The UAA ski team made school history on Sunday when the nordic squad won the final day of the Seawolf Invitational at Kincaid Park, lifting UAA to its first invitational meet victory.
UAA made up a seven-point deficit from Saturday, finishing 23 points ahead of traditional western powerhouse Utah.
UAA's previous best was fourth place in several meets including last year's western regionals.
UAA finished with 554 points to Utah's 538. Colorado finished in third with 514.5 points, and Denver was fourth with 506.5 points. New Mexico rounded out the top five Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association members with 472.5 points.
"We're pretty excited. Our goal is to become one of the best ski teams in the country, and we're getting close. We sort of expected this, but it's a nice treat," said UAA coach Trond Flagstad. "Denver, Colorado and Utah are the powerhouses. Our home-field advantage helped for sure."
Throughout three days of competition in the Seawolf Invitational, the UAA nordic and alpine squads won three events and posted two second-place finishes.
The women's alpine team won the slalom on Thursday, while the women's nordic team posted two straight wins in the classical and skate this weekend. The men's and women's nordic teams placed each of their three scorers in the top 10 of the 10-K and 5-K skate mass start races.
Anchorage freshman Jaime Bronga of UAA came away with her first collegiate win. Bronga skied to a winning time of 32 minutes, 23.5 seconds in the 5-K, narrowly defeating Antje Maemple of Denver by three-tenths of a second. Freshmen Sadie Bjornsen and Laura Rombach recorded points for the Seawolves by finishing sixth and eighth.
In the men's 10-K, sophomore Max Treinen led UAA in sixth place, clocking 41 minutes, 30.2 seconds to edge teammate Raphael Wunderle (41:30.7). Wunderle finished seventh, and freshman Lex Treinen was ninth with a time of 41:31.6.
The Seawolves next compete in the Colorado Invitational on Jan. 15-17, the first of three meets before the NCAA Championships in Rumford, Maine.
Anchorage Daily News
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