It was so cold Sunday that UAA's final home ski race of the season was delayed by an hour as officials waited for sub-zero temperatures to rise.
It was so cold the Nanooks of UAF felt right at home.
UAF skiers turned in a sizzling performance on the Kincaid Park trails, where the Nanooks enjoyed top-15 finishes from five men and four women on the final day of UAA Invitational. Among that group were four skiers from Alaska.
Leading the way for UAF — and Alaska — in the college race were Sarissa Lammers of Eagle River, a junior who placed fifth in the women's 15-kilometer freestyle race, and Max Donaldson of Fairbanks, a sophomore who was eighth in the men's 20K freestyle.
"Max knows how to race in the cold, having skied in Fairbanks his whole life, and he looked great today to lead our men's team," UAF coach Nick Crawford said in a release from the school.
"… The cold, dry snow was very similar to what we train on in Fairbanks and our athletes took advantage of that to have a couple great races."
Skiers from Utah and Denver won the races to help their teams finish first and second in the team standings. Utah outscored Denver 661-636 during two days of nordic competition and two days of alpine competition to win the team title.
The women's race provided a dramatic finish — the top three racers were separated by 2.3 seconds. Utah's Merete Myrseth won in 46 minutes, 28.3 seconds, nipping teammate Guro Jordheim (46:28.8) and Colorado's Christina Rolandsen (46:30.6).
Lammers clocked 47:07.3 for fifth place, finishing sixth-tenths ahead of teammate Nichole Bathe, who placed sixth. Ann-Cathrin Uhl was 14th and freshman Anna Darnell of Anchorage was 15th for the Nanooks.
"This was really a breakthrough race for Sarissa," Crawford said. "and she skied with great confidence and fitness."
UAA put two women in the top 15 — Hailey Swirbul was 10th (47:53.1) and Casey Wright was 12th (48:29.8).
In the men's race, Denver's Madlener Moritz finished in 52:39.2 to edge teammate Dag Frode Trolleboe, the winner of Saturday's classic race, by 2.6 seconds.
Donaldson posted a time of 53:57 and was joined in the top 15 by teammates Michael Fehrenbach (10th), Jan Cech (11th), Nick Lovett (12th) and Seigi Tagaki (14th). Tagaki is a junior from Anchorage.
Leading the UAA men was Zackarias Torsion in 16th place with a time of 56:39.3.
The Seawolves finished sixth in the team standings with 436 points. They were 36 points out of fourth place. The Nanooks, who don't field an alpine team, were seventh with 272 points.