Rally in the Valley: Knights sweep team titles in tri-meet

HATCHER PASS — The Knights reigned victorious at the Rally in the Valley tri-team Nordic ski meet held at Government Peak Recreation Area Saturday.

Colony High School head coach Mark Strabel was happy about the win, but he wasn’t about to take it for granted.

“You’ve gotta take it with a grain of salt,” Strabel said. “Palmer and Wasilla hadn’t had a lot of on-snow training. We’ve just had the time on snow.”

Needless to say, Strabel said he can hardly know where the season will go.

“It’s still early,” he said. “It’s hard to see (what will happen) when you don’t really know what we’re looking for yet.”

Both girls and boys competed in 5-kilometer, individual-start classic races, starting in the stadium area and skiing around the Matanuska, Susitna and Stadium Loops of the recreation area. In the team standings, only the top-4 finishes on each team were scored, as the smallest team, Wasilla girls’, had only four members total.

Colony’s Dawson Knopp came in first for the boys with a time of 14 minutes, 22 seconds, followed by his teammate Nick Harrison more than a minute later at 15:57.

Knopp said it wasn’t out of the ordinary for there to be such a gap, but he spoke highly of Harrison and his performance.

“He did look like he had a really good race,” Knopp said.

Although he misses racing with his twin brother Tracen, who’s out for the season with an injury, Dawson said he’s not concerned about any apparent lack of competition in the Mat-Su Valley.

“I’m not too worried,” he said. “There are some good guys out here, and they put on a good race.”

Knopp also competes in the statewide Besh Cup Race Series — he went to Junior Nationals in Stowe, Vermont, last year, with his brother — and trains with Alaska Nordic Racing during the summers, so he’s pretty aware of his competition coming from the Anchorage and Fairbanks high school teams.

“I kind of know what I’m up against,” he said.

Since Saturday’s event was a classic technique race, it could have been tricky to choose the appropriate kick or grip wax with the thin, wet snow, but Knopp said his coaches chose well.

“Everybody had pretty good kick to get up the hills,” he said.

Knopp also said the trail groomers did a good job of turning soft, choppy snow into a firmly packed course, and any bare spots were “nothing you can’t handle.”

Next in the results was Palmer’s Colbe Hand, who came in third at 16:26, followed by Colony’s Dakota Peterson-Thompson at 16:39 and Garrett Birch at 17:09.

Wasilla’s Eli Ickes came in first for the Warriors at 19:15, earning 10th place.

Palmer coach Mikey Evans said the race was “good” and waxing was “pretty straightforward,” since his goal was simply to make sure his athletes weren’t slipping on the uphills.

“As a coach, for an early season race, you’re looking for something to give everybody the best kick, and if you sacrifice a little bit of speed, that’s OK,” Evans said. “Later in the season we’ll probably put more energy and resources into a more polished wax call.”

Overall, they were just happy to have been able to race this weekend.

“We really owe it to (Colony Head Coach) Mark Strabel for being able to set up a race course and go out and groom the night before,” he said. “That’s a pretty unselfish thing to do, and we all benefit.”

On the girl’s side, Palmer’s Ruby Woodings strode into the finish fastest with a time of 19:17, followed by Colony’s Lisbeth Olsen less than 15 seconds later in 19:31.

“I think our top three ladies did very well,” Evans said.

After Olsen came her teammate Coleen Geraghty in 19:42, followed by Palmer’s Rya Berrigan in fourth at 20:06 and Colony’s M.E. Meyerhofer in fifth at 20:28. Palmer’s third girl was Eva Bingham, who finished seventh overall.

The Knights were missing their two fastest girls, senior Greta Jenkins — who was off on a college-previewing trip, her mother said — and junior Jordyn Block, who came in first for Colony earlier this season in Fairbanks.

For boys and girls, Colony came in first and Palmer in second, though there was less than a two-minute gap between the total time of the first and second girls’ teams, whereas the Colony boys came in more than seven minutes ahead of Palmer.

“Right now everybody’s just excited to race,” Evans said.

The Valley teams will next compete at the Lynx Invitational at Kincaid Park in Anchorage Friday. It will be the last high school competition for Valley teams until the new year.

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

Rally in the Valley

12/6/2014

Boys 5-kilometer Classic

1. KNOPP, D. Colony 14:22.8; 2. HARRISON, N. Colony 15:57.6; 3. HAND, C. Palmer 16:26.4; 4. PETERSON-THOMPSON, D. Colony 16:39.1; 5. BIRCH, G. Colony 17:09.6; 6. ALVERTS, J. Palmer 17:27.9; 7. FARRING, T. Colony 17:33.1; 8. MORDUE-SWALLING, B. Palmer 18:55.8; 9. HANEY, S. Palmer 18:57.7; 10. ICKES, E. Wasilla 19:15.4; 11. FULLER, Q. Wasilla 19:39.7; 12. SEIMS, L. Wasilla 19:55.3; 13. JOHNSON, S. Palmer 20:24.3; 14. GROVER, B. Colony 20:36.6; 15. RIOPELLE, S. Palmer 21:32.0; 16. HOUSTON, J. Palmer 22:54.0; 17. MOYE, M. Palmer 23:48.2; 18. HAND, Caden Palmer 25:23.1; 19. SIEMS, J. Wasilla 25:28.2; 20. QUALLS, R. Palmer 26:25.0; 21. CLYDE, M. Colony 27:46.8; 22. KITAGAWA, H. Colony 31:34.2; 23. SINGH, M. Palmer 33:25.3; 24. CORDERO, D. Palmer 33:58.9; 25. SAYAR, V. Wasilla 36:01.1.

Girls 5-kilometer Classic

1. WOODINGS, R. Palmer 19:17.1; 2. OLSEN, L. Colony 19:31.5; 3. GERAGHTY, C. Colony 19:42.8; 4. BERRIGAN, R. Palmer 20:06.4; 5. MEYERHOFER, M. Colony 20:28.1; 6. JENKINS, J. Colony 21:10.1; 7. BINGHAM, E. Palmer 21:21.3; 8. BETHEL, J. Colony 21:31.5; 9. FEIGE, S. Palmer 22:04.4; 10. KOPSACK, J. Colony 22:21.3; 11. LUNDIN, M. Palmer 22:48.5; 12. FOLDENAUER, E. Colony 22:49.4; 13. YOUNGBLOOD, R. Palmer 23:12.6; 14. TAYLOR, A. Palmer 23:19.6; 15. SOTO, C. Colony 24:10.5; 16. WARHUS, I. Wasilla 24:37.4; 17. ISHMAEL, A. Palmer 24:57.9; 18. INGERSOLL, D. Wasilla 25:01.9; 19. MUNDAY, K. Wasilla 26:49.9; 20. LAPKA, A. Palmer 28:54.5; 21 63 LEADBETTER, L. Wasilla 31:39.6; 22. BUCK, C. Colony 32:48.3; 23. SINGH, G. Palmer 38:30.0.