Individual Results Team Results
SPOKANE, Wash. - It was a historic day for the Alaska Nanooks cross country program, as the women's team finished fourth at the NCAA Division II West Region Championships with 164 points for their highest finish in program history on Saturday morning at the at the Plantes Ferry Sports Complex. In addition to recording their best Regional finish, the women became the first team in program history to ever advance to the NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships and earned the right to return to Spokane in two weeks for the National Championships on Nov. 19.
Propelled by seniors Theresia Schnurr and Crystal Pitney, who garnered US Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association All-Region honors after landing spots among the top-25 finishers, the Nanooks finished seven points ahead of Cal Poly Pomona (171) to capture the fourth and final berth to Nationals. Alaska Anchorage handily won the team title with 27 points, while Chico State was second with 66 and Western Washington was 16 points better than the Nanooks in third with 148.
"They believed in the hard work they put in all year, went in confident and raced well," said assistant coach Matt Dunlap. "There were four or five teams fighting for basically two spots and they knew what they were capable of, went in and did it."
Schnurr was 10th with a course time of 21 minutes and 55 seconds, while Pitney finished 25th in 22:22. Alaska's scoring runners also included Raphaela Sieber (35th, 22:40), Heather Edic (43rd, 22:56) and Jana Benedix (54th, 23:11), while the McPheteres sisters, Alyson (T-98th, 24:12) and Kryston (110th, 24:21), rounded out the Nanooks' represented in the field.
"Tete (Theresia) and Crystal ran really consistently throughout the race and a number of the other girls outsprinted their competitors at the end," said Dunlap. "Raph and Jana passed several people over the course of the race and Heather passed three people in the last two minutes. If they didn't push themselves to pass those people, the points could have been much tighter and even resulted in us not going to nationals."
"It's easy to say 'We can do this', but what it comes down to is performing on the day it counts and that's exactly what they did today," Dunlap said.
Alaska's men moved up a spot from their 2010 NCAA Regional finish, taking 16th overall with 449 points. UAA completed the team sweep, capturing the men's title with 37 points, followed by Chico State (39), Western Oregon (126), Western Washington (128) and Northwest Nazarene (200) as the top five teams.
For the second consecutive year, Alaska's Tux Seims led the Nanook men on the day. He completed the 10k course in 33 minutes and 23 seconds to take 67th overall.
Andrew Arnold was Alaska's second man to cross the tape in 34 minutes and nine seconds (88th), while Lars Arneson crossed third in 35:10 (103rd), followed by Kenneth Brewer in 35:29 (107th) and Joseph Dillon in 35:56 (111th).
"We had lots of PR's (personal records) on the men's side today, especially Tux," Dunlap added. "He was engaged from the start and pushed all the way and Andrew moved up a bunch as the race went on.
Also representing the Blue and Gold were Nolin Ainsworth (114th, 36:18) and Wyatt Mayo (120th, 37:19).
For the men it was their final race of the 2011 season, but Alaska has hopes for continued improvement in the years to come.
"We had three guys who were running in their first regional race so for them it was more about getting the experience," said Dunlap. "However, we're taking steps in the right direction and we're looking forward to coming back with them in the future and continuing to move in the right direction."
