out there and putting in the work, exploring what the Keweenaw peninsula has to offer all while having a heck of a time. We are so excited to see Colin race professionally next season. We know that he will succeed in all that he does. And we will always be his biggest fans.
Most Outstanding Women’s Team: Greta Hansen
- Huge improvements this season.
- 4 podium finishes in skate races this season, including NCAA Regionals, CCSA Conference Championships, and the CSS CCSA Invite, and finished top 5 in all skate races this season!
- 2nd place in classic 7.5km at CCSA Conference Championships.
- 23rd place overall and 5th U23 in skate sprint at US Cross Country Ski National Championships.
- Finished as the top-ranked MTU skier in the CCSA season standings in 3rd.
- 25th place finish in the skate 20km at NCAA Championships.
Greta is just an all-around performer in both classic and skate techniques and in any distance. She showed such amazing consistency throughout the entire season, and she is one heck of a competitor! We are so grateful to have Greta on this team and she is such a fun person to be around, always kind, always smiling, and giggling and such a motivated individual and hard worker. We are sure excited to see her lead the team as an upperclasswomen next year.
Scholastic Achievement Men’s Team: Skylar Patten
- Maintains a 4.0 in Grad School, after having finished his undergrad last year with 3.83 cum.
- Took advantage of COVID year to compete for MTU as SA for 5 years and get both undergrad & grad degrees.
- Named Academic All-American last July – first male SA in our coaching tenure to receive this recognition.
We can’t under state just how challenging it is to perform both in the classroom and on the trails in the manner that Skylar has through his tenure while getting an undergraduate & graduate degree in Materials Science Engineering. Skylar has always found balance in his commitment as a student-and-athlete, never sacrificing one over the other, and truly excelling in both throughout his tenure as a student-athlete.
Scholastic Achievement Women’s Team: Marie Sølverud Wangen & Ingrid Halverson
Marie Sølverud Wangen
- Two senior women both carry 3.95 cum GPA!
- Honored to say Marie chose MTU because of academics!
- Graduating this spring with undergrad in Engineering Management, and had a stand-out senior season where she made NCAA Championships for the first time, and had the most consistent and high-performing competition season of her student-athlete career.
- Also caries a 3.95 cum GPA!
- Applying her degree far beyond classroom. Getting masters in Robotics Engineering, and throughout her SA tenure at MTU she as worked as research assistant in MTU’s Robust Automated Systems Lab, world on NASA sponsored research on Hypo-Gravity Simulator for human locomotion on moon, and this summer has an internship with Boston Scientific!
- Finished off her season with first All-Region honors (top 10 finish), her best result of her SA career!
So incredibly proud of what both these women have achieved this season as student-athletes, both performing as All-Academic students throughout their SA tenure, and finishing off their senior seasons with their best competition season of their careers.
Team Husky Award Men’s Team: Tryg Solberg
Named after “team dogs” in sled dog racing, the “team husky” recognizes the individual who embodies the team spirit and has been a key contributor to team performance and success throughout the season.
Tryg’s sense of team spirit is easily seen through his everyday actions. Always offering and lending a helping hand to his team and coaches, taking great photos for the team on the road, helping with our team media. You could be sure Tryg was getting shots of his teammates no matter if he was racing first or second. He has genuine thanks and compassion for everyone who makes this sport possible and the people who have supported him, from thanking volunteers every chance he gets to getting real experience working at the Tech Trails. He has done a lot of work on the Tech Trails throughout his time as a husky which is super cool to see full circle the work it takes to maintain the special trails we all get to enjoy all year round. He is, he is appreciative of what he has around him and he doesn’t take it for granted. In a tough NCAA championships this year being sick, he still placed a super strong 20th place in the mass start skate race which was an incredible performance with the situation he was in, but maybe most notable is after the race he was explaining to us coaches how much he found joy in racing on that day even when it was far less than ideal, he was smiling and enjoying the moment of the race, he was thankful for his mom and brother supporting him all week, his friend from out of town who traveled to see him, and his friends, teammates and coaches who were there to support him. His attitude and actions really embody the team spirit and we know he’s been a great role model to his team throughout his time as a husky.
