FAIRBANKS, AK – The Alaska Nanooks men's and women's cross country teams continued a solid opening weekend as the women captured their second straight team victory and the men finished second in a tightly contested battle in Saturday's three-way dual meet with Northwest Nazarene and Seattle Pacific.
Sophomore
Raphaela Sieber was the top finisher in the women's 4 kilometer race, crossing the line in 15:19.9. NNU's Jaclyn Puga crossed 5.6 seconds behind Sieber for second place and SPU's Natty Plunkett was third in a time of 15:26.8.
The Alaska women repeated Thursday's impressive feat by placing all five of their scorers among the top ten: good for 32 points. NNU edged SPU for second place by a 46-49 point margin.
Joining Sieber in the top 10 for the Nanooks were junior
Theresia Schnurr, who was fourth in 15:42.0, followed by Fairbanks native
Heather Edic (8th in 16:1714.1),
Jana Benedix (9th in 16:17.5), and newcomer
Crystal Pitney (10th in 16:26.9).
As was the case Thursday, sophomore
Tyler Kornfield was Alaska's top runner on the men's side with a bronze finish in the 4K race, finishing just 8.2 seconds behind the men's champion Matt Stark of NNU. Stark crossed in 13 minutes, 0.6 seconds and his teammate, Ryan Jaggi, took silver in 13:04.4. SPU's top finisher was William Harrison in fourth (13:19.2), however, SPU's scorers finished 4-7-9-10-11 to narrowly edge the Nanooks for the men's title 41-42, while NNU was third overall with 43 points.
Alaska's
David Norris (13:31.1) and
Andrew Arnold (13:34.4) finished 6th and 8th, respectively, to round out the Blue and Gold's top-10 finishers, while
John Parry took 12th in 13:51.7 and
Lex Treinen took 13th in 13:54.7 to complete the scoring team.
The cross country programs will host the Ester Dome Run next Saturday and return to collegiate action on September 25, when they travel to Honolulu, Hawaii to compete at the Chaminade Invite.
