Knights sweep Region III ski titles

The Colony girls and boys cross-country ski teams swept the Region III cross-country ski meet Feb. 11 at Government Peak Recreation Area in the Matanuska-Susitna valleys.

The two-day overall individual titles went to Soldotna’s Tania Boonstra and Colony’s Coby Marvin.

The Colony girls had a team time of 2 hours, 16 minutes, 59 seconds, while Soldotna was the runner-up at 2:18:44. Kenai was third and Homer was fifth.

On the boys side, the Knights had four of the top five overall times and won at 2:16:07. Homer was second at 2:23:46, while Kenai was fourth and Soldotna was fifth.

Boonstra won both the 5-kilometer interval classic Friday and the 5K freestyle mass start Saturday for an overall time of 31:02. Colony’s Lucy Shea finished fourth in both girls races, and was third overall with a total time of 33:27. Colony’s Kaija Backus and Anna Bell were fifth and sixth overall. Josie Peace was seventh overall to lead Palmer.

Colony’s Jayden Rice won the 5K interval start classic Friday, but Marvin came back to win the 7.5K freestyle mass start Saturday to total 33:34 and nip Rice by three seconds for the overall.

Clayton Steer followed at third overall for Colony. Tobias Buchanan was seventh for the Knights. Alex Adams led Palmer with a 12th overall finish.