TRUCKEE, Calif. - The defending national champion University of Colorado ski team appears to have overcome the early season rigors of travel and illness and arrived here Wednesday to prepare to defend its other title from last winter, the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association Championship, a meet which also doubles as the NCAA West Regional.

The Buffaloes and the University of Denver have split the four western meets to date in 2007, as CU won the Utah and Montana State invitationals while DU won its own meet along with New Mexico's.

In that last competition in New Mexico, the Buffs were minus several top performers due to illness, and as a result had subpar performances in both men's and women's Nordic competition. As a result, CU scored 61 points fewer in cross country than it averaged in the first three events of the season, paving the way for an easy Denver win as the Pioneers won by a record margin since the sport went coed in 1983.

But with two weeks of rest, those who were sick have recovered and the Buffaloes can take aim at coming out on top, something they have done in six of their last eight races, including the 2006 national championships.

"We are healthy again, and our goal is to definitely defend our RMISA title and use this weekend as a positive step toward the NCAA Championships," head coach Richard Rokos said.

But more important, Colorado needs to qualify a full-team for next month's NCAA Championships, slated for March 7-10 in Jackson and Attitash, N.H. Even though last year when the Buffaloes became the first school to win a national title without a full 12-skier team (CU was one shy), Rokos would rather have the full complement of performers.

"We have two guys sort of on the bubble right now in men's alpine," Rokos said of junior Miles Cooke and sophomore Tony Cesolini; freshmen Stefan Hughes (No.1 seed) and Drew Roberts (No. 3) have already secured positions. "We could very well wind up qualifying all four of those guys, but a top 10 finish from either Miles or Tony will guarantee us three for certain."

Cooke and Cesolini currently occupy the No. 18 and 20 positions; 19 will earn spots to nationals, though they are a bit higher since only three schools from a team can quality. Otherwise, the rest of the team will be out to improve their seed positions and/or get in the groove for national, paced by the women's alpine team, which will likely qualify five skiers for the three available spots, forcing Rokos to leave two at home.

Junior Lucie Zikova, the west's top alpine skier, leads the pack as she is the No. 1 seeded individual, followed by freshman Heidi Hillenbrand (No. 9), sophomore Lisa Perricone (No. 16), junior Rachel Roosevelt (No. 17) and senior Kristin Taylor (No. 18). Zikova has won three races this winter, upping her career total to 10, becoming just the sixth skier in school history to reach double figures in race wins since 1983 when the men's and women's programs were combined.

Had it not been for some great early season success, the situation on the Nordic side might have been dicey for the Buffaloes once illness ravaged the team. But thanks to those performances, the team can ski this weekend to improve seedings or to work toward peaking in New Hampshire in two weeks.

Freshman Matt Gelso, who will ski at home this weekend for the RMISA meet, is tied for the No. 1 seed with Denver's Rene Reisshauer, with junior Kit Richmond in at No. 4 and sophomore Karl Nygren in the No. 14 position. There are 17 positions that will earn national bids from the west in cross country competition.

For the women, junior Maria Grevsgaard is seeded No. 1, as she has won six of eight races this season, including the last three in a row. Freshman Kristin Ronnestrand is in the No. 9 position, with sophomore Lenka Palanova ranked No. 13.

"After a quite a stormy week, everybody is feeling healthy," Rokos emphasized, "But no one more than Lenka. She had over-trained and it caught up with her, and then she got sick. But the last few days, she looks like a new person, she's well, and she's skiing the way she did as a freshman." Palanova was a two-time second-team All-American in 2006.

Overall, Colorado has had 12 skiers win races this winter, well ahead of Denver (7) and New Mexico (4) in the 32 events to date. While CU can cite that and its wins to make the case that it's the best team in the west, that can often change with one bad day in alpine or if illness hits the cross country performers.

The RMISA Championships start Friday with the giant slalom and the freestyle cross country races, to be followed Saturday with the slalom and Nordic classical events. Colorado is looking for its 10th RMISA crown, which would tie Utah for the most since the programs merged in 1983. Between the two, they have captured 19 of the 24 RMISA titles.