Kenai Peninsula Borough School District students returned to school on Wednesday, August 20. At Homer High School, the day started with an 8 a.m. “welcome back pancake breakfast” served with the help of the Mariner cheer team. Later in the day, students attended the first pep rally of the year in preparation for two upcoming weekend events and general celebration of the start of the new year.
Football’s first home game on Friday night with Barrow Whalers from Utqiagvik, Alaska starts at 6 p.m. The Mariners already played Houston in their first game of the season. Total football team size for Homer this year is 53 students, a number Coach Justin Zank is pleased with. “Well, we had our first game of the season last week at Houston. And I thought that we played, we played pretty well. And even with with the the end result, the score there, we still have a lot of things that we can improve upon. So that's that's very exciting to know that, that we performed the way we did, but we still have a lot of things that that we can get better at doing, and we will work on all season to get a little bit better. So I'm excited about playing Barrow on Friday. It's going to be a tough game for us. Barrow is always, always tough, and we're excited for it….”
The Lady Mariner volleyball team will hold a game with Homer alumni on Saturday Aug. 23rd at 6 p.m. The alumni game will be MC’d by Homer’s Jim Anderson. Homer volleyball coach is Brenna Dornellas and she shared this:
“We're super excited to bring back the alumni back to their hometown high school to compete against our up and coming athletes. We're hoping this is a really great community event. We've got a silent auction going. All proceeds and benefits that are made during the game are going to go to the volleyball program for this year and the years to come. So, we're looking forward to that.”
Dornellas said the game is a free event for the community but encouraged people to browse the auction table. Alumni who still might be interested in playing can find a sign up sheet on the Lady Mariners FaceBook page.
As of Tuesday, eight alumni were registered for the volleyball game: Channing Lowney, Brooke Sanford, Kasi Devaney, Naevaeh Diaz, Caroline Gardner, Gracie Gummer, Izzy Dye and Anita de Creeft. Lowney, 2025 graduate, provided some of her memories and experience with the volleyball team as an alumni:
“It was really good. It was definitely a change, because going into my junior year, we had a coach shift, so a new varsity coach, which was definitely a big change of the whole program, because, like, the energy was all different and everything. So then it was kind of like rebuilding the program, starting from scratch. But it was good. It was fun, a really positive environment, and like, everyone's really nice to each other, and just like, everyone's growing together, and it's like, volleyball is a very competitive sport, so a lot of competition everywhere, and just like every day, working like, 10 times harder than the next person trying to, like, get that spot, which I think is good competition.”
Lowney talked about some of the benefits of the alumni game:
“It's kind of fun to see the old and the new, and it's just good to see like the different generations of playing and different skills. I think it's a fun way to show off the new team, because this is always the first game of the season and it provides a showcase of the team.”
For more information on the Homer High School athletics calendar and upcoming events see the website: https://kpbsd.org/schools/homer-high/athletics/. Also in season for the fall are cross country running, swimming and cheer.
