Alaska sports year in review: Dallas Seavey, and a lot of tough women

We've never met Dallas Seavey, but man, that dude is just about on our last nerve with his whole Mr. Super-Achiever routine.

The Willow musher won the 2016 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, seizing The Last Great Race for the third straight year and fourth time overall. He won in a record time — 8 days, 11 hours, 20 minutes, 16 seconds — that lopped nearly two hours off the previous standard held by — oh, right — him.

"It's just another day of mushing, man,'' he said matter-of-factly after arriving in Nome. "It's what we do.''

In the "offseason'' — as if he has one — Seavey competed in Mount Marathon and knocked off that death-march uphill and death-defying downhill in about an hour, which is bad-ass.

Young square-jaw was also all over our television hawking auto parts — and, naturally, he was pretty good at it.

He's a former state and national wrestling champ, because of course he is. He once co-starred in a "reality'' show on the National Geographic Channel. And, from certain angles, he looks like that cat who starred in "Sons of Anarchy'' and whose features don't exactly assault the camera lens.

Oh, Dallas Seavey is also all of 29.

Here's what would constitute Ultimate Survival Alaska here at the Alaska Sports Year in Review of 2016 — not having to constantly be reminded of square-jaw's awesomeness.

We do not like our chances. Seavey enters the new year with a strong shot at matching Rick Swenson's record five Iditarod titles and Lance Mackey's record four consecutive Iditarod titles.

Well, then, enough of pumping Seavey's tires. As always, the past year furnished a litany of other notable achievements in Alaska sports.

Many of those feats aligned nicely with the "Alaska Girls Kick Ass" bumper sticker, and few met the mark more than those authored by UAA's volleyball team and women's basketball team, both of which reached the NCAA Division II championship game and were halted only by juggernauts.

The volleyball team (34-3) reeled off a school-record 20 straight wins, set a slew of school records, including most single-season victories, before it fell in the title match to Concordia-St. Paul, which has only managed to secure eight national titles in the last 10 years.

The women's basketball team (38-3), spearheaded by UAA Athlete of the Year Megan Mullings, set a program record for wins before it was derailed by Lubbock Christian (35-0).

Anchorage's Zoe Hickel not only won her second Women's World Championship hockey gold medal, but also, along with Boston Pride teammate Jordan Smelker of Anchorage, won the inaugural Isobel Cup as champions of the National Women's Hockey League.

Sadie Bjornsen, an Olympian who competes for APU's Nordic Ski Center, won silver in a World Cup relay in the Czech Republic, finished 14^th overall in the World Cup standings last spring and sat 12^th in the overall standings at this holiday break.

At the Rio Olympics, Eagle River trapshooter Corey Cogdell-Unrein won a shoot-off to earn a bronze medal to match the one she won in 2008. Eagle River's Alev Kelter, previously a soccer and hockey star, became a triple threat — she was Team USA's leading scorer and helped the Americans to a fifth-place finish in the debut of Olympic women's rugby 7's in Rio. And Alaska-born Shirley Reilly won bronze in the 1,500 meters at the Paralympics to give her four career Paralympics medals.

And while remarkable runner Allie Ostrander of Soldotna, the poster woman for our Year in Review a year ago, didn't make it to the Olympics, she nonetheless rocked. Just 19, and coming off a knee injury that limited her training, she finished eighth in the 5,000 meters at the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials.

Meanwhile, Palmer's Christy Marvin reminded us she is not perfect. She only won 10 of 11 running races/torture tests she entered, so maybe she can step it up in 2017. As it was, Marvin won Mount Marathon for the second time, the marathon-length Crow Pass Crossing for the third straight year and captured the Equinox Marathon too.

Anchorage's Matias Saari, at 46, won the Equinox Marathon for the third straight year and race record-tying sixth time. His victory came shortly after he published a history of the race, so presumably he's back in front of his laptop tapping up an addendum to "The Equinox: Alaska's Trailblazing Marathon.'' Unless he's out knocking off the 12 peaks higher than 5,000 feet on the Chugach Front Range, which he and his pal Harlow Robinson bagged in about 22 hours of light training in June.

