RUMFORD – Antje Maempel won her second individual Nordic skiing title in three days, propelling the University of Denver to its second straight national championship, and 20th overall, at the NCAA Skiing Championships on Saturday at Black Mountain.

Denver, which trailed Vermont by two points going into the final day, surged with 74 points from its three Nordic men and 103 points from its three Nordic women to win the team title with 659 points.

Colorado got a boost from sophomore Vegard Kjoelhamar, who won the men’s 20K freestyle race in dominating fashion, to vault from fifth place to second with 602.5 points, a half point ahead of third-place New Mexico (602).

It’s the 13th time in the 56-year history of the NCAA Skiing Championships that DU and CU have claimed the top two places.

The University of Alaska-Anchorage took second and third place in the men’s 20K, moving from sixth place to fourth with 584 points, and Vermont finished fifth with 573.

“It was an improbable and unlikely win for the team this year,” Denver Nordic coach David Stewart said. “We had a solid team, but I don’t think anybody looked at us in the beginning of the year and said, ‘They’re the team to beat.’ A couple other teams are really strong. But the team came here and just performed extremely well.

“A lot of our athletes are taking their final exams right now, proctored here at the championship. This is a team that has the best GPA of any sports team at our university. It’s just a great group of individuals, and they just could not have performed any better here.”

Maempel, a sophomore from Stuelzerbach, Germany, overtook Colorado’s Alexia Turzian in the final 50 meters to win the 15K freestyle, two days after claiming first in the classical race. Maempel timed in at 38:35.0, just half a second ahead of Turzian.

While Maempel’s victory was the closest of the championships, Kjoelhamar’s victory was the most dominant. The 6-foot-3 transfer from Oslo, Norway, led virtually from the start. He finish 19.5 seconds ahead of runner-up Lex Treinen from Alaska-Anchorage.

“I felt OK after warmup, but not that good,” said Kjoelhamar, who finished sixth in Thursday’s 10K classical race. “But as soon as the race started I just felt awesome. The first time up the hill I got a little gap, but then the second time we had more, me and another dude. Then he couldn’t follow me, so I was alone. It wasn’t really a big attack from me. It was just my race pace, and the others couldn’t follow. That was really nice.”