Skiers in Vermont for NCAA Championships
March 7, 2013
Jamie Foland
907-474-6807
Five Alaska Nanooks skiers, including three men and two women, are in Middlebury, Vermont, this week for the 2013 NCAA Men's and Women's Skiing National Championships being hosted by Middlebury College at the Rikert Nordic Center.
Alaska is being represented by sophomores Logan Hanneman (Fairbanks, Alaska/Mechanical Engineering) and Jonas Loffler (Saint Märgen, Germany/Business) and freshman Michael Fehrenbach (Saint Märgen, Germany/Mechanical Engineering) on the men's side. Senior Crystal Pitney (Fairbanks, Alaska/Business Administration) and Alyson McPhetres (Chugiak, Alaska/Spanish and Geological Engineering) will race for the Blue and Gold in the women's events. Hanneman and Pitney are making their second consecutive trips to the national championships, while Loffler, Fehrenbach and McPhetres are all making their debuts.
The Nanooks will race in the Nordic events being held on Thursday and Saturday. The men will open the Nordic events with a 10-kilometer individual start classic race at 10 a.m. EST (6 a.m. AKST), followed by the women's individual start 5K classic race at 12 p.m. EST (8 a.m. AKST).
On Saturday, they will swap start times with the ladies going first at 10 a.m. EST (6 a.m. AKST) for their mass start free technique 15K, followed by the men's 20K mass start skate race at 12 p.m. EST (8 a.m. AKST).
All races will be streamed live on ncaa.com just prior to the start of each event. Complete event information and live results may be found online at Middlebury's NCAA Skiing Championship Central.
According to head coach Scott Jerome,"the conditions are decent; there's good snow coverage largely due to Middlebury's new snowmaking equipment. The course is challenging with a couple long climbs and some squirrely downhills. The best racers will excel, for sure."