Rifle has packed week; loses first meet in nearly 2 years October 30, 2007
Posted by sunstarsports in Rifle.Tags: Nanooks, NCAA, Rifle, UAF
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The Nanook rifle team finally lost a match. Granted, everyone knew their total domination couldn’t last forever. In the last week, they’ve competed against the University of Texas at El Paso, Texas Christian University, Kentucky (who beat them) and Nebraska. See the News-Miner article about that match here.
You can’t be too upset about one loss. Championships aren’t until March. They lost Matt Rawlings, who is now training for the Olympics (this site is horribly out of date-ish), along with former Nanooks Jamie Beyerle and Matt Emmons (infamous for shooting the wrong target at the Athens games).
Oh how time runs away from me October 28, 2007
Posted by sunstarsports in cross country.Tags: cross country, GNAC, Nanooks, running, UAF
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I can’t believe I missed posting about the cross-country GNAC championships last weekend. Our men’s team, in a role-reversal of past years, finished 5th in the GNAC, while the women finished ninth (both out of 10 teams). The women had an off day and the men apparently didn’t. Finnish exchange student Jani Tulppo was the top finisher for the men in 15th place, and he out-sprinted two Seawolves in the final stretch, including last year’s champ David Kiplagat. See the Alaska press release. For some reason there are no releases listed at all on the GNAC site, must be a glitch, but that is unavailable for now.
Men’s bball picked last October 27, 2007
Posted by sunstarsports in men's basketball.Tags: Alaska, basketball, GNAC, Nanooks, UAF
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Like in a game of dodgeball on the elementary school playground, the Nanooks were picked to finish last in the GNAC, according to this article in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.
According to the GNAC poll, the Seawolves are number 1 for the men and 2 for the women.
The Nanook women’s team also tied for last place in the poll.
I’m not a huge basketball fan, but man, that kindof sucks. I was actually pretty disappointed at the poor promotion of the basketball blue and gold games. I remembered the press release saying when it was and when I went to look at it last week, I realized that it had been the week before. The release came out just a day or two before the games, and the scrimmages were held after the volleyball games.
Honestly, sitting through a volleyball game is time enough for me at the Patty Center. Especially if we’ve lost. I didn’t go to those games, I was out of town, but it seemed like a poor time to schedule them.
Volleyball loses to Seattle Pacific October 26, 2007
Posted by sunstarsports in volleyball.Tags: GNAC, Nanooks, UAF, volleyball
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The Nanooks lost to Seattle Pacific University to night in a 3-0 sweep. Our top killer was again Megan Thigpen with 11. Their top hitter had an amazing 27 assists. I don’t even know what to think of that. That’s just amazing.
SPU’s Alyssa Given’s 3 service aces put her over the school’s career record.
The Nanooks are now 9-13 on the season (3-11 in GNAC).
Next up for the Nanooks: Senior night Saturday against Northwest Nazarene. Come out and support the Nanooks, especially Jenna Jones and Jessica King in their last home matches ever!
Seawolves reign victorious October 24, 2007
Posted by sunstarsports in hockey.Tags: Alaska, CCHA, hockey, Nanooks, UAA, UAF, WCHA
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Believe me, there’s not much enthusiasm in the above statement. Nanook fan through and through, but man, they sortof handed it to us. Of course, me and the buds made the semi-annual roadtrip down for gov cup (last year we were already in Anchorage for Christmas, so we didn’t have to.)
The first game wasn’t quite so bad. I mean, it is hard to gauge the quality of play when my nose is stuffed behind a camera the whole time just trying to get some good pictures, but whatever we were doing wasn’t really working. It was mostly back-and-forth as scoring goes, but they ended up with the final say.
I do have to say, that I get really into games. I wanted to get pics of them coming out of the locker room onto the ice (which was impossible with all the lights off), so I went down to just outside the locker room, but I felt that little bit of butterflies in my own stomach, like before a state championship game or kicking some Firebird ass for bragging rights. I miss hockey. I was able to curb my enthusiasm when I was, you know, doing my job, (that whole journalistic thing, although the first night I did wear a UAF shirt, can’t let my allegiance slide too much).
