Alumni go back to school to take on JDHS cross-country team in season-opening 5K

Max Dapcevich, who last competed on a Juneau high school cross-country team as a senior in 2020, was back to face this year’s team Saturday during its first event of the season. But in addition to the extra challenge of being four years older and out of training, he was wheeