STEAMBOAT SPRINGS -- Boosted by three top-three finishes on the final day, the Colorado ski team finished second Saturday in the NCAA Skiing Championships.

The Buffs began the day in third, trailing Denver and New Mexico. But even with a runner-up finish from Alexa Turzian in the women's 15K freestyle, a third from Eliska Hajkova in the 15K and a third from Matt Gelso in the men's 20K freestyle, the Buffs could only move past New Mexico.

DU won its third straight title, finishing with 785.5 points. The Buffs totaled 714, by New Mexico (677), Utah (595) and Dartmouth (523).

It marked the third straight year that the Buffs had to settle for second to the Pioneers, and and the ninth time they've finished as the nation's runner-up.

"The Nordic team proved again to be in a class by itself, and there is no doubt that we have the best in college skiing," CU head coach Richard Rokos said. "We had more than our fair share of bad luck on the alpine side, which is pretty much why we ended up where we were. But we made the mistakes that created most of that bad luck. Denver did not, skied well and congratulations to them.

"As for us, second place is never our goal, it's an honorable standing, but for us, like always the title is the goal and we invest all our resources toward achieving that goal."

CU's Nordic team accounted for 418 of CU's point total.

In the women's 15K race, Denver's Antje Maempel and CU's Turzian broke from the pack with about a kilometer to go, with Turzian just ahead just before the pair entered the stadium arena. But Maempel, one of college skiing's strongest sprinters, pulled away for the win, finishing in 41 minutes, 3 seconds, with Turzian crossing the line in 41:09.0 and Hajkova next in 41:42.5

"I was a little more nervous than usual, just because there were a ton of people out here supporting us," Turzian said of her second straight runner-up finish in the NCAA freestyle event. "But that's also more to your benefit I think, so I just got super pumped up. I knew I was going to have to stay at the top three the whole time and keep time with Antje.

"I'm super psyched for us as a team, that's a great finish for us. We could've swept it, but we could've done a whole lot worse, too. If anything, I'm really happy with our team performance."

Gelso, who won the 10K classical title on Thursday, was in the lead pack that sprinted toward a tight finish with less than four seconds separating the top three places. Vermont's Franz Bernstein won in 49:19.7, followed by New Mexico's Martin Kaas (49:20.9) and Gelso (49:23.5).

Juniors Jesper Ostensen (16th, 49:57.9) and Vegard Kjoelhamar (19th, 50:15.0) completed the CU men's effort.

Gelso was bidding to set an all-time consecutive wins record by a CU male, but instead will share the honor of five straight with Ove Erik Tronvoll, who accomplished the feat the first five meets of the 1999 season. Gelso did move into a fourth-place tie for the most podium finishes (top three) in school history with 22.

"Right out of the start, I felt pretty tired," Gelso said. "On the first lap, I could feel my muscles were tired, my body was tired. I knew I was struggling a little bit, so I tactically just thought I would lead as much as I could and then see what happened.

"I would've liked to have avoided a sprint at the end, because the guy who won (Franz Bernstein), he's used to sprint, he's from the east, he trains at low elevation, he's got the speed, so I especially didn't want to sprint with him. ... I was able to climb my way onto the podium so I'm happy about that."

Gelso was pleased with how he finished his collegiate career. "It feels great. I won five in a row, I won a national championship and a third place, so I'm about as happy as I could be. I would obviously have liked to have won it, but third place, last race, I had fun. I struggled, but I still hung in there."

NCAA Championships Team Scores -- 1. Denver 785.5; 2. Colorado 714; 3. New Mexico 677; 4. Utah 595; 5. Dartmouth 523; 6. Vermont 516.5; 7. Alaska-Anchorage 506; 8. Montana State 402; 9. New Hampshire 303; 10. Middlebury 270.5; 11. Nevada 258; 12. Williams 176; 13. Colby 172.5; 14. Northern Michigan 166; 15. Alaska-Fairbanks 118; 16. Bates 98; 17. Wisconsin-Green Bay 88; 18. St. Lawrence 75, 19. Michigan Tech 30, 20. Wellesley 25; 21. St. Michael's 19; 22. Gustavus Adolphus 7.

