Nordic Cup Day 2 Results
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Despite a solid all-around effort by the Alaska Nanooks men's and women's ski teams, their intrastate rivals Alaska Anchorage beat them 24-18 in Sunday's skate race at Hilltop Park, giving the Seawolves the Alaska Nordic Cup for just the second time in the eight-year old event by a 45-39 margin.
The Nanooks had won the last five Nordic Cup titles and still lead the all-time series 5-2-1.
Alaska's men were the stronger of the two teams for the second straight day, placing four skiers in the top five and before UAA's second competitor. Junior Tyler Kornfield finished in 28:16, 52 seconds behind race champion and UAA's Lukas Ebner.
Rookie
Logan Hanneman was third (28:52), while seniors
Erik Soderstrom (28:53) and
Alex Morris (29:18) were fourth and fifth on the day. Alaska Pacific University also participated in the races but were not counted towards the Cup scoring.
UAA's women repeated Saturday's performance, sweeping the top three spots, while the Nanooks went 4-5-6 again. Nanook sophomore
Heidi O'Connor-Brook led the Blue and Gold, placing fourth in the 5k event in 18:03, followed 14 seconds later by junior
Marit Rjabov (18:17), and
Rebecca Konieczny two seconds after Rjabov in 18:19.
"Congratulations to UAA; they were just better than us this weekend," said head coach
Scott Jerome. "As much as we were disappointed to lose the Cup we know that the big races are yet to come. We are focused on March and getting back on top at NCAAs."
"I am very proud of our team. Buried in the results are many great stories, improvements, and successes that don't always make the newspaper. This team is great -- great people -- and I am very excited for this season," Jerome said.
Alaska is idle until Jan. 2-8, when they will race at the US Cross Country Skiing Nationals in Rumford, Maine.
