Upcoming events:
Homer High School
Hockey: The End of the Road Hockey Tourney will begin Thursday at Kevin Bell Arena, and continue Friday and Saturday.
Wrestling: The high school wrestling team will compete at the Wasilla Sports Complex at 9 a.m. Friday. They will continue competing at 8:30 a.m. Saturday.
Other sports
Broomball: Broomball will take place from 9:30-11 p.m. on Friday at the Kevin Bell Ice Arena.
In Review:
Homer High School
Wrestling:
The Mariners wrestling team got an early start to last weekend on Thursday, Nov. 9 with duals at home against Grace Christian School.
Homer came out on top, beating Grace 47-24. Senior Tristen Cook lost to Evan Bockman in the 182 weight class, in a battle of defending state champions, according to assistant coach Chris Perk. Bockman earned a 9-2 victory.
“Josh Bradshaw, a Freshman wrestler at 145 pounds, continues to improve,” Perk wrote.
He won 11-0 over Todd Knell and was able to score a few cross face cradles over the weekend.
Now is the point in the season when the coaches have the teammates start working more on technique rather than basic strength conditioning, Perk said.
“… About mid-season, we like to throw some new technique in that we really want to be able to use come the end of the season,” he said.
Perk said, in his experience, it usually takes the team a few weeks to get things into place. He saw them attempting those new techniques and moves on Thursday night, inching closer to where the team needs to be, he said.
The team does have a few weight classes this season that are not filled.
“You’re always, like, walking the halls,” Perk joked. “You’re like, ‘Hey, you’re a hundred pounds, what do you think?’ But unfortunately in our sport there’s 15 weight classes and so you have a lot of bodies to fill and so when you give up those weights, you’re relying on the rest of the team to really pin their opponents to make up for those forfeits.”
To compensate for this, Perk said the coaches emphasize getting bonus points, major decisions, technical falls and falls.
The team also competed in the Peninsula Duals at Nikiski High School last weekend, taking second place. The Mariners fell to Colony High school in their dual 53-18. Soldotna High School took fourth place.
From Perk:
“(Over ) the weekend the team took part in six duals, winning four of them, losing only to the No. 1 ranked Division I Colony twice.
“Homer opened with Colony on Friday night. Tristen Cook at 182, beat Division I finalist Caleb Hopkins 5-1. This match up features five top six wrestlers. Colony won three out of the five. The other featured win came from Luciano Fasulo at 132. Luciano beat Sam Sisco again 7-2. Seth Inama at 120, Wayne Newman at 126 and Chris Cudaback at 170 were within 2-3 points of their top ranked opponents. Homer then went on to beat SoHi 39-31. Homer gave up close to 30 points each dual because of forfeits in 4-5 weight classes.
“The Mariners opened Saturday with the Barrow Whalers, the No. 3 ranked Division II school. Mariners defeated Barrow 52-18. Levi King at 195 avenged his loss to Sione Tuifua. Tuifua took a nice shot on King who stepped over the double leg and put Tuifua on his back and King was too strong for him to fight off. Kyle Wells at 220 then defeated No. 2 ranked Ben Heather 5-3. Wells built a 5-0 lead before giving up a late escape and takedown. King will take over the No. 1 ranking for Division II and Wells is now ranked No. 2 in Division II. McKenzie Cook at 152 beat two girls over the weekend, including a fall against Eve Nevoganna from Barrow. Alex Moseley at 120 won four matches over the weekend and Mariah Grimes at 160 won two matches against girls from Kenai.
“The Mariners then took on a second team from Colony who ended up placing third. Homer gave Colony 24 points but earned a 43 – 37 win. Mose Hayes at 138 won all five of his matches over the weekend. Hayes defeated both Colony wrestlers on Saturday. He won 13-0 over Dylan Holmes and then earned a tough 2-1 win over Brice Lestenkof-Chapman, Hayes scored a reversal with about 20 seconds left after trailing 1-0. In the finals, Homer faced the Colony Varsity team and lost 53–18. Giving up 30 points in forfeits cost the Mariners. Wayne Newman took Rush Fannon to overtime before giving up a takedown, he scored his first takedown against Fannon in the third period but was called for stalling twice in the final 10 seconds to forced overtime. Hopkins was able to beat Tristen Cook 2-1 in a rematch of State Finalists. Homer will travel to the Lancer Smith Memorial Tourney in Wasilla this weekend, the toughest tourney in Alaska.”
Adult sports
City Basketball League week 5 standings:
1. Bay Welding 6-0
2. Splash Bros 4-1
3. Riptide 4-2
4. K-12 4-2
5. Alaska Bible Institute 2-4
6. Titans 0-5
Photo by Jeff Helminiak/Peninsula Clarion Colony’s Eric Christy controls Homer’s Chris Cudaback at 170 pounds en route to a 11-0 major decision in the championship dual of the Peninsula Duals on Saturday, Nov. 11 at Nikiski High School in Nikiski.
