Thomet Leads Bears to State XC Title

Jay Barrett/KMXT
Two high school sports seasons have ended. The football team got to a 500 record with a blowout win against a small Kachemak Bay school, and Kodiak’s fastest runner took his third straight state title.
Levi Thomet cruised to a comfortable victory in the state 4-A cross country championships in Anchorage, and led the team to the state title on Saturday. The Kodiak boys scored 49 points to easily outdistance West Anchorage and West Valley Fairbanks in the standings. Levi Fried notched a fourth place in the race, Keith Osowski was seventh, Michael Parnell was 21st, and Jack Hannah was right behind in 22nd.
Thomet’s time of 15-minutes 10-seconds was a comfortable 33-seconds ahead of second place. Fried finished in 16-09 and Osowski, Parnell and Hannah notched times of 16:23, 16:52 and 16:54, respectively.
In the girls’ 4-A race, Zoe Bigley placed 14th with a time of 19-minutes 43-seconds. Melissa DeGuzman was 37th in 20:35.
The winner of the girls’ race was, predictably Allie Ostrander of Kenai, who, like Kodiak’s Thomet, took a third straight state title. She cruised to another easy win with a time of 17-minutes 6-seconds, which was a minute and 38-seconds ahead of her nearest competitor.

On the volleyball court here at home, the Bears split with Northern Lights Conference rival Soldotna, falling in four games Friday night, but coming back to win in three on Saturday.

On the Homer high school gridiron, the Bears wrapped up their season with a 65-nothing shellacking of tiny Voznesenka. They finish the season with a 4-and-4 mark, though only 1-and-2 in the conference.

Kodiak XC Boys Take 13th Region Title

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Brianna Gibbs/KMXT

Kodiak’s Levi Thomet takes the lead early in the 2014 Region III cross country race Saturday at Bear Valley Golf Course. Thomet won the race with a time of 16:03. Brianna Gibbs/KMXT Photo

For the 13th straight year, the Kodiak High School boys cross country team are Region III champions.
The last time Kodiak hosted regions was in 2005, when on a sunny fall day, both the girls and guys claimed team victories in the 4A cross country race. This time around, weather conditions were far from perfect, but the boys squad managed to maintain their spot at the top of the podium, and the girls will be sending two runners to state – twice the number that qualified last year. As a whole the girls team took 4th during Saturday’s competition.
It was no surprise that Kodiak’s Levi Thomet took the top spot in the boys 4A race. With a time of time of 16:03, he outran the field of runners by more than 45 seconds and claimed his third consecutive region title. Kenai brothers Jonah and Jordan Theisen captured second and third, respectively.

28-Year-Old Abercrombie XC Record Left in the Dust

Jay Barrett/KMXT
One of the longest-standing sports records in the state was wiped from the record books on Friday. The girls’ cross country mark of 18-minutes 48-seconds, set by Kristi Klinnert, now Waythomas, in 1986, fell during the Kodiak Invitational at Fort Abercrombie. Two-time defending state champion Allie Ostrander of Kenai Central High School bested the record with a time of 17-minutes 34-seconds – a full minute-14 faster than Waythomas.
Needless to say, Ostrander, a Kardinal senior, won the race handily, crossing the finish line more than two-and-a-half minutes ahead of the second-place runner. And though it’s comparing apples to oranges, Ostrander’s time was faster than all the competitors in the boys’ race, save the top nine.
Speaking of the boys, Kodiak’s Levi Thomet had a likewise easy win, finishing nearly a minute ahead of second place. Thomet was just three-seconds short of Trevor Dunbar’s course record.
West Anchorage won the girls’ team title and Kodiak the boys, both with scores of 35. The Kodiak girls were 4th with 87 points.
We’ve got full results after the jump.

Thomet Sixth in West – Qualifies for Cross Country Nationals

Levi Thomet

Jay Barrett/KMXT
Kodiak High School junior Levi Thomet finished in sixth place at Saturday’s Foot Locker West Region cross country championships in Walnut, California, qualifying him for nationals.
The boys five-kilometer race was won by Matthew Maton of Bend, Oregon, in 15-minutes 39-seconds. Thomet was sixth in a time of 15-minutes 44.1-seconds. The two-time defending state champion in cross country was the only Alaskan among the 176 competitors.
Finishing in the top 10 qualifies Thomet for the Foot Locker National Championships at 9 a.m. on Saturday (Dec. 14), in San Diego. It will feature the top 10 runners from each of four regions around the country, and will be webcast live.

Thomet, Swimmers and Spikers Dominate

Jay Barrett/KMXT
In sports over the weekend, the Kodiak High School Bears continued to excel on the trails and in the water. The Kodiak boys and girls both won the Homer Invitational swimming and diving meet Friday and Saturday, and Levi Thomet swept the ACS Class Challenge and Palmer Invite.

Football
The Bears football team, in their home opener, were edged by the Kenai Kardinals 22-21.

Volleyball
Kodiak’s volleyball team kicked off the regular season by dominating the competition during matches  in Sitka. The Bears defeated host Sitka High School, Sitka’s Mount Edgecumbe High School and Juneau’s Thunder Mountain (playing in Sitka). Kodiak won every match and only dropping one game to two-time defending small school champion Mount Edgecumbe. Up next for the Bears will be the first Northern Lights Conference matches against Kenai and Soldotna on the peninsula.
And a reminder, all of Kodiak’s volleyball matches are streamed live online.

Swimming and Diving
The Kodiak boys racked up 145 points in dominating the field in the Homer pool, nearly doubling second-place Colony’s 77 points.
The Kodiak girls win was by a slimmer margin, with 70 points to Soldotna’s 67 and Palmer’s 63.5.

Cross Country
In Palmer, Thomet cruised to a 48-second win over second place, covering the course in 15-minutes 40-seconds. Zoe Bigley was Kodiak’s top finisher in the girls race, placing 19th. Kenai runner Allie Ostrander won that race, 50-seconds faster than second, with a time of 17-miutes 45-seconds.
We’ve got results after the jump.

Kodiak Bears Find Success on Kenai Peninsula

Jay Barrett/KMXT

Football
The Kodiak High School Bears have kicked off the football season with a win on Saturday. After a scoreless first quarter it was back and forth with Homer in the second and third, before the Bears poured on the coals and beat the Mariners in Homer.
Homer led 2-0 at the half, but the Bears came back with six points in the third, but the Mariners came back with a TD of their own to lead 8-2. After that, it was all Kodiak on their way to a 26-8 victory.
Crosscountry
Meanwhile, about 70 miles up the Sterling Highway, Kodiak runners were participating in the Skyview Invite in Soldotna. The junior duo of Levis – Thomet and Fried – finished one-two after breaking from the pack with a kilometer to go. With a time of 16-minutes 12.1-seconds, Thomet won the invite for the second year in a row, while Fried was right behind in 16-minutes 18.1-seconds. Their top two places on the podium wasn’t enough to take the team title, though, which went to West Valley, which scored 61 points. Kodiak was fifth with 164 points. In between were South Anchorage, West Anchorage and Kenai Central.
The Kodiak girls were 15th in the team standings with 349 points, in a race won by West with 69. For the third year in a row, Kenai junior Allie Ostrander broke the course record, breezing to victory with a time of 17-minutes 15.5-seconds, a full minute-45 ahead of the second place runner.
Zoe Bigley was Kodiak’s top finisher in 21st place with a time of 20:33.5.
We’ve got full results after the jump.