NEWRY – New Mexico’s Malin Hemmingsson and Estelle Pecherand-Carmet went 1-2 in the women’s slalom Friday to lead a Lobos surge from sixth place to three points out of first at the NCAA Skiing Championships at Sunday River.

University of Colorado freshman Gabriel Rivas won the men’s slalom title.

Vermont took a slight lead among a tightly packed top three in the team standings. The Catamounts, looking for their first team title since 1994, have 484 points. Defending champion Denver has 482 points and New Mexico has 481. Utah (444) and Colorado (439.5) round out the top five teams.

It’s only the third time in the last 13 seasons the lead has been in single digits at the three-quarter point; in 1997, Utah led CU by seven and went on to win by 39.5 points; and in 2006, Colorado led Denver by five before posting a 98-point win.

Rivas, a native of St. Jean de Maurienne, France, had the fastest run of the day in his first run, at 47.77 seconds, and claimed his first NCAA title with a combined time of 1:36.69, a day after finishing 18th in the giant slalom.

“Since I’ve been in the U.S., I’ve thought about this race, and it’s very special because it’s only a one-day race, not a ranking,” Rivas said.

Rivas was 0.81 seconds ahead of runnerup Petter Brenner of New Mexico. Rounding out the top five individuals were Leif Haugen of Denver, Joshua Kernan of Colby and Sean McNamara of New Hampshire.

Rivas is Colorado’s first NCAA champion in men’s slalom since Andy Leroy in 2000.

New Mexico continued its powerhouse day in the women’s slalom. Hemmingsson won her second NCAA slalom title, with a two-run combined time of 1:42.36, She also won the title in 2007 as a freshman.

She was followed by her sophomore teammate, Estelle Pecherand-Carmet, at 1:43.58. Vermont duo Jilyne McDonald and Megan Ryley were fourth and fifth, respectively, and New Hampshire’s Aileen Farrell rounded out the top five.

“It feels great – I did it two years ago (when New Hampshire hosted the NCAAs), so I guess I like the ice,” Hemmingsson said. “We were skiing on mogul courses all year, and then we come here and we can actually push, so it’s pretty cool. This year we still have a chance of winning if we do good in Nordic tomorrow.”

The alpine competition closes out with New Mexico scoring the most points in alpine, with 354 points, just a point ahead of New Hampshire (353).

The NCAA Skiing Championships conclude tomorrow with the Nordic freestyle races at Black Mountain in Rumford. The women’s 15K freestyle race starts at 10 a.m., followed by the men’s 20K freestyle at noon.

The three-point difference between the top three teams is the closest heading into the final two events in the NCAA Championships since the sport went coed in 1983; the previous tightest margin among the top three through six events came in 1997, when Utah (533), Colorado (526) and Vermont (524.5) were separated by eight-and-a-half points.