Men's Results Women's Results
RUMFORD, Maine - Junior
Tyler Kornfield notched his second top-10 finish at the U.S. Cross Country Skiing Championships this week with his 10th place performance in the men's 30 kilometer classic technique mass start race on Friday afternoon at Black Mountain of Maine.
The Anchorage native, who was 16th after his first lap, steadily moved his way through the pack to secure 10th place with a course time of one hour, 28 minutes and 23.2 seconds: tops among his Central Collegiate Skiing Association competitors. Kornfield captured bronze in Tuesday's 1.6k sprint race en route to his second career trip to the podium at the U.S. Championships of his career.
"Tyler had a great race," said head coach
Scott Jerome. " He started with the leaders early but fell back to the next pack and moved around as he made his way through the course. He was as low as 17th and as high as 6th at certain points but kept battling and was able to catch up to the leaders in the end. The 30K is a tough race, especially after Thursday's 20K freestyle, so it was good to see him bring it to today's race and do well."
Alaska's next skier to cross was rookie
Ludwig Schott in 29th (1:31:48.4, 3rd among CCSA skiers) and his classmate
Logan Hanneman followed in 35th (1:32:32.4).
"Ludwig was in the back row to start (behind 90 guys) but he didn't panic and just worked his way up as the race went on," Jerome said. It was a really good race for him and the best that I've seen him have thus far."
"Logan wanted to do the 30K (even though he was able to ski in the junior's 15K race instead) and he was doing awesome for 5.5 laps but ultimately fatuige set in," said Jerome. "He salvaged a good race especially after doing so well in yesterday's 20k."
Seniors
Alex Morris (1:34:32.6) and
Ian Wilkinson (1:35:54.0) took 44th and 49th, respectively to round out the men's finishers for the day. Junior Erik Soederstroem was sidelined with a cold and first-year Nanook Jonas Loeffler was unable to finish the race.
Behind solid performances on Tuesday and Friday, Alaska's men defended the Collegiate Cup title, while the Blue and Gold finished second overall in the cup standings behind Dartmoth.
Alaska's women were led by junior
Marit Rjabov, who took 23rd in the 20k in 1:11:06.1, with the next four racers crossing 32-33-35-36. Rookie Aly McPhetres led the tight-knit pack in 1:12:24.6, follwed by senior
Rebecca Konieczny (1:12:26.5), junior
Crystal Pitney (1:12:27.8) and sophomore
Heather Edic (1:13:17.1).
Jerome lauded the ladies for their solid team effort. "Marit did a great job; she had a good race going and it was really good to see the women bounce back in today's race," he said. "The waxing was a little tricky today because it was snowing in the morning and a couple of girls didn't have the best kick. Fortunately we were able to dial in a little bit better for the guys."
As was the case with Soederstroem, sophomore
Raphaela Sieber was also sidelined with a cold.
"Raphaela had a head cold so we opted not to race her today so she'd be okay for our races in Minnesota next weekend."
The teams will take a well-deserved break from the action on Saturday the Nanooks will close out thier week at U.S. Nationals with the classic sprint races on Sunday, before heading off to Duluth, Minn. for the Hilltop Invitational on Jan. 14-15.
