BOZEMAN, Mont. – The Alaska Nanooks Nordic ski team finished their time at the Bobcat Invitational with a third-place finish and 267 team points. On day two, the men's team posted 85 points while the women's team scored 49 points. 
 
For the second-straight day, it was a Nanooks men's racer taking the top-spot on the podium in Bozeman. This time it was Joe Davies taking the first-place finish in the men's 10k freestyle, just a day after teammate Mike Ophoff beat him to the top-spot in the 15k classical. Davies claimed the win with a time of 27:53.7 earning the 'Nooks 40 team points. He was the only racer on the day to finish in under 28 minutes as the second-place racer, Walker Hall of Utah finished in 28:10.6. Mike Ophoff followed behind in fourth-place for 31 team points, finishing in 28:32.4.
 
Josh Baurick was the final Nanooks racer to cross the finish line, taking 23^rd-place with a time of 32:47.1, earning the Nanooks 14 points, wrapping up their scoring. 
 
The women's team competed in a 5k freestyle and was led by Aila Berrigan, who grabbed a top-10 finish. Berrigan finished ninth-place in the 5k with a time of 16:43.0 to earn 22 team points. Abigail Haas was the second Nanook to finish, taking 21^st with a time of 17:42.1 for 14 points and Sarah Olson rounded out the scoring for the Nanooks with a 24^th-place finish and 13 points with a time of 18:01.8. Eliska Albrigtsen was proud of her team's performance despite missing five racers at the World University Games, "Even with missing five members of our team, skiing at World Uni Games, the Nanooks went third-overall at the MSU invite! We got another win, this time by Joe Davies, who was simply the strongest skater in the field throughout the four laps of the 10k skate. In the grueling uphill and at altitude, starting the race easy and speeding up throughout the race paid off for the second best Nook, Mike Ophoff, who finished in fourth. Aila Berrigan raced with incredible patience being in last place at halfway and amazingly took on the field of almost 30 women to break the top-10 and finish 9th, a career-best and top female Nook, all while on her birthday! Freshmen Abigail Haas and Josh Baurick and Senior Sarah Olson showed their mental strength to finish strong to collect important points that brought the team into third place! By RMISA race rules the competitors in this race were all on the same glide wax. With freshly fallen, wet, late-morning snow and grooming finishing within an hour before the start structure testing was not an easy task for my crew. We tested up until the last minute which help our racers to reach their highest speeds. Overall, I'm proud of how this sliced-in-half team performed especially after being on the road for such a lengthy time."
 
The Nanooks are back in action on Feb. 3-4 at the University of Colorado.
 
For more information on the Alaska Nanooks Nordic ski team, follow @NanooksSkiing on Instagram, @NanooksSki on Twitter, or like the Alaska Nanooks XC team page on Facebook.