Flanders Wins Freestyle for Second Week in a Row

COLERAINE, Minn. – Alice Flanders, of the Michigan Tech Nordic ski team, picked up her second win of the season with a dominating performance in the women's 5-kilometer freestyle at the Mt. Itasca CCSA Invite on Saturday (Jan. 25). Flanders won the race by 42 seconds and the Huskies finished third overall on the weekend.

Flanders won the freestyle race at last weekend's event in Wausau. She powered through -2 degree temperatures, crossing the line in 14:36.8.

"Alice has been skiing really well the last couple of weeks," Tech coach Joe Haggenmiller said. "She's just a natural skater. She's been on the bad side of the [NCAA qualifying] bubble a couple of times in her career already, so hopefully she can get to NCAAs this year and have a performance like this there."

Lynn Duijndam was eight-tenths of a second from the podium with a fourth place finish in 15:23.4. Deedra Irwin (15:50.1) and Lisa Koenig (16:00.1) finished 12th and 13th with Irwin rounding out scoring for the Huskies.

Rachel Mason (16th/16:18.4), Sarah Daniels (22nd/16:37.5), Ulrika Axelsson (30th/17:44.1) and Ruth Oppliger (31st/18:01.6) rounded out Tech skiers.

"Lynn is another natural skater and had a good race today," said Haggenmiller. "I thought Rachel Mason also skied very well today."

Raphael Bechtiger led the men's team in the 10K race with a seventh place finish in 26:44.8. Matt Wong (27:07) was two spots back in ninth. Matt Dugan (27:09.1) also scored in 11th place.

"Raphael is starting to come around and is improving every week," added Haggenmiller. "Matt Wong also had another solid result and continues making huge strides from where he started as a freshman."

Jay Woodbeck (20th/27:40.4), Sam Holmes (28th/28:34.3), Kyle Hanson (30th/28:39.1) andDavid Joda (35th/29:19.1) rounded out Black and Gold skiers in the men's race.

"We rebounded a little bit from yesterday," Haggenmiller said. "Tomorrow is more of a fun day without any NCAA qualifying results."

The Huskies wrap up the weekend with the sprint races on Sunday (Jan. 26).