Men's 20K Freestyle -- 1. Franz Bernstein, UVM, 49:19.7; 2. Martin Kaas, UNM, 49:20.9; 3. Matt Gelso, CU, 49:23.5; 4. Harald Loevenskiold, DU, 49:26.0; 5. Bernhard Roenning, MSU, 49:27.7; 6. Tyler Reinking, MSU, 49:31.1; 7. Ryan Scott, MSU, 49:32.6; 8. Patrick Johnson, MID, 49:33.6; 9. Lex Treinen, UAA, 49:41.6; 10. Santiago Ocariz, UWG, 49:44.3; 11. Michael Schallinger, UAA, 49:47.4; 12. Didrik Smith, UU, 49:48.7; 13. Benjamin Knowles, SLU, 49:49.5; 14. Dimitri Luthi, WIL, 49:50.1; 15. Tor-Hakon Hellebostad, UNM, 49:50.8; 16. Jesper Ostensen, CU, 49:57.9; 17. Martin Liljemark, UU, 49:59.4; 18. Andrew Dougherty, DU, 50:02.0; 19. Vegard Kjoelhamar, CU, 50:15.5; 20. Charlie Smith, UN, 50:31.8; 21. Kristian Soerlund, DU, 50:34.4; 22. Miles Havlick, UU, 50:35.4; 23. Elias Bucher, UN, 50:36.3; 24. Pierre Niess, UNM, 50:38.3; 25. Nils Koons, DAR, 50:40.1; 26. Eric Packer, DAR, 50:41.1; 27. Patrick O'Brien, DAR, 50:41.4; 28. Eric Wolcott, SLU, 50:44.0; 29. Dylan McGuffin, UNH, 51:13.8; 30. George Cartwright, NMU, 51:43.4; 31. Tyler Kornfield, UAF, 52:00.0; 32. Tor Christopherson, UAA, 52:02.5; 33. Oskar Lund, MTU, 52:11.4; 34. Chris Bowler, NMU, 52:18.1; 35. John Parry, UAF, 52:34.1; 36. Zachary Wetherell, SLU, 53:02.8; 37. Wyatt Fereday, CBC, 53:25.2; 38. Kevin Cutts, NMU, 54:19.5; 39. Jens Brabbit, GAC, 55:09.5.

Women's 15K Freestyle -- 1. Antje Maempel, DU, 41:03.0; 2. Alexa Turzian, CU, 41:09.0; 3. Eliska Hajkova, CU, 41:42.5; 4. Maria Graefnings, UN, 42:23.7; 5. Rosie Brennan, DAR, 42:25.9; 6. Polina Ermoshina, UNM, 42:34.7; 7. Mari Elden, DU, 42:36.2; 8. Jaime Bronga, UAA, 42:46.5; 9. Kaelin Kiesel, MSU, 42:47.9; 10. Joanne Reid, CU, 43:05.0; 11. Kate Dolan, DU, 43:08.9; 12. Laura DeWitt, NMU, 43:26.2; 13. Zoe Roy, UU, 43:34.5; 14. Monica Marksvarden, NMU, 43:36.5; 15. Stephanie Hiemer, UAA, 43:43.9; 16. Caitlin Patterson, UVM, 43:51.6; 17. Carolyn Freeman, UWG, 43:59.1; 18. Casey Kutz, MSU, 44:02.7; 19. Lucy Garrec, CBC, 44:06.4; 20. Mellie Park, MSU, 44:09.5; 21. Laura Rombach, UAA, 44:30.3; 22. Rose Kemp, UU, 45:04.6; 23. Linn Klaesson, UNM, 45:08.5; 24. Ida Sargent, DAR, 45:09.4; 25. Claire Egan, WC, 45:12.9; 26. Aurelia Korthauer, UAF, 45:16.6; 27. Katie Bono, DAR, 45:21.2; 28. Caitlin Curran, UVM, 45:23.6; 29. Anya Bean, UNH, 45:34.8; 30. Alice Nelson, WIL, 45:39.5; 31. Sarah MacCarthy, UU, 45:51.2; 32. Natalie Ruppertsberger, BAT, 46:07.1; 33. Jennie Bender, UVM, 46:21.4; 34. Christina Gillis, NMU, 47:02.2; 35. Natasha Kullas, UNH, 47:11.7; 36. Lauren Fritz, MID, 47:13.2; 37. Theresia Schnurr, UAF, 47:50.2 38. Kristin Ronnestrand, UN, 48:18.1; Did Not Finish: Henna Riikonen-Purtsi, MTU.