J's World: The top 10 Valley prep sports stories from the past 12 months

There are only about 24 hours of 2018 left as I write this. Before we dive into 2019, we need to look back on the last 12 months. The following is my annual list of the top 10 Valley prep sports stories for the past year.

10. Locals help the Miners score the three-peat

During the past few Alaska Baseball League seasons, Valley products have found themselves part of the Valley’s summer amateur collegiate baseball team. And once again, in 2018, local players helped the Mat-Su Miners win an ABL title. The Mat-Su roster included three pitchers with Valley roots, Colony High graduate Jacob Butcher, and Wasilla High grads Nolan Monaghan and Hank Boyer. The trio helped Mat-Su earn its third straight ABL crown.

9. Earthquake rocks Southcentral Alaska

The earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 that shook the Valley and the aftershocks that followed is probably the top news story in 2018, and you could probably put it just about anywhere on this list. Valley residents continue to be impacted during the aftermath of the quake. That includes Valley sports. Schools closed on Nov. 29 following the quake, and it took weeks for some to reopen. The future of Houston Middle, the Valley school with the most damage, is still unknown. Colony High School’s gymnasium is closed indefinitely as engineers assess structure damage. The CHS boys and girls basketball teams will spend the season playing and practicing in other buildings. But as Colony High boys basketball head coach Tom Berg said, “We’ve talked about, all across the Valley, how resilient the Valley is. How lucky we were, as bad as it was, we’re talking about things. The damage is significant, but nobody was hurt.”

8. ASAA reclassification

The Alaska prep sports landscape has changed dramatically in multiple sports during the past several years. The biggest change in 2018 came when the Alaska Schools Activities Association reclassified prep hockey. Palmer is now a Division II squad, along with former North Star Conference rivals Kenai, Soldotna and Homer. Colony and Wasilla remain at the Division I level in a new three-team conference that also includes the West Valley and Lathrop co-op program. Valley programs will not compete in region tournaments this year, a byproduct of the change. We’ll find out in 2019 if the changes are for the better.

7. Colony High graduate earns major college honor

Former Colony High School standout Eve Stephens was a prize in the UAA volleyball’s recruiting class last year. And it didn’t take long for the 2018 graduate of Colony High to make a major impact with the Seawolves. Stephens, a two-time Northern Lights Conference Player of the Year in high school, was named the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Freshman of the Year after a stellar first season with the green and gold.

6. Valley athletes commit to Division I programs

I have had the opportunity to write about dozens of local athletes who had the opportunity to compete for a Division I program. But before November, I had never covered three Division I National Letter of Intent ceremonies within a 24-hour period. Three Mat-Su Career and Technical School athletes inked their Division I NLI during the early signing period. Two of the athletes, Olivia Davies and Alexis Friesen, compete for Wasilla High. The third, Isabel List competes at Colony. Davies will play for the Hawaii women’s basketball program. Friesen will play women’s soccer at Nevada-Reno. List will play women’s volleyball at Montana. Two other Wasilla-area athletes. Dylan Abbott and Mikayla Lanto, also committed to Division I hockey programs. Abbott gave his verbal commitment to Minnesota-Mankato. Lanto committed to Penn State. As each year passes, more Valley athletes continue to earn the opportunity to compete at the next level.

5. Davies will state track and field titles

Olivia Davies earns at least a piece of two spots in our top 10. Davies, who led Wasilla to consecutive girls basketball state titles earlier in her career, has been one of Alaska’s best basketball since she hit the high school hardwood. As a junior, Davies decided to give another sport a try. Track and field. And she established herself as one of the state’s best immediately. Davies earned a pair of state titles, winning both the 100 and 200 meters.

4. The football coaching carousel

Head coaching vacancies in 2018 will lead to history in 2019. Rod Christiansen (Palmer), Fred McKenney (Colony) and Will Stout (Wasilla) each stepped down from their respective positions following the 2018 season. That means next year all three programs will have a first-year head coach at the same time for the first time. All three positions have already been filled. Tim Popowski (Palmer), Robbie Nash (Colony) and Ken Ottinger (Wasilla) are now leading the teams. In other notable Valley prep coaching news in 2018, former longtime Palmer volleyball head coach Steve Reynolds took over the Colony program and led the Knights to state. Palmer High has two new basketball coaches, with Jeremy Arnhart (boys) and Keith Anderson (girls) leading the programs.

3. Palmer High baseball makes school history

Palmer entered the Southcentral Conference Championships as the seventh seed, but left as region champs.

The Moose punched their first ticket to an ASAA-sanctioned state tournament and earned their first conference crown since 1996 with a 10-7 come-from-behind victory over rival Colony in the region final. And to make it even more exciting for the Moose, the effort came in an extra innings. Palmer plated four runs in the eighth to earn the win. A week later, Palmer earned its first state tournament victory, a 4-3 win over West Valley.

2. Wasilla Warriors earn boys basketball state title

My top 2 stories are pretty much 1A and 1B. But this is definitely a game of the year. In a rematch of the 2017 4A final, and 364 days following a heartbreaking loss to Dimond, the Warriors got redemption with a 47-44 win over the Lynx. With the win, Wasilla earned its first boys basketball state crown since 2007.

1. Rod Christiansen retires

After 28 seasons, 159 wins, six trips to a championship game and a state title, Rod Christiansen, the longtime head coach of the Palmer High School football program, retired following the 2018 season. Christiansen, who took over the program prior to the 1991 season, holds the state record for career wins in Alaska. He was also the longest-tenured high school head coach in the Valley.

Well, that does it for 2018. A big reason I love covering sports in the Valley is there is no shortage of great storylines. It was another year following the work of great teams and people in the Valley. Now we can look forward to what 2019 will bring us.

Contact Frontiersman managing editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com. Jason McCourt of the Valley Sports Huddle contributed to selecting this list.