Kendall Kramer has achieved quite a bit in her five years attending the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She’s a three-time NCAA cross country running All-American and a multi-time NCAA skiing All-American as well. However, she’d never won a national championship until this past weekend. She’ll have that title to carry with her through the rest of 2025.
UAF’s ski athletes all met up in Anchorage last week for their second competition of the season, starting the new year with the U.S. Cross-Country Ski Championships held at Kincaid Park. The event stretched from Jan. 2-7 with four days of competition. There were no races on Friday or Monday.
Last Thursday, Kramer finished as the national runner-up in the women’s 10-kilometer (10k) freestyle behind Montana State’s Kate Oldham. On Sunday, Kramer finished one better, beating the University of Utah’s Erica Laven by just two seconds win the women’s 20k classic crown. Oldham finished third.
Kramer pulled ahead in the final 100 meters of a back-and-forth race. While she defeated Laven narrowly, she was the top American by a wide margin and would have won the national title even if she finished runner-up in the race because Laven is Swedish.
Philipp Moosmayer was UAF’s top men’s finisher in the 10k freestyle, finishing the race in 22 minutes and 34 seconds (22:34) to place 23rd out of over 200 men. His teammate, Ben Dohlby, was one second and one placement behind him. They were 13th and 14th, respectively, in the men’s U23 (under age 23) section.
Fellow Nanooks Cole Flowers and Aidan Hay placed 54th and 59th, respectively. Flowers finished ninth in the U20 section. Tabitha Williams was UAF’s second-highest women’s finisher, placing 31st.
Dohlby placed 21st in the 20k classic, with a time of 52:56, flipping places with Moosmayer, who was one spot behind him after finishing in 52:59. Hay placed 56th. Beyond Kramer, who completed the race in 58:17, Aila Berrigan was UAF’s second women’s finisher, placing 53rd after skiing to a mark of 1:09:34.
Kramer reached the semifinals of the classic sprint race on Saturday. Flowers was the only other Nanook to reach the semifinals. UAF did not have any athletes advance past the quarterfinals (Williams, Kramer and Moosmayer) of the skate sprint Tuesday. UAF alum Mariel Pulles, now competing for Team Birkie, won the women’s final by 0.03 seconds.
UAF fared best in the distance event days. The Nanook men placed fifth on both Thursday and Sunday, and the women finished fourth on both days.
The U.S. Championships serve as a qualifier for international races like World Juniors, the World U23 Championship, World Championship and University Games. Full qualifying lists are not available, although Flowers was announced as a qualifier for the 2025 World Junior Championship U.S. team.
Contact Gavin Struve at gstruve@newsminer.com or 907-459-7544
