Two West Valley High School graduates and their Australian teammate hope to become the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ next All-Americans as they compete in today’s NCAA Division II Cross Country Championship in the Seattle suburb of University Place, Wash.
Following first-, second- and fourth-place finishes at the Nov. 26 NCAA West Regional, Naomi Bailey, Kendall Kramer and Rosie Fordham are ready to race on their biggest stage yet.
“I’m going in with excitement,” Fordham, a native of Sydney, said. “I want to get All-American and be in the Top 40.”
The allure from the Land Down Under to the Last Frontier is one rooted in tradition for the Nanooks — the program not only allows her the freedom but also encourages its athletes to excel in more than one sport.
“I wanted to ski and run at college, and UAF was the best place for that,” she said. “I didn’t want to give one or the other up.”
Indeed, sandwiched between her Regional runner-up finish and heading to the starting line this morning in the Seattle suburb, Kramer took first place in both the 10-kilometer and 5-kilometer events in the Nordic Cup skiing challenge with the University of Alaska Anchorage over the Thanksgiving weekend.
But the focus is back on cross-country and All-America recognition for her and her current Nanook and former Wolfpack teammate Bailey. The duo essentially tied at the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Championships before Bailey edged out Kramer by five seconds at Regionals.
“A lot of people are throwing us pretty high expectations of what they expect us to place,” Kramer said. “I definitely think we all want to be All-American which wasn’t really in the cards last year.”
“It will be interesting to be near the front of the pack if all goes well this year,” added Bailey.
The Fairbanks natives agree that training in the Interior for both high school and college has provided them with invaluable tools to compete in the Lower 48.
“I just know loops and routes very well, so I know if I need a certain workout on a specific day, I can suggest a certain loop or I know something’s a certain distance just from gathering that information through training at West Valley for four years,” explained Kramer, a sophomore studying psychology. “So I think that that can be very helpful.”
For Bailey, the flexibility that being in the Fairbanks climate imposes upon runners is the biggest benefit of training here.
“You can’t be super picky,” the sophomore science major said. “You’re not going into a workout or a race expecting perfect conditions. All you can do is focus on the effort and what you can control.”
While Bailey and Kramer have been competing together since high school, neither or them feel they share a bond that’s any stronger than the one they share with all of their UAF teammates.
“I don’t think there’s a specific comradery,” Bailey said. “We all have clicked pretty well and have worked together super well, even just the two years running with Rosie and the other girls.”
It’s a dynamic that graduate assistant coach Josh Sanderlin agrees folds into the team as a whole.
“Honestly, I don’t really think there’s an observably stronger connection between them two and everybody else on the team,” Sanderlin said. “They’re a fairly cohesive unit, all six of them.”
Should the trio meet their goals, they would follow one male and one female runner in UAF history who have received All-America honors. Peter Alden finished 12th at the 1991 NCAA Championships and Pavla Havlova placed 22nd at the NCAA Championships in 2005.
“(I hope) they feel as though they gave it their all and they had a good shot,” Sanderlin said of the three entrants in today’s race. “Last year (was) frustrating because they had good seasons, and it didn’t feel like it culminated quite as well as it would have, so I’m looking forward to seeing them race in a way that really caps these seasons off appropriately.”
