on the road.

Seawolf skiers shine at NCAAs

By John Angst
Special to the Northern Light

Led by four All-American efforts on the final day of racing, The University of Alaska Anchorage ski team, placed sixth overall at the NCAA Ski Championships in Truckee, Calif. March 10-13.

The sixth place finish was the best for the Seawolves since 1998, and their 20th consecutive in the top 10. “We knew we could do this,” said junior Zach Violett. “We had a lot of confidence after racing so well at regionals, and we got some big races out of everybody. It was a good week.”

Assistant ski coach Trond Flagstad thinks that the Seawolves had their best races of the season at nationals.

“I am extremely happy with how the whole team skied this week,” said Flagstad. “Our skiers performed better than they had all year, and that is exactly what you hope for at nationals.”

UAA qualified 11 skiers for the national championships, but were only allowed to have 10 compete. The men and women can each send a maximum of six athletes, three each for nordic and alpine. UAA qualified four skiers from the men’s alpine team, so they were forced to leave sophomore Dave Duncan home.

On day one of the championships, sophomore Christian Ringvold led the UAA alpine skiers with an eleventh-place finish in the men’s giant slalom.

Also competing for the UAA men’s alpine team were junior Andreas Neuhauser (21st) and freshman Marius Elvrum, who finished the first of two runs in a tie for fifth place fell and did not complete the second run.

Junior Julie-Pierre Leclerc placed thirty-first for the Seawolves in the women’s giant slalom.

University of New Mexico Jennifer Delich won the GS while University of Utah’s Ben Thornhill, won on the men’s side.

On day two, sophomore Mandy Kaempf led the UAA nordic team, finishing second in the women’s 5-kilometer freestyle, seven seconds behind University of Alaska Fairbanks skier Sigrid Aas.

Sophomore Nicole DeYong (9th) also earned All-American honors by finishing in the top-10. Junior Sarah Hansen finished twenty-first, 21 seconds out of the top-ten.

On the men’s side, Violett led the Seawolves’ efforts with a seventh-place finish in the 10-K freestyle.

“A top-10 finish in the skate at nationals has been a goal all season,” Violet said. “I had to work very hard for it, but it is such a great feeling to have improved so much. I had some doubts early in the season about whether I would be able to accomplish the goal, but Trond really helped a lot with technique and motivation. Later in the season it started to seem like top-10 was a real possibility.”

Senior Eric Strabel placed thirteenth, 19 seconds out of the top-ten, and sophomore Brent Knight placed nineteenth.

Utah skier Henning Dybendal paced the men’s field, winning by 16 seconds.

On day three, the alpine skiers hit the slopes again for the slalom competition.

LeClerc placed fourteenth in the women’s event, her best-ever finish at the national championships.

Neuhauser led the Seawolf men placing eleventh while Ringvold placed fifteenth and Elvrum placed twenty-seventh.

University of Denver skier Pia Rivelsrud won the women’s slalom while Dartmouth College skier Paul McDonald won on the men’s side.

Entering the final day of competition, the Seawolves were in eighth place in the team standings. Hoping for a twentieth consecutive top-10 team placing, the team looked to the nordic athletes for another strong showing.

Led by Kaempf who finished second for the second time in two races, the nordic team placed four skiers in the top-ten.

Hansen earned All-American honors by finishing eighth in the 15k classic. DeYong finished sixteenth.

“I am so glad that I wasn’t racing when the women were,” said Violett. “They really had to tough it out in some pretty nasty conditions. I think it was probably 60 degrees and they had to ski through soft snow and slush.”

Aas won the event for her second victory in two races.

Not to be outdone by the women, the nordic men placed two skiers in the top-ten.

Violett finished fourth in the 20k classic, earning his second All-American of the week. Violett, the top American finisher, crossed the finish line one second out of third place and eleven seconds behind the winner, Dybendal. Dybendal won by four seconds for his second victory of the week.

“It was a lot of fun out there, said Violett. “It is always nice to end the season on a high note, to end with a good race.”

Strabel finished ninth, earning him All-American honors, and Knight finished sixteenth.

“Brent really stepped it up this week,” said Flagstad. “He skied really solidly this week and put up some career best results. Our third guy (Knight) scored 45 points for our team, which really helps.”

The UAA ski team has set their expectations high for next season.

“Our goal is to place higher at nationals than we did the previous year,” said Flagstad. “We are going to train hard and recruit hard during the offseason and come back next year ready to race even faster.”

Five Seawolf skiers earned All-American honors at NCAA’s, two more than they had last year.

“We have a relatively young team this year,” Violett said. “A lot of this team will be back next year. I think we can expect a lot more of the same kind of results.”

Time runs out on Seawolf postseason hopes

By Barry Piser
Northern Light

For 10 minutes, the University of Alaska Anchorage men’s basketball team played like a team that could do no wrong. Then it seemed the Seawolves couldn’t get a bounce their way.

Despite a scorching start, the Seawolves dropped a 67-61 loss March 12 to Brigham Young-Hawaii in the first round of the NCAA Division II West Regional at San Bernardino, Calif. It was UAA’s first postseason appearance since 1997.

