Good news, sports fans, the 2019-2020 Alaskan high school sports season is upon us. The Haines Glacier Bears cross-country team is ready to get things rolling Saturday on the Treadwell Park trails of Douglas Island. Coach Chandler Kemp returns to familiar stomping grounds, this time accompanied by 30 athletes.
The team features the core of last year’s girls and boys varsity squads, which both qualified for the state meet. The roster is bolstered by 14 athletes in this year’s talented freshman class, a phenomenon that Kemp attributes to a strong feeder program.
Practice began officially in late July, but many of the runners have been meeting at the track for workouts all summer, focusing on “core strength” drills to prepare their joints and muscles for the toils of an Alaskan cross-country season. A crew of 32 travelled together to the Yukon in mid-August for the second annual Glacier Bear running camp, a four-day event dedicated to building a happy, healthy team.
“The priority during the four weeks before the first meet is always building a base that we can use to create good experiences-and performances- throughout the rest of the season,” Coach Kemp explained. He sounded an upbeat note about his team’s chances, “We’ve got a tremendous base of community support, student leadership and fitness that gives me confidence for the competitive half of the season.”
The team can bring all its athletes to the Juneau meet. The top seven finishers for each squad in this weekend’s meet will race in Petersburg on the following Saturday. The weekend after that, the entire team will play host to several teams from throughout the region on the fair grounds and the adjacent Chilkoot Indian Association trails. The results from the home meet will determine the athletes that will represent Haines at the Region 5 meet in Sitka when the varsity runners will take a week off of racing to prepare to attempt to qualify to return to the state meet. While the varsity rests, the rest of this unprecedentedly large team will travel that weekend to race in Ketchikan.
Team captain Brennan Palmieri said, “With almost half the high school student body participating in cross country this year, there are a lot of new faces, Something I am really pleased with is how we can continue to create a nurturing and supportive environment where someone can fall in love with running. We’ve already built a tight community. I’m looking forward to the first race in Juneau this weekend, we’ve got a very fast team and it’s only the beginning. With Chandler Kemp pushing us in practice every day and the ever-growing self-motivation that comes from racing on the weekends, I believe we can reach great lengths. And of course, most importantly, we’re going to have fun doing it.”