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FAIRBANKS — Lou LaVarro, a 52-year-old who recently moved to Fairbanks from Florida, captured the open title and a masters honor at the RAW Powerlifting Federation World Championships in Las Vegas on Saturday and Sunday.

LaVarro said he is the first competitor age 50 or older to take the open title in a powerlifting meet.

“It was great,” LaVarro said Tuesday from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport before boarding a flight to Fairbanks. “It gives me the incentive to start competing again in the open (class). I thought my career was over but it’s really not; I feel like I’ve got a few more years of lifting left.”

LaVarro, competing the ages 50-54 division for 275 pounders, registered a top deadlift of 705 pounds, raised 488 pounds in the bench press and recorded a 598-pound lift in the squat in the meet in the Riviera Hotel and Casino.

The RAW Powerlifting Federation, a drug-free organization which is based in North Carolina, doesn’t allow its competitors to wear lifting suits, shirts and joint wraps. Participants can wear weight belts.

LaVarro, 6-foot-2 and 262 pounds, trains himself and works with clients in the Edward Merdes Sports Training Center at Growden Memorial Park. A few of his clients were in attendance at the Riviera.

Part of his training for the Las Vegas competition was pulling a small metal sled with weights around the gravel parking lot at Growden.

“Working with the sled helped my knees and I did a lot of core work, especially for the deadlift,” said LaVarro, an exercise physiologist.

Nanooks jump in poll

Winning the title in their own Brice Alaska Goal Rush at the Carlson Center helped the Alaska Nanooks move up Monday in the USCHO.com/CBS College Sports Poll of NCAA Division I men’s hockey teams.

The Nanooks jumped to No. 15 from No. 17 last week. Alaska took the Brice title and improved to 3-0-1 this season following Friday’s 4-2 win over Robert Morris and Saturday’s 1-1 tie against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Alaska also moved up to No. 13 in the Inside College Hockey Power Rankings after being No. 15 last week. The Nanooks received 39 points in this week’s USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine Poll but weren’t ranked in its top 15.

Alaska is off this week and opens Central Collegiate Hockey Association play against the Ferris State Bulldogs on Oct. 30-31 at the Carlson Center.

On Tuesday, the ninth-ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish, an upcoming CCHA opponent of the Nanooks, upset the third-ranked and defending national champion Boston University Terriers 3-0 in a nonconference game in Boston that was nationally televised on ESPNU.

Notre Dame and Alaska meet on Nov. 6-7 at the Carlson Center.

Correction

A portion of West Valley center Ray Garris-Shoemaker’s last name was omitted in a Tuesday story about the large schools football all-state selections.

Contact staff writer Danny Martin at 459-7586.