STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. - All-American finishes by sophomores Jaime Bronga and Lex Treinen highlighted Alaska Anchorage's performance here Saturday in the final day of the 2010 NCAA Skiing Championships. The Seawolves finished in seventh place - just 10.5 points behind No. 6 Vermont (51.6.5). It was UAA's third straight top-10 finish and 27th overall.
Defending champion Denver reclaimed its national team title with 785.5 points while host Colorado (714) was second and New Mexico (677) was third. Utah (595) and Dartmouth (523) rounded out the top five.
Bronga picked up her first career All-America honor Saturday, pacing the Seawolves in the women's 15K freestyle race with an eighth-place finish. The Anchorage native completed the course in a time of 42 minutes, 46.5 seconds. Also representing the Seawolves was sophomore Steffi Hiemer (43:43.9) in 15th and Laura Rombach (44:30.3) in 21st. The trio posted UAA's best event score of the championships, finishing third as a team in the race with 77 points.
Treinen, who had a rough start to the regular season due to an iron deficiency, claimed his second career All-America honor. Treinen placed ninth in the men's 20K freestyle event in 49:41.6. The Anchorage native led UAA to sixth place with 68 points. Michael Schallinger came up just shy of his second All-America honor, finishing the race in 11th place with a time of 49:47.4. Senior Tor Christopherson (52:02.5) completed his collegiate career with a 32nd-place result.
Vermont's Franz Bernstein won the men's race with a time of 49:19.7, while DU's Antje Maempel was crowed champion in the women's race, finishing at 41:03.0.
All told the Seawolves collected six All-American honors, including Andreas Adde's individual national championship run Friday night in the slalom. Adde, a freshman from Osteras, Norway, also earned All-America honors on Day 1 in the giant slalom. Earning All-America honors earlier in the meet was sophomore Alex Parker in the women's giant slalom and Schallinger in the men's 10K classical Nordic race.
Indeed, UAA's future ski prospects look bright as 10 of its 11 2010 NCAA qualifiers are underclassmen.
The West Region continued its dominance of NCAAs, claiming six of the top 10 team finishes in the event. UAA's women's team ended the championship in sixth place with 268.5 points, while the men's team was seventh with 237.5 points.
Denver's team championship (third straight) marks the 50th time since 1954 a Western school has been awarded the NCAA title. DU, who led from start to finish, was the last school to lead from wire-to-wire, doing so in 2002, and also were the last to string together three straight titles (2000-02).