While it was another lousy snow year locally — the Tour of Anchorage ski race and Open World Championship sled dog race were canceled and replaced by truncated competitions — that pesky Seavey character wasn't the only one who managed well on the white stuff. Iron Dog winners Tyler Aklestad and Tyson Johnson proved a testament to perseverance — Aklestad won in his 18^th attempt and Johnson his 13^th.

And women didn't totally bogart the spotlight at UAA. Cody Thomas won the Division II national decathlon championship and Cody Parker, the 2013 national champion in the javelin, finished runner-up to give him 1-2-3-9 finishes in his four forays at nationals.

The success of UAA's athletes came in a year in which the Seawolves' programs endured more budget cuts and the University of Alaska undertook a cost-cutting review called Strategic Pathways, which sounds like a very expensive rehab facility.

Among considerations floated by Strategic Pathways were eliminating all college sports, which was a nonstarter that got left in the blocks. Hockey programs at UAA and UAF were threatened, but survived. Lastly, the ski programs at UAA and UAF, and the indoor track and field program at UAA, were targeted for elimination.

In the end, the Board of Regents got all old-school sporty — they played Kick The Can and did not eliminate a single sport.

Whoa, enough buzz-kill. Let's return to reviewing actual accomplishments.

David Norris of Fairbanks and APU, best known as a nordic skier, had a decent year. He won the 55-kilometer Birkebeiner race in Wisconsin and pocketed $7,500, and that was very cool.

But what he did off snow in July will resonate in Alaska the rest of his life. He not only won Mount Marathon in his Seward debut, he lopped 22 seconds off the 2015 race record set by Spain's Kilian Jornet, who only happens to be the world's best mountain runner.

And, really, let's just give it up — yet again — for the Soldotna Stars. All they did was win a fifth consecutive medium-school state football championship — with a freshman quarterback, Jersey Truesdell, at the helm after junior Brandon Crowder suffered a broken foot in the final regular-season game — and stretch their state-record winning streak to 49 games. It has been so long since the Stars lost a game — August 2012 — Dallas Seavey only owned one Iditarod title back then.

Next order of business at So-Hi: A bigger trophy case.

Eielson football was no slouch, either. The Ravens won their third straight small-school title and fourth in five years. East High mirrored Soldotna in soaring with a back-up QB — Sam Logoleo in for Carson Washburn (broken collarbone) — and won the large-school title. T-birds coach Jeff Trotter put Washburn in to take two kneel-downs in the waning seconds of a 13-7 championship win over West, and if that didn't tug at your emotions, no need to worry about your soul — you don't have one.

Speaking of high school sports, Dimond hockey coach Dennis Sorenson won his 500^th game behind the bench and owns roughly double the wins of any other prep pucks coach in Alaska. West won the large-school state hockey title behind defenseman Alex Bardsley's daring dash to break a tie with Chugiak late in regulation, and Bardsley added two empty-net jobs for the hat trick in a 4-1 win.

Also on the hockey front, goaltender Pheonix Copley of North Pole became the 16^th Alaskan to play in the NHL when he did some work for the St. Louis Blues.

Alas, we also said goodbye to two Alaska NHLers. Scotty Gomez, the best player the state has ever produced, hung up the blades after 17 pro seasons and two Stanley Cups. Matt Carle, the best defenseman in state history and the only Alaska blueliner to make the world's best league, called it career after 10-plus pro seasons.

And now we're calling it a wrap on 2016, though we have an inkling we'll be back a year from now with more on Dallas Seavey.

This column is the opinion of sports reporter Doyle Woody. Reach him at dwoody@alaskadispatch.com, check out his blog at adn.com/hockeyblog and follow him on Twitter.com/JaromirBlagr