Men's Skiing | 1/15/2017 7:33:00 PM

Results

BOZEMAN, Mont. – After competing in five races in nine days throughout two different states, the Alaska Nanooks men's and women's Nordic ski teams finished up a whirlwind week of competition with an impressive showing in the 20/15km mass-start, classic race at the Montana State University Invitational on Sunday afternoon at the trails at Bohart Ranch.

"It was fun to have a really strong classic, mass-start result today, as our performance in the same event last Tuesday wasn't our best," head coach Nick Crawford said on Sunday. "We've known all along that our team is very good at classic distance races and it showed today with three top-10 finishes and in the top-20."

The race counted toward as an official Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association competition, with the Alaska Nanooks women's Nordic team tallying 58 points on the day, while the men posted a 70-point performance. In Saturday's 10/5km freestyle race, Alaska collected 40 points from their men's team and 46 points from their women's team to total 236 points throughout the two days of competition in Montana.

At the conclusion of the MSU Invitational, Alaska's 236 ranks them eighth among the ten teams in the RMISA standings strictly from the past two days of competition. Despite the ranking, Alaska is one of four teams within the RMISA that does not sponsor both Alpine and Nordic skiing, which hurts them in the overall team standings against the other six schools that accumulate points from both.

Redshirt-senior Michael Fehrenbach placed the highest among all Nanook skiers on Sunday, finishing the 20km classic race in 1:01:51.1 to rank fourth overall. The race marks Fehrenbach's first time being the quickest Nanook to cross the finish line this season, trailing first-place overall's Peter Reistad (Colorado University) by only 1:19.9.

Redshirt-junior Jan Cech was the only other Nanook from the men's team to finish within the top-10, placing 10th overall, second amongst Nanooks with a 20km time of 1:03:38.6. Redshirt-junior Nick Lovett was close behind, placing 14th overall with a time of 1:04:45.5.

Also racing for the Nanook men on Sunday was juniors Alexander Eckert (1:05:51.3) and Seiji Takagi (1:06:37.4), who placed 19th and 20th, respectively.

"Today was our best race of the year for the men's team," Crawford continued. "We were pleased to place five guys in the top-20 yesterday but we're even more pleased to do it again today with two in the top-10. Michael's fourth-place today shows that he is one of the top classic skiers in the country, he stuck right with the lead pack all day and hung tough for a fourth-place finish. Jan had a great race too, notching another top-10 RMISA finish."

Senior Nichole Bathe led the Nanook women on Sunday, placing 10th overall with a 15km classic time of 55:03.8. Bathe's time was only two minutes behind Colorado's Petra Hyncicova, who placed first overall with a time of 52:59.8. Bathe's top-10 finish marks her fifth-consecutive race being the first Nanook to cross the finish line.

Junior Ann-Cathrin Uhl narrowly missed a top-10 finish on Sunday, as she placed 12th overall with a time of 55:55.6. Senior Hannah Rowland had a top-20 finish with a time of 58:16.3, while newcomer Anna Darnell placed 21st overall with a time of 58:26.3.

Junior Sarissa Lammers was the only other Nanook to compete for the women's team on Sunday, posting a 24th place overall finish with a time of 58:44.5.

"We were really pleased to see Ann-Cathrin and Nichole have such great races today," Crawford concluded. "Nichole has now raced five times in the last nine days and all of them have gone very well for her. Ann-Cathrin hung with Nichole for the first half of the race and faded a little bit to just miss the top-10 but this is still a very good result for her. Hannah also had a very good day, passing athletes throughout the race to finish just outside the top-10 and as our third woman today."

The Alaska Nanooks men's and women's Nordic ski team will be back in action in just a couple of weeks, competing in the University of Alaska Anchorage Invitational Feb. 7-12.

For more information on the Alaska Nanooks men's and women's Nordic ski teams, follow @AlaskaNanooksXC on Twitter or like the Alaska Nanooks XC team page on Facebook.