Tryg has also been and was a key contributor to our team performance this year.. Maybe one of the best race memories of the season was Tryg and Colin going 1-2 at our home Conference Championships contributing to our epic Conference Champs win this season! Coming off of a week of sickness he battled for the win in the skate race at NCAA Regional championships. Tryg is a true competitor and was always willing to put himself out there for the team.
Team Husky Award Women’s Team: Alice McKnight
Alice’s sense of team spirit has stood out from day one on this team. She embodies the team spirit in every way, through her attitude and positivity she brings with her each and every day, her willingness and thoughtfulness to simply offer help to her teammates and coaches, and to give her very best every day. She really embraced being a husky, a “team dog” and the new experience this little town & University way up north has to offer, she experienced the coldest and probably the darkest winter of her life her freshman year, and she always had a smile on her face and something positive to say. She’s always up for new challenges and experiences with an open mind and we believe this is how she has paved her way to the success she had in her stellar senior season! Not only does she embody the team spirit but she was incredibly impactful for the team through her podium results in both skate and classic as well as being incredibly competitive in every race this season.
She really put herself out there by taking risks and believing in herself every single race, something we found to be so inspiring to see from her this year. Very notably were the 20k mass start skate races, she was doing a lot of leading and pulling for the team, fighting so hard to bridge the gaps and just amazing to be putting herself out there and really going for it. A very special day was at our home races, conference championships – when our women took positions 1-4, a first ever in history and Alice came in 4th just .2 seconds ahead of NMU’s first athlete. She also really truly enjoyed racing, she had fun with it which I also believe to be a contributing factor to her success this year. It was just so cool to see her HUGE improvements throughout her time as a Husky and the confident Husky she has become. Alice told me once that in high school she didn’t think she could ski in college, she went from not thinking she could ski in college to being on our NCAA team this year! That is an incredible feat, and it’s so inspiring to see someone go all in and have that belief. We had a lot of Dog Power this year and Alice was surely a tremendous part of it.
Harold Meese Sportsmanship Award Men’s Team: Skylar Patten
Skylar is such an impactful person on this team. His everyday presence and actions have helped lead the team and cultivate the culture we have today. It’s been an amazing 5 years having Skylar on the team, we were so happy that he decided to take his covid year and really maximize his experience as a husky. Skylar has truly had so much success as a student athlete but has also been given his fair share of setbacks as well. So many wins, All-American performances, 3rd at our home US Nationals are just a few of his amazing athletic achievements to say the least. There has been so much growth throughout his time on the team, and everyone was excited to see Skylar have his best season yet this year, he was so ready for it.. but sometimes life doesn’t always go as planned no matter how hard you try…unfortunately Skylar was out with a season ending injury. Skylar prepared the best he could. He is honestly one of the most prepared athletes we know from training knowledge to fueling, he is always seeking out information to make sure he is doing everything at his best to maximize his performance and set himself up for success, sharing the knowledge with teammates along the way. With all this said and the realization of not having his own season of performances we saw an amazing energy that Skylar gave to his team this year, he has always been this way towards his team but this was a shift to a little bit of a different role, to understand that he could be so impactful for the team without racing was a big shift that he truly capitalized on. Even though he may not have his own season he could be a great impact to and for his teammates and we saw him give so much to them throughout this season. It came so natural for him, and that is what is so special about him. His team means so much to him and it was easily seen through his actions.
Skylar was at every race with us sharing his knowledge & pointers of the race courses, sharing his tremendous fleet of skis with all of his teammates to compete on, testing skis with teammates, making sure he could do anything and everything to help the coaching staff, waxing race skis for us, getting social media for the team, being such a good cheerer we had to tell him to turn off the music for the start because it was too loud! But he made sure to ski around that sound box to every possible point on the course so you all knew he was there with you on the course! Skylar always showed up with positivity even when times were tough, he sent his skis with us across the country for NCAAs to make sure we had an exceptional fleet to choose from, and of course sharing his amazing cooking skills with his team are a few of the ways we saw Skylar give to his team. He has mentored this team in more ways than he knows, and we truly couldn’t thank Skylar enough for his selflessness this year that he gave to this team and for the past 5 awesome years as a husky.