… Uy, this is sortof late, but it’s been a really killer week. Test Monday, Shakespeare paper due Tuesday, project due today, and one more test to go tomorrow morning.
Anyways, one thing about the governor’s cup is that our freshmen were scoring. So were Anchorage’s, but three goals were from freshmen; Landon Novotney and Jeff Penner, and Dion Knelsen scored also. Our young guys are the ones that we’re going to have to rely on, and Coach DelCastillo agreed wtih that. Dustin Sather is on the first line, he was ejected early in the second game, so that threw everything off a little more.
All things hockey October 18, 2007
Posted by sunstarsports in hockey.Tags: CCHA, hockey, Nanooks, NCAA hockey, UAF
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Despite the lack of a game last weekend, a lot is buzzing around the hockey world.
96.9 KYSC will be hosting a weekly “Off the Ice” radio show about Nanook hockey. The show will be from 7-8 p.m. every Tuesday (bummer, I have class 6-9, I wish they podcasted). The first half hour will be with longtime Nanook sports announcer Bruce Cech and Head Coach Doc DelCastillo, and the second half will include Cech, Channel 13 sports reporter Giacomo Accardo, News-Miner reporter Danny Martin, Nanook hockey analyst Erik Drygas and a weekly guest either from sports reporting or the hockey world. Read the full release from the Athletic department here.
Speaking of Danny Martin, he broke the team down, player-by-player with DelCastillo. I’m not really sure that I like that the headline says that the season “looms.” Loom is a somewhat gloomy, doomy (if I can bring out the English major in me for a moment and rhyme) word. I’d have to say from my observations, I agree with what DelCastillo says, at least of the players I’ve seen in action enough to form an opinion of.
To quote the portion on goaltender Chad Johnson: “Junior goaltender Chad Johnson (11-13-6, 2.48 goals against average and .901 saves percentage in 37 GP) — “He’s very composed in the net, he seems to be always at the right place at the right time. He seems to make things look easy. I think his challenge is to be at another level consistently all year long.”” On page 5 of the CCHA media guide is a list of “Players to watch.” Johnson is number one on the page. Literally, top lefthand corner. The first reason to watch him: “calm demeanor during games provides steady leadership in net”
Chad does have a lot of potential. I actually think that overall, he’s more consistent than Wylie Rogers. When Wylie’s on, there’s no question he’s the best, but he has his on and off days. From what I’ve seen, Chad is more consistent throughout. In the News-Miner article, Martin says that DelCastillo plans to play each of them this weekend in the Governor’s Cup. That’s the UAF view on Gov. Cup. Let’s take a peek at UAA’s outlook on the contest.
On a totally unrelated to Nanook sports note, I just noticed that UAA also has a hockey media guide. I have the CCHA media guide, and the University of Michigan media guide. I wish we had one. Heck, I’d love to put it together, that would be sweet. Life goals, life goals. The last few weeks have been full of lots of pondering on where I want to go with my future. Do I want to graduate this year? Finish my double-degree next fall and miss the whole graduation thing? Go into Public Relations? Politics or sports? Sports are certainly more exciting. I guess I have a lot to look forward to.
It is way too late. I need to get some sleep so I can get stuff done tomorrow so I can get on the road to Anchorage Friday morning.
Breakdown of events I couldn’t attend October 18, 2007
Posted by sunstarsports in Rifle, swimming.Tags: Alaska, Nanooks, NCAA, PCSC, Rifle, swimming, UAF
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Rifle: We stomped Tennessee-Martin. It was strange because the athletic department didn’t have anything out about the meet until Monday morning (which makes Sunday night newspaper production a drag). One of the guys on the rifle team didn’t even know the other team’s score. We guestimated-ish in our article about it. Not really guestimated, the rifle guy told us one of the scores, and that they beat them by a lot, and a friend who was there said it was by at least 200, and that even if two Nanook shooters hadn’t competed at all, we still would have won. For Sunday’s meet, coach Jordan split the Nanooks into Blue and Gold teams, which, in a show of depth, tied for first (and I suppose second) against the Skyhawks.
