Sports

College sports notebook: Pantovic, Voliva named first-team All-GNAC; Six on UAA ski team earn honors

As postseason play for both college basketball and skiing is set to or already is underway, a handful of student-athletes at UAA were honored by the Great Northwest Athletic Conference for their respective sports.

For the men’s basketball team, senior Oggie Pantovic was named to the All-GNAC First Team and junior Tobin Karlberg was selected to the second team. For the women’s basketball team, senior Tennae Voliva was the only member of the team to be recognized as a All-GNAC First Team selection.

Voliva and her teammates are continuing on with their season, playing in the first round of the NCAA Division II Tournament on Friday. The No. 6 seed Seawolves (20-6) play No. 3 seed Western Washington (20-5) in the opening round Friday in Hayward, California, at 11 a.m. AST.

This marks Pantovic’s second straight year being named to the first team and this time around, he was a unanimous selection. Karlberg received honorable mention honors as a sophomore but received all conference status after his breakout 2021-2022 season.

Voliva delivered on her unanimous preseason All-GNAC selection by being unanimously selected to the first team thanks in large part to an incredibly strong finish to the season.

For the ski team, six athletes received All-RMISA honors. JC Schoonmaker earned first-team honors, Leon Nikic earned second-team honors, Astrid Stav earned second-team honors for the second straight season, Sigurd Roenning earned his fourth career honorable mention honors, Espen Persen earned honorable mention honors for the second straight season, and Tuva Bygrave earned honorable mention honors.

UAF hoopsters earn honorable mention honors

ADVERTISEMENT

Each of the Nanooks’ basketball teams had at least one player represented on the GNAC All Conference honorable mention teams. For the men’s squad it was Shadeed Shabazz and Coleman Sparling and for the women’s team it was freshman Pearle Green.

This marked Shabazz’s second straight year receiving honors after he was named a unanimous first-team selection, GNAC Player of the Year, GNAC Newcomer of the Year and GNAC Co-Defensive Player of the Year in 2019-20 as a junior.

The Seattle, Washington, native returned to his home town and led the Nanooks to a 91-83 overtime victory over Simon Fraser on Wednesday to advance past the first round of the 2022 GNAC Men’s Basketball Championships tournament and into the quarterfinals by dropping a whopping 41 points. That was one point shy of his own GNAC playoff tournament single-game record of 42 points that he recorded on March 5, 2020, against Western Oregon. Shabazz was named tournament GNAC tournament MVP and shocked the conference by winning the tournament from the No. 10 seed.

UAF earned a No. 8 seed in the NCAA Division II Championships and plays No. 1 seed Cal State San Marcos on Friday.

10 UAA skiers qualify for NCAA National Championships

The Seawolves will be well represented in the Nordic and Alpine skiing events at the 2022 NCAA National Championships at the Park City Mountain Resort & Soldier Hollow in Park City, Utah next week.

For the Nordic events, it will be Schoonmaker, Magnus Noroey, Persen, Stav, Bygrave, and Pascale Paradis competing in their respective races. In the Alpine events, it will be Didrik Nilsen, Ashleigh Alexander, Alyssa Hill and Nikic.

UAA gymnastics home finale will honor lone senior

The UAA gymnastics team will honor its lone senior Friday when it hosts Air Force at the Alaska Airlines Center at 7 p.m.

Kylie Reese, transferred from Seattle Pacific after the school dropped gymnastics after the 2020 season. Reese, from Eugene, Oregon, set career high individual event marks in the vault (9.7), the bars (9.7) and the floor exercise (9.8).

Josh Reed

Josh Reed is a sports reporter for the Anchorage Daily News. He's a graduate of West High School and the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

ADVERTISEMENT