Skylar has overcome many hurdles in his time here, but also seen incredible successes and he has always been level headed, and trusted in the process, and most importantly stayed positive and we know this will bring him so far in his athletic career and in life, we truly can’t wait to cheer him on in his professional career and in all of his endeavors, and we know you have left this team better than you found it, thanks for being an amazing team member.
Harold Meese Sportsmanship Award Women’s Team: Julia Junkkala & Hailee Zimpel:
We awarded the Harold Meese Sportsmanship Award to two members of our Women’s Team as both of these women truly deserve this award for the selfless contributions they gave to the team this season!
Julia Junkkala & Hailee Zimpel were unable to compete for the team this season as they recovered from surgery and injury. They had the choice to travel or not with the team this season, knowing they wouldn’t be able to compete, yet both chose to travel to every race throughout the CCSA season because they wanted to give as much support as they could to the team in every way possible! They put together awesome video reels of the team every race which was huge in getting our story out there. They helped support the team with race feeds, and were always out on course waving the team flags and cheering as loud as they could for their teammates and every competitor, showing true selfless sportsmanship. It’s undoubtedly incredibly tough to watch every competition and still be able to cheer on your team from the sidelines, and these women demonstrated what this award is all about by showing their sportsmanship and giving their support to the team event when you cannot compete yourself. We’re honored to have such amazing people represent this team!
Heading into this year we were poised to have the most successful competitive season in the history of the program.
We had a returning class represented by 9 seniors, 5 NCAA Championship qualifiers & competitors, and first year athletes that were proving themselves to be national contenders in our fall team training.
When it came to the competition season we faced unforeseeable adversities with injuries that took a few of our outstanding team members out from competition this season, and sickness that spread through the entire team at NCAA Championships.
What this team achieved this season through this adversity they faced is a huge reason you are such an incredible team!
You never know what cards you are going to be dealt in sport, and one of the most important lessons of sport is that it teaches you how to deal with things that are out of your control. This team never lost belief in themselves, and they put together a great season through the solidarity they showed as a team, always supporting each other.
Nordic Season Highlights:
- Opened season with combined team wins at Swedetown Season Opener and Gitchi Gami Games SuperTour.
- Team champions (Women’s, Men’s, Combined) CSS CCSA Invite
- Butch Reimer Cup Champions (Women’s, Men’s, Combined) CCSA Conference Champs
- 1-4 women’s team finish in classic race
- Conference champions – Bridget Burns & Tryg Solberg
- Women’s Team NCAA Regional Champions
- Named Central Region Coaching Staff of Year for both Women’s & Men’s Teams
- Led and finished as top CCSA team in Team Standings throughout the entire season, Women’s Team, Men’s Team, Overall Combined Team!
- Men’s Team finished top 10 in NCAA, and all student-athlete’s scored for the team at NCAA Champs despite everyone competing sick
- 3.77 team GPA, 17 student-athlete’s on Dean’s list above 3.5, 6 4.0s, 5 first-time Dean’s list, Highest cumulative team GPA in past 4 years – tenure of seniors! Highest percentage of team Dean’s list 89%!
Heading into this year we were poised to have the most successful competitive season in the history of the program.
We had a returning class represented by 9 seniors, 5 NCAA Championship qualifiers & competitors, and first-year athletes that were proving themselves to be national contenders in our fall team training.
When it came to the competition season we faced unforeseeable adversities with injuries that took a few of our outstanding team members out from competition this season, and sickness that spread through the entire team at NCAA Championships.
What this team achieved this season through this adversity they faced is a huge reason you are such an incredible team!
You never know what cards you are going to be dealt in sport, and one of the most important lessons of sport is that it teaches you how to deal with things that are out of your control. This team never lost belief in themselves, and they put together a great season through the solidarity they showed as a team, always supporting each other.
