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The Alaska Nanooks men’s and women’s ski teams head to Anchorage this weekend, where they will snap into their skis on Saturday and Sunday to open their 2009-10 campaign at the sixth annual Alaska Nordic Cup. The Blue and Gold are set to take to the trails against the Alaska Anchorage Seawolves in defense of the Nordic Cup, which they have claimed in each of the last two years.
The outlook is strong for the Alaska women, who return a pair of 2009 Central Collegiate Ski Association All-Conference selections in senior Julia Pierson and sophomore Theresia Schnurr, and a triad of 2008 All-Americans in Pierson, her twin sister Anna Coulter and Aurelia Korthauer, who red-shirted during the 2009 campaign.
Also looking to bolster the Nanooks’ squad is senior Elisabeth (Habermann) Angeles, who has scored key points for the Blue and Gold in each of the last two Nordic Cups, and freshman Marit Rjabov, who finished 14th at the 2008 FIS Jr. World Ski Championships.
On the men’s side, juniors Ray Sabo and Einar Often will be called upon to set the tone for the Nanooks. Adding to the mix are sophomores Erik Soderstrom, Henri Soom and Alex Morris as well as freshman and Anchorage native Tyler Kornfield.
Sabo and Often have both turned in solid performances in their careers and will look to build on those successes as upperclassmen. Soderstrom won his first collegiate race on Nov. 23 in the Flint Hills Town Series races at Birch Hill and Soom, who qualified for the 2007 NCAA Championships as a freshman, returns to the trails after redshirting the 2008-09 campaign due to an arm injury. Kornfield was an Alaska all-state selection after a fine senior season with the Service High School ski team.
Alaska, who claimed each of the last two Cups by a slim 44-40 margin, leads the all-time cup series 3-1-1.
The Nanooks are hoping for a little less drama then was seen in last year’s competition. After trailing UAA 27-15 following the first day of races, the Nanooks came from behind on the second day of events, outscoring the visitors 29-13 to overcome the Seawolves and seal their second straight victory.
However, the Seawolves are coming off of a solid finish at the 2009 NCAA Championships where they took fourth place overall after placing first (20K free) and second (10K classic) in the men’s Nordic events and third (5K classic) and fourth (15K free) on the women’s side.
“I told the team, if we go out and race as well as we are capable of, we will have a good shot of competing with them this weekend,” said Jerome.
Saturday’s individual-start freestyle races will begin at Kincaid Park at noon, with the women hitting their 10 kilometer course first and the men following at 1 p.m. in a 15K race against the clock.
The action continues (weather permitting) at Hillside Park on Sunday with the teams participating in relays. The classical-classical-freestyle formatted relay, which is popular in international scenes and used to be a part of the NCAA Championships in the 1970s and 80s, will see the women make three 5k loops and the men a trio of 10k laps.
“The team is really excited for the relays,” said Jerome. Rain and warmer temperatures in Anchorage this week could see a change in the relay’s format, moving it to an all-skate race since the snow would be too soft to form the tracks used in classical races.
Following this weekend’s races, the Nanooks are idle until early January when they will compete at the U.S. Cross Country Ski Championships and Collegiate Cup, Jan. 2-8 in Anchorage. All of their remaining competitions are in the Lower 48, as this year’s slate has Alaska visiting Minneapolis, Minn. (Jan. 23-24), Marquette and Houghton, Mich. in February (13-14, 20-21), and hopefully Steamboat Springs, Colorado, the site of the 2010 NCAA Skiing Championships Mar. 10-13.
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