Counting down the top Alaska sports stories of the decade: Part 2

Editor’s note: We picked the top 11 Alaska sports stories of the decade. Here are No. 4 through No. 6; read our previous installment, covering Nos. 7 through 11, here. You can read about Nos. 1-3 here.

No. 6: From turmoil to mayhem for UAA women’s basketball

At the start of the decade, the UAA women’s basketball team was riding high under coach Tim Moser. The Seawolves made two Final Four appearances and finished the 2011-12 season one victory away from a third.

Less than two months after wrapping up a 30-5 season, Moser abruptly resigned in the spring of 2012, giving no reason for his departure other than it was time to go.

Some players quit too, and UAA struggled to find a replacement. The school’s first choice was hired but resigned days later for still-unexplained reasons.

UAA’s second choice was 29-year-old Ryan McCarthy, the associate head coach at Northwest Nazarene who grew up in Birchwood.

He wasn’t hired until August, and he took over a team decimated by departures. In order to hold 5-on-5 scrimmages at practice, he recruited walk-ons.

The Seawolves finished 17-10 that season. The next season brought McCarthy’s first recruit — freshman point guard Kiki Robertson, whose play helped McCarthy establish a fast-paced, defense-oriented style of play that has inspired the team’s motto, “Mayhem.” UAA went 19-9 that season and earned a playoff berth.

Then came a speed bump — in the spring of 2014, the NCAA hit UAA with major violations after an investigation revealed that Moser had made monetary payments to players. UAA had to forfeit some victories from the Moser years, the program was put on two years’ probation and McCarthy had a scholarship reduction for one season.

None of it slowed down the Seawolves, who have reached new heights with McCarthy, now 202-35 in his eighth season as UAA’s head coach. In the last five-plus seasons, he and the Seawolves have gone 166-16, and DVDs detailing McCarthy’s defensive system have become popular with coaches across the nation.

No. 5: The rise and fall of the Alaska Aces

Maybe no sports team has enjoyed a bigger love affair with Anchorage than the Alaska Aces hockey team.

And perhaps no sports team has broken more hearts in town when the Aces folded at the end of the 2016-17 season after 14 years in the ECHL.

The Aces were the biggest draw in town for more than a decade and won Kelly Cups as ECHL champions in 2014, 2011 and 2006.

Fans — dubbed the Cowbell Crew for the bells they rang long and loud during game — adored the team and turned Sullivan Arena into one of most raucous joints in the ECHL.

But Anchorage is a fair-weather sports town, and attendance started to wane when the Aces failed to make the playoffs in 2016 and 2015.

In February 2017, the team’s owners, who lost more than $1 million in the team’s final two seasons, announced that the team would cease operations at the end of the season, ending a run of 14 seasons in the ECHL.

Two years later, Aces fans remain rabid. They packed Sullivan Arena for two straight nights this November for a two-game reunion series that featured dozens of former players.

No. 4: Allie, whoa!

Allie Ostrander spent the decade going places fast.

First she ran circles around the high school competition in Alaska as a track and cross-country star for Kenai Central. Then she ran circles around the college competition while at Boise State. Now she’s seeing how she stacks up against the best in the world.

Ostrander, a three-time NCAA steeplechase champion, turned pro last spring after her junior season at Boise State. She earned a spot on the U.S. team for the World Championships this year at age 22, and it’s not a stretch to think she will contend for an Olympic berth next year.

Known as Allie O. to her fans, Ostrander has been turning heads all decade long.

In 2014, she collected her sixth straight junior girls victory at Mount Marathon by becoming the first girl to win the overall title in a race where boys and girls go head-to-head.

Earlier that year she broke long-standing high school track records in the 1,600 and 3,200. The next year, as a senior, she broke them again.

She quickly emerged as a national talent at Boise State, finishing as the runner-up at the 2015 Division I cross-country championships as a freshman. On the track, she was undefeated in the steeplechase, with NCAA titles in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Ostrander went pro soon after her third steeplechase championship last spring and — to the surprise of no one in Alaska — made the U.S. world team by placing fourth at the national championships.

At the world championships, she lowered her personal best in the steeplechase to 9:30.85 and was one second shy of both making it to the finals and meeting the Olympic qualifying standard. A superb 5,000- and 10,000-meter runner, it’s not certain yet which distance she will focus on at next year’s U.S. Olympic Trials.