Not to be deterred, Farrens recovered his feet and made a strong comeback for a 10th-place finish overall.
The classical 9-kilometer race sent skiers off roughly eight abreast before narrowing the course to one lane at the 70-meter mark. That posed a problem for Farrens and at least one other skier, as the two collided going through the sharp corner as the trail tightened.
Farrens said by the time he got up, he'd fallen back from the front-running pack to about 25th place.
"After I fell, I pretty much had an adrenaline rush the whole race," said Farrens, who finished with a time of 26 minutes, 1.3 seconds.
Mariner Dylan Anderson (27:31.9) finished 20th, and teammate Morgan Jones (29:24.5) was 24th.
On the girls side, Homer's Aleta Phelps posted a solid fifth-place finish, crossing the 6-K finish line in 17:00.8.
Among fellow Mariners, Samantha Halpin (23:01.6) placed 25th, Hannah Harrison (23:39.2) was 31st, and Kasey Aderhold (23:43.9) was 32nd.
Monica Peters took second in the girls junior varsity race with a time of 24:07, and Kaya Toyoda (28:34) took eighth in her first ever ski race.
In the boys J.V. race, Yagi Daisuke was sixth in 27:21.
Homer coach Daryl Farrens said that despite the thin snowpack, the Nikiski Pool trails were in good shape for the race, and the Homer team was right on the mark with its kick wax selection.
"Actually it was pretty decent," Farrens said. "They did a really good job of grooming the trail and getting it ready."
Sepp Jannotta can be reached at sjannotta@homer news.com.
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