Swimming: The women’s swim team finished sixth out of nine teams at the Pacific Coaches’ Swim Conference Invitational last weekend. Our relay teams performed the best, according to the release. The 400-medley relay team finished with a time only five seconds off of the team record, in the first meet, no less. The team consisted of Sam Zinsli, Jacqueline vanDriessche, Kelly Becker and Mariya Pavlovskaya.
Volleyball falls to CWU, WWU October 14, 2007
Posted by sunstarsports in volleyball.Tags: Alaska, GNAC, Nanooks, UAF, volleyball
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Thursday the Nanooks lost 3-1 to the Central Washington University Wildcats.
I was at the game, and we didn’t play badly, but the Wildcats just played better. Erin Norris just has a rocket of an arm, and their blockers were doing their job well.
Saturday they were swept by Western Washington University. I wasn’t there for that game, so I can’t comment on the action at all. WWU is at the top of the GNAC and swept Anchorage earlier in the week. See their release here.
Hockey coach Doc DelCastillo noted on NHL site October 12, 2007
Posted by sunstarsports in hockey.Tags: Alaska, CCHA, hockey, Nanooks, UAF
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Doc DelCastillo, the Nanook hockey coach, was recognized on the NHL site’s “OnCampus” section. The article talks about his successful recruiting (see my Oct. 4 post about how Nebraska-Omaha is on the list of top 15 as far as classes of incoming freshmen go; betcha Doc recruited them). In my brief experience, coach DelCastillo is a nice guy, easygoing, and I’m very excited to see how this season will go.
Nanooks win first game against Southern Alberta October 8, 2007
Posted by sunstarsports in hockey.Tags: Alaska, CCHA, hockey, Nanooks, UAF
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Saturday the Nanooks faced off against Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, winning 4-2. Freshman Landon Novotney scored the first goal of the game and an empty-netter at the end. Eckford scored the two in-between, which keeps him high on the list of scorers (he’s the top scoring returner.) While empty-net goals earn a little less respect, the fact that Novotney scored the first goal of his first collegiate game is certainly impressive. I still stick with Aaron Lee as a high performer as well. He assisted both of Landon’s goals, and Wylie Rogers says that he really took summer training seriously and is doing much better. He was already improving at the end of last year, in my opinion.
Coach DelCastillo played each goalie for a period, which is a good thing. He pointed out to me that it’s just an exhibition game, and it’s important that everyone gets a chance. A lot of the freshmen got to play as well. My friends were talking about Dustin Sather and Bryant Molle.
I’d link to the audio of the game, but KSUA doesn’t have it up yet and despite the reference on the Trojans’ website, I don’t see it anywhere of prominence on the Nanook site.
Looking at the SAIT hockey site, they get six pre-season games. The Nanooks only have one pre-season game (and this one was it). The Governor’s Cup series counts as a non-conference game. But Ouch, the Seawolves kicked some butt against SAIT 8-0 on Friday. I don’t know what’s up with that, but the Seawolves have expanded their recruiting a little bit. A lot more Canadians. Back in the day (maybe a couple years ago when I first started caring about college hockey), their roster was largely Alaskans.
Largely Alaskans isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I think that it, in many cases, shows that funding for recruiting isn’t very high, and as with most things, you get what you pay for. Our recruiting pool is from Canada; a lot of the guys are actually from Alberta, and Aaron Lee and T.J. Campbell both pointed out that a lot of them have played with or against a lot of the guys on the SAIT team.
But back to UAA routing the Trojans. As a die-hard a Nanook fan, I still gotta say; watch out. While it seems like SAIT goalie Reeve St. Goddard wasn’t as on against UAA as he was with us (they fired 47 shots at him; we fired 52) that’s still an impressive number of shots, and the Seawolves held them to about 15 shots, which is close to what we did.
