Seawolf Invitational Day 3 – Sprints
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — When are two identical races not identical? Apparently when they are new sprint races. Regardless of the scoring which probably hurt New Mexico overall, the Lobos remained in fifth place, although they lost a little bit of their cushion to sixth place Alaska Anchorage. The meet concludes tomorrow with another new event for this season, the 5K classical mixed gender relays.
The Lobos survived a race in which nearly half their team was out with either injury or illness.
The sprint races were used for the second time this season, but the results weren’t nearly as simple to decipher. In the first meet of the season in Utah, only the initial qualifying times were used, in part because of the large number of non-RMISA skiers. In Alaska, where there were mostly RMISA skiers present, the standings were based on the overall race results, regardless of times.
This ended up hurting some folks, and helping others. In the end it probably evened out.
Niiranen qualified fourth overall among all female RMISA skiers, and then won her quarterfinal heat, but faltered in the semifinals and ended up seventh in the finals, picking up 25 points. She was the only regular scorer going for UNM. UNM’s Kati Roivas and Eva Sever Rus both skipped the race due to injuries, as did Julia Devaux, leaving the other two slots up to Julie Ensrud and Brenna Egan. Ensrud ended up finishing 20th after qualifying for the quarterfinals, scoring 13 points. Egan scored 10 after coming in 28th and also making the quarterfinals.
On the men’s side, Petteri Vaherkoski didn’t make it to the semifinals due to non-RMISA skiers, although his time would have qualified him 10th and he should have had a chance to advance to the finals. Instead he earned 23 points for a 10th place finish. Also missing the semifinals despite a top-12 finish was Arnaud Guyon, who instead got 21 points.
Rounding out UNM’s scoring was Niklas Rombock in 26th place with 12 points. Kyle Beling was 33rd. Aljaž Praznik didn’t race due to an illness.
Overall UNM finished fifth in the men’s sprint and seventh in the women’s.
The final event of the Seawolf Invitational is the 4x5K mixed gender relays, with a unique scoring system for the 14 teams (each school can enter two scoring teams) as follows of 100 for first, 92 for second, 85 for third, 79 for fourth, 73 for fifth, 68 for sixth, 58 for seventh, 58 for eighth, 54 for ninth, 50 for 10th, 47 for 11th, 44 for 12th, 41 for 13th and 39 for 14th.