FAIRBANKS – Competing for the first time this season, the Alaska ski team took to the trails against Alaska Anchorage for day one of the Nordic Cup on Saturday.
Overall, going in to tomorrow's portion, the Nanooks find themselves 25 seconds behind Anchorage's combined time.
The top finisher for the men was Hallvard Evjestad, who placed first in the mass start freestyle 7.5 k with an overall time of 19:05.8.
Stefan Hajdukovich and Alexander Eckert finished fifth and sixth in the men's race with respectivce times of 19:14.6 and 19:15.1. Meanwhile, Issac Lammers (19:30.9), Nick Lovett (19:31.6) and Jan Cech (20:17.2) finished 8-10 to round out the Nanook lineup.
"A lot of times in mass start races you see a lot of tactics and/or people racing more conservatively at the start and waiting to make a move later in the race, but that was not the case in the men's race today," said assistant ski coach Christina Turman. "Hallvard took off right from the gun and decided if anyone was going to beat him, they were going to have to work for it. He held his lead the entire race and on the last climb a UAA guy was able to reel him in, but right as he began to make contact Hallvard put the hammer down again and dropped him for the win. It was a very gutsy and impressive race."
Alaska's top female finisher was Anne-Tine Markset who finished the 5k in 16:30.2.
Anchorage only raced three women due to injury so the Nanooks placed fifth through 11th in the 5k mass start freestyle. Nichole Bathe (16:36.9) and Alyson McPheteres (16:38.1) were the second and third fastest Nanooks to cross the finish line.
Anni-Cathrin Uhl (17:07.3), Kryston McPheters (17:.26.3), Sarissa Lammers (17:26.6), Hannah Stevens (17:51.0) and Martina Himma (18:10.6) all turned in good performances for Alaska.
"I am very happy with how the team skied today," said assistant coach
Christina Turman. "We still need to learn how to use our depth to our advantage and work together as a team. But, it was great to see Anne-Tine turn in a second-place finish. The top six women [three Nanooks & three seawolfs] were all within 8.5 seconds of each other, which made for an excitng race."
The Nanooks will be back in action tomorrow morning at Birch Hill for the conclusion of the Nordic Cup.
