Adult Sports

‘Putting guru’ Stockton gives golf clinic

Five senior golfers from Homer played in the Senior State Amateur Golf Tournament at Anchorage Golf Course last weekend. Super Senior John Glidden placed 11th, Champion flight René Alverez tied for 15th, first flight players Charles Rehder, Charles Ruppenthal and John Gibson placed seventh,11th and 17th respectively. The next tournament is the State Amateur at Moose Run golf course in August. Homer’s Chris Morin is one of the top golfers in the state and hopes to place well.

Highland games set for Saturday

1. Eight-year-old Gigi Leonetti and 11-year-old Brooke Shafer race each other to the finish line of the Spit Run 10K.

In the Homer Epic held last Saturday, bicyclist Josh Chelf won the 100 km event with a time of 6 hours, 21 minutes and 30 seconds. Jill Simek was the top woman finisher and second-place overall, finshing just 6 seconds behind Chelf with a time of 6:21:36, also biking. Thirty contestants raced in 50k and 100k events on skis or bikes starting from McNeil Canyon Elementary School.

Community Recreation Schedule

Ninilchik Timberwolves in first

Staff report

Diva’s Women’s Hockey hosted the 9th Annual Jamboree Tournament last weekend. More than 90 players traveled from Kenai, Anchorage, Palmer and the Valley. This tournament, sponsored by Beluga Lake Lodge, is a major fundraiser for Homer Women’s Hockey.

HHA, Divas host Winter Jamboree

The Kevin Bell Arena will be busy this weekend, as women hockey players from around the state meet to create a spectacular display of hockey talent.

The Homer Hockey Association and the Homer Divas Women’s Hockey announce the seventh annual Winter Jamboree hockey tournament scheduled to take place Jan. 13-15 at the ice arena on the Homer Spit.

Thursday, Jan. 19

5:30-8 p.m., Weight Room, HHS Weight Room

5:30-7 p.m. Ski & Winter Gear Swap, HHS Commons

6-8 p.m., Pickle Ball, HERC Gym

7-10 p.m., Telluride Mountainfilm Show #1, HHS Theatre

8-10 p.m., Basketball, HHS Gym

7-9 p.m., Boating Safety Class, HHS A104

7:30-9:30 p.m., Pick up Volleyball, HMS Gym

Friday, Jan. 20

6-7 a.m., Morning Basketball, HMS Gym

3:30-4:45 p.m., Youth Soccer (4th-7th grades), HERC Gym

5-8 p.m., Pickle Ball, HERC Gym

Homer Community Special Olympics Bowling brought home 31 medals and four highest pinfall awards from the State Bowling Tournament in Anchorage on Nov. 18-20.

“I think this is the best we’ve done at the tournament with all the medals and pinfall awards,” said Special Olympics Community Director Carol Shuler. “We’ve only gotten one (pinfall award) before.”

Hockey players from as far away as Minnesota traveled to Homer over the Oct. 28-30 weekend for the fourth annual Homer Co-Ed Adult Hockey Jamboree. In total, 56 players — many from Alaska cities such as Juneau, Anchorage, Kenai, Soldotna and Homer — competed on five teams, said Homer Hockey Association Vice President Jan Rumble.

Homer pickleball players brought home precious medals after taking top spots in several categories in the Alaska Senior Games on Aug. 16-18.

Janie Leask, Holly Van Pelt, Dru and Tim Renchler, Donna and Dan Holleman, Bill Bloom and Paul Knight competed in doubles and singles categories in several different age categories in Fairbanks. The pickleball players collected nine gold, two silver and two bronze medals. For Homer pickleball, the wins affirmed the players’ skills outside of the hamlet at the end of the road.

In the door-prize drawing following the two-day Donald R. Morgan Memorial Club Championship at the Kenai Golf Course on Sunday, Homer’s Chris Morin won a 3-wood.

Don’t expect to see Morin using that club much around the penal, par-72 layout though. Morin has taken to a strategy of hitting mostly 4-irons off the tees at Kenai, and it’s taken him where no golfer at the course has gone before.

Morin is in the midst of another solid summer of golf. Recently, he tied the course record of 22 at the nine-hole, par-27 Homer Golf Course.

Fifteen minutes after Mean Machine beat Beluga Lake Lodge with a score of 9-5 in the championship game, the teams took the field to play again. In order to win, Mean Machine needed to defeat BLL again.

The Homer Softball Association’s city tournament rules require a team to lose twice before they could be declared out of the running for the championship. BLL won all of their games over the July 30-31 tournament weekend until the final game against Mean Machine.

Homer and Anchor Point’s speedy young adults took over the top 10 in the runners division of the 6-K Homer Spit Run on Saturday, June 25.

Pedro Ochoa, a 19-year-old Homer High School alumnus, crossed the finish line first. Ochoa was nearly two minutes ahead of the second place runner, 16-year-old Homer High School junior Jacob Davis, with a time of 35:12.58. Davis came in at 37:00.81, just a second past his goal time of 37 minutes, he said.

“It feels amazing and it hurts,” Davis said. “I was going for the big improvement this year.”

The 10K Homer Spit Run is a magnet for local and visiting athletes. Some dash to the front of the pack. Others resolutely put one foot in front of the other for the pride of finishing. Among the hundreds of participants are stories that inspire, bring a tear and recall a memory.