BYU came back from a double-digit deficit in the first half to down the Seawolves with steady play. UAA refused to roll over in the second half but time ran out on the Seawolves as Shawn Opunui and the Seasiders always had an offensive response.

After a Jake Chrisman putback staked BYU to an eight-point bulge late in the second, UAA put up a rally to pull within 55-52 capped by a Peter Bullock lay-up. On the next possession, Bullock blocked a driving shot by Beau Nobmann but the ball bounced straight to Opunui, who drained a three to make it a six-point game.

UAA’s Aaron Lawrence made one of two free throws and Adam Fitt-Chappell made a steal in the backcourt and finished the lay-up to again make it a one-possession ball game. But Opunui answered on the other end with a top-of-the-key trey with Kemmy Burgess contesting.

“Their offense is so efficient,” UAA coach Charlie Bruns said. “They made their threes when they had to. They got the ball inside when they absolutely had to have a basket.”

UAA was able to get within 63-61 on a Jesse Brown lay-up but Opunui made two free throws with 34 seconds left on the other end. Fitt-Chappell missed a trey and the resulting loose ball led to an Austin Smylie lay-up to close the scoring.

Midway through the first half it looked like the Seawolves might leave winners. UAA hit six of their first seven three-pointers and after a Mark Drake three, found themselves up 27-14 forcing a BYU timeout.

“They could flat-out shoot,” Chrisman said of UAA. “ We haven’t faced a team like that this year that could just come out straight out of the blocks and shoot.”

The Seawolves jumped out to the large behind strong perimeter play of Drake (10 points including three first-half treys), Fitt-Chappell (13 points) and Burgess (15 points). But the Seawolves were also getting it done on the defensive end.

Burgess matched up with Opunui, the No. 2 three-point shooter in the nation at 54 percent, and held the Seasider sharpshooter to just three shots in the first twenty minutes.

“In all honesty I think I got my butt kicked by Kemmy Burgess. He really took it to me in the first half,” Opunui said. “I’ve been locked up but he locked me up and threw away the key in the first half.”

But while things weren’t working for Opunui, Chrisman kept BYU in the thick of things. The 6-9, 230-pounder scored inside as expected since the Seawolves typically gave up a few inches to him. But the transfer from Division I Brigham Young also stepped outside to hurt UAA.

Chrisman took the Seawolf post defenders outside and hit from downtown. He posted up and scored or crashed the boards for put-backs. The complete effort amounted to a 27-point, 10-rebound night for Chrisman.

“He’s always hit big shots and done a great job,” Seasider coach Ken Wagner said.

While Chrisman hurt the Seawolves over the course of the game, Opunui was the story for BYU in the second half. Opunui, also a DI transfer from BYU, hit dagger after dagger and finished with 16 points and a perfect 4-of-4 on threes to keep his reputation as a shooter alive after being shackled by Burgess.

“We were playing pretty good defense and he ended up hitting shots pretty late in the shot clock,” Bullock said. “He just hurt us because he’s a pretty phenomenal shooter.”

UAA entered the game as the top three-point shooting team in Division II at 46.1 percent and quickly showed why. But the Seawolves hit just 3-of-17 three pointers after their torrid start.

The Seasiders capitalized on the UAA struggles with a 15-6 run to close the half down 33-29. BYU then started the second half with a 15-4 run and take a lead they would not give up.

Bullock finished with 17 points in his final game but the Seawolf star only got seven shots in the game. Bruns admitted after the game that he would have liked Bullock to get more touches, especially after establishing an early advantage.

“We shot ourselves in the foot so many times when we had that nice lead. We just had too many people trying to do things they couldn’t do and that wasn’t in the game plan,” Bruns said. “Sometimes you can get away with that but not in a regional tournament.”

Normandin leads UAA in Tacoma

The men’s and women’s track teams both finished ninth at the Pacific Lutheran Invitational March 13. And they don’t even travel with a full team.

The men were led by another victory from Nate Normandin, who won the 5,000 meters by almost six seconds. Teammate Todd List finished 43 seconds behind in ninth place. Aaron Dickson’s eighth-place finish in the 1500-meter race and 11th-place finish in the 800 meters rounded out the men’s top finishers.

For the women, they placed three runners in the top ten of the 3000-meter steeplechase. Stacy Edwards, Nikki Holmes and Anjuli Haydu finished 3rd, 9th and 10th, respectively. They also got a pair of strong outings from Lindsay Krous (fifth) and Danielle Pratt (12th) in the 800-meter dash.

The Seawolves stacked the starting line at the women’s 200-meter race with five runners. Diane Gordon was the highest finisher in 27th place. Michelle Bartleman, Danielle Pratt, Lindsay Krous, and Shanette Harper ran 29th through 32nd.

Jessica Houston followed up her win in the discus throw at last week’s Linfield Icebreaker with 16th place in the discus and 4th place in the shotput.

The track team will not compete again until March 26 and 27 at the Stanford Invitational.