New snow, new coaches for high school skiers

MAT-SU — A snowless November may have seemed cause for quits by high school skiers in the Mat-Su Valley, but all were hard at work for the 2014-15 season before the snow fell Saturday.

Palmer High has the biggest Nordic team in the Valley this year with 34 athletes, led by coaches Mikey Evans and Shelli Franckowiak, both teachers at Palmer.

Though this is Evans’ first season coaching at Palmer, he’s not new to the sport. Four years ago he was coaching at Eagle River High School while teaching at Colony High, then he coached the Chugiak team for two years while teaching at Burchell. Last year Evans took the year off from high school coaching to help take care of his twin girls, now 2 years old, but he has remained active as a juniors and masters club coach with Alaska Nordic Racing since 2008.

“It’s good to be back, I’m super excited,” Evans said.

The Palmer Booster Club raised enough money recently to supply the team with two vans, which Evans said helps to transport skiers more safely and efficiently to practice venues — even though those venues haven’t had snow.

Rather than getting down about the lack, however, Evans said it might actually be a benefit for his skiers, especially those new to the sport.

“Not having the snow isn’t the worst ’cause what that allows is it allows us an opportunity to build fitness and then get those who are new to the sport used to major ski movements once we get on snow,” he said, prior to the snowfall. “It’s really hard to learn to ski when you’re not fit.”

Recently, there’s been a lot of dry land training — hill bounding, ski walking, running and strength workouts. All that, in addition to time on snow, is what Nordic skiing is all about.

“It’s a hard, hard, hard sport ’cause it’s full-body and it’s demanding and you don’t get a break, even tucking downhill,” Evans said.

It’s also hard for high school athletes to learn to ski when they join a team of experienced skiers, who have been on rollerskis all summer, for example.

“It’s really intimidating to show up when they don’t even know how to put their skis on,” Evans said.

Sometimes, however, training can trump natural talent, and anyone who is willing to put in the work can make huge leaps in just one season.

“Endurance sports are a grind, you’ve gotta be willing to go out and do a lot of long, sometimes boring (skis),” Evans said.

Having Franckowiak on the team also makes the Moose stronger, he said.

“Shelli is a tremendous addition ’cause she just brings a ton of team sport experience and a fresh look and a new perspective to, for me, things that maybe have gotten a little stale,” Evans said.

Franckowiak has 10 years of high school coaching experience in cross country running and basketball. She took to Nordic skiing as an adult as rehabilitation for old basketball injuries.

She said she expects to learn a lot this season.

“The learning curve will be really steep but any gaps in my knowledge Mikey will be able to fill seamlessly, no problem,” she said.

Alyssa Lapka and Rebekah Youngblood were recently named team captains for the female Moose, “both seniors and strong leaders,” Franckowiak said.

New on the coaching staff for Colony is Justin Aulie, who was the assistant coach for the Wasilla Warriors during the 2010-11 ski season, and now holds that position under returning head coaches Mark Strabel and Dave Knopp for the Knights.

The Knights spent last weekend in Fairbanks, driving north Thursday to get one extra day on snow before the Kinross Fort Knox Town Race at Birch Hill Recreation Area.

Junior Jordyn Block was first for the lady Knights at Birch Hill this season, taking second place in the 5-kilometer race behind West Valley High School’s Jenna Difolco, in 20:07.9. Next up was senior Greta Jenkins in fourth at 20:20 even, followed by Coleen Geraghty in eighth at 21:59.6 and Lisbeth Olsen in 10th at 22:54.

Twenty-eight high school athletes competed in the women’s race.

On the boys’ side, Dawson Knopp came in third for high school skiers, first for the Knights in the 7.5-kilometer race with a time of 21:22.5. The two skiers ahead of him were Max Donaldson and Jesse Mayo of West Valley.

Next up was Dakota Peterson-Thompson, another star runner this past cross country season. He placed 13th in the high school division of the Fairbanks race with a time of 24 minutes. Following him was Nick Harrison in 16th place at 25:02.8 and Garret Birch in 19th with a time of 25:24.3.

Forty-one high school athletes competed in the men’s race.

“Not a bad showing from us, considering the lack of on snow training,” Strabel wrote in an email to Frontiersman staff. “The race really gives us an idea what the Fairbanks schools have, and it was good to get the first race of the season under our hat.”

Colony High has 25 athletes this year, and like Palmer, the girls’ team is better represented in terms of numbers. In Colony’s case, one loss was Dawson’s twin brother Tracen, who has also been a top performer for the Colony cross country running and ski teams. He is out for the season with a broken elbow, an injury he sustained while skiing.

Though the Knights have had more time on snow than the other Valley teams — between the Fairbanks race and their “secret spot” in Hatcher Pass, which requires a bit of hiking first — Strabel mentioned last Thursday that the lack of snow could actually be reason for some students to not join the team this year. New athletes especially might be less willing to buy all the necessary equipment for Nordic skiing in a low-snow season.

“It’s hard to say,” he said.

The Wasilla Warriors, like the Moose, aren’t too concerned about their lack of time on snow, but for different reasons.

“I would sum up our team philosophy in that, we might not be the most competitive team, but we have some team goals of going to a lot of different trails and doing a lot of different courses,” said head coach Jeff Kase. “So far this year we have not done the same trail twice.”

Kase said they’ve been getting some good training in at the Alaska Club, too, as the club donated one hour of time in their spin bike room to the Wasilla team.

This year the team has 13 athletes, seven of them boys. One of those is an exchange student from Brazil named Victor, who made his first snowball last week, Kase said.

Kase named Logan Seims, Mike Wieliczkiewicz and Eli Ickes as his “fastest guys,” mentioning Logan as the third skier in the Seims family legacy that he will have coached.

Coach Kase graduated from Colony in 2000 as “a product of Colonel (Ed) Strabel coaching,” having competed in the state championship meet three times with the colonel. He headed the Wasilla team in the 2009-10 season and was joined by Aulie the following season, but spent the last couple years finishing his second bachelor’s degree — this time in Geology, Business in 2006 — and helping coach Mat-Su Junior Nordics, as he has for more than a decade.

The Mat-Su Ski Club also awarded Wasilla freshman skier Lauren Leadbetter with one of two $500 ski equipment scholarships, which the club hopes to continue supplying annually to deserving skiers.

Valley ski teams will next compete in Homer Dec. 5 and 6, provided the venue has enough snow.

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.