Results for 2026 Festival Sprints

Festival Photos Abum

A mere second! Festival Sprints decided by a tick of the clock!

64 souls braved the fine sunny, warm evening Thursday to seek orange and white controls amidst the buildings, fences, streams, paths and woods of the west UAA campus. And nearly all were successful, with just two competitors failing to punch at a control, resulting in the dreaded “MP” to the right of their name.

After running right by Control 15 on the long course Oriana Riley, visiting from the Delaware River Orienteering Association, avenged her MP by then running the 1.7 km short course quicker than all others. She was followed by another visitor from out of state, Kat Orekhoba, from the Rocky Mountain Orienteering Club. Both women were quicker than the fastest man on the short course, Hatcher Smith, who was followed by Dwight Iverson. Linda and Talia Smith were the quickest team on the short course, followed by team Scared Scrappers (winners for the best team name of the night!).

Just one second was the margin of victory for Lindsey Flagstad over Jen Joliff among the women running the long course. Lindsey finished with a time of 27:39, and Jen’s time was 27:40! Oh, so close! And Allan Spangler was the quickest man to run the long course, covering the 3.4 km, in a time of 19:22. Second place finisher Springer Moore jumped for joy as he saw that he had bested perennial front runner Scott Patterson by a mere second with a time of 20:06.

The very pleasant evening encouraged socializing as folks finished. Locals enjoyed sharing their routes and stories with out-of-state visitors here for the festival, including five (the Riley family and the Glenn and Janet Tryson) from the Delaware Valley Orienteering Association of the Philadelphia area, and one, Kat Orekhoba, from the Rocky Mountain Orienteering Club.

Many thanks to those who helped out with the Festival Sprints: Kimball Forest, who designed the courses; Todd Shearer, who made the impossible possible with his mathematical allocation of controls and equipment among the three events of the festival; Stan Mohl, who helped with equipment hauling, registration set up and tear down, and start time spacing; Lexi Hill, who brought the snacks, helped with registration and event set up and tear down; and Scott Patterson, Dela Grey, Jen Jolliff and Springer Moore who fearlessly retrieved controls afterwards.

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