Complete Results
COLERAINE, Minn. - A solid team effort, capped by first place performances from senior
Erik Soderstrom and junior
Marit Rjabov, led the Alaska Nanooks men's and women's ski teams to the championship title at the Hilltop Invitational hosted by St. Scholastica on Sunday afternoon at Mt. Itsaca.
Behind Sunday's performances, Alaska finished the weekend with 286 total points, six more than second-place Northern Michigan. Michigan Tech rounded out the top three with 242 point.
The Nanooks nearly swept the men's 1.4 kilometer classic sprint race final standings with Soderstrom in first, followed by his rookie teammates
Logan Hanneman in second and Jonas Loffler in fourth. The trio accounted for Alaska's scoring racers on the day giving them 77 points on the day to Northern Michigan's 63, for 144 points and the men's crown on the weekend.
In the qualifying round Hanneman led the pack on the man-made trail in three minutes and 24.5, while Loffler crossed less than five seconds later in 3:29.3 and Soderstrom just over a second after that in 3:30.7.
Junior
Tyler Kornfield and freshman
Ludwig Schott finished the qualifying round in seventh (3:34.5) and 11th (3:37.8), respectively. Senior
Alex Morris finished sixth for the Nanooks in 3:49.5. The top 18 racers advanced to three semifinal heats, where Hanneman was first and Kornfield fourth in Heat "A", Loffler was second and Schott sixth in Heat "B" and Soderstrom won Heat "C".
Soderstrom, Hanneman and Loffler advanced to the "A" final where they finished 1-2-4, while Kornfield did not ski in the "B" final so automatically finished sixth as a result. Kornfield finished the day in 12th overall, while Schott was 13th and Morris was 26th.
On the women's side, Rjabov led from the start, taking the qualifying round in four minutes and nine seconds. Her classmates,
Rebecca Konieczny and
Crystal Pitney were second (4:15.4) and 14th (4:26.8), respectively, after the qualifying heat but made the cut to advance to the semifinals along with sophomores
Heather Edic (15th, 4:27.1) and
Heidi O'Connor-Brook (17th, 4:28.9).
In the semis, Rjabov won Heat "A", Konieczny won Heat "B" with Edic taking fourth and Brook sixth, while Pitney finished third in Heat "C" earning her a spot in the "B" final.
Rjabov and Konieczny went 1-3, which stood as their final places, while Pitney showed the biggest improvement on the day, winning the "B" final to move up from 14th after the qualifier and finish 7th overall on the day.
Edic landed in 9th and Brook in 18th to round out the Nanooks competitors in the field. Rookie Aly McPheters and sophomore
Raphaela Sieber did not race in Sunday's event.
Despite the solid team effort and first place in the team standings on the day (73-67), the women were edged 143-142 by NMU for the weekend.
Alaska continues its competition tour in the lower 48 by heading to Minneapolis tomorrow, where they will race in the Mayor's Challenge/Wirth SuperTour event next Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 21-22. Race information and results will be posted
HERE.
