The Mariner boys cross country team won the state championship on Saturday at Bartlett High School in Anchorage. Homer’s 54 points edged out Grace Christian’s 55 and Mountain City Christian Academy’s 56.

The girls finished third with 65 points, behind Sitka’s 50 and Grace Christian’s 48.

The girl’s race ended with a sprint to the finish between Homer’s Ariela Garvey and Seward’s Olive Jordan. Garvey finished just half a second behind Jordan with a time of 19:48:00 minutes to take second place for the girls.

Sophomore Elijah Williams showed as Homer’s top boys runner, finishing third. He beat out Seward’s Luke Elhard by just over a second with a time of 16:53:2 minutes.

“All I was thinking about was how much longer I had to run before it was over,” said Williams. “We didn’t expect to have a good team after losing all our upperclassmen (2026 graduates), but we were able to make do.”

Homer competed  in the Division 2 small schools race against seven other schools. The race was about 3.1 miles long with many hills and lots of mud.

Other finishers include:

Girls:

Etta Bynagle – 5th

Aiyanna Cooper – 24th

Porter Lawrence – 28th

Ilsa Gutschow – 40th

Majo Hernandez – 42nd

Reagan Steen – 62nd

Boys:

Rio Waltenbaugh – 11th

Yuki Bacher – 15th

Rhys Borland – 17th

Rubis Gervais – 19th

Micah Bunker – 22nd

Javan Weisser – 44th

Volleyball sets string of victories

The Lady Mariners volleyball team won 3-0 in every game against the Seward Seahawks, Grace Christian Grizzlies and Mountain City Lions last weekend, but lost to the Soldotna Stars at home on Tuesday.

The Lady Mariners have now won 14 of their past 15 games on the road, losing only once to Kenai in September. Homer is now 19-8 for the season, and 6-2 in conference.

The scores of each set in the Seward game came to 25-6,15-17 and 25-8. Homer’s key players included Alysha Nyvall with 34 assists, six digs and four aces. Piper Fuchs was another key player with 16 digs and three aces.

The Grace Christian scores were 25-17, 25-21 and 25-16. Alysha Nyvall played hard getting 28 assists, seven digs, four aces and a solo block. Swift Blackstock also scored 11 kills and nine digs. 

The Lions fought hard in the end, but fell 25-13, 25-12 and 25-20. 

The Lady Mariners came close against Soldotna, but lost 25-22, 25-19 and 25-17. 

Homer will play in a tournament at Grace Christian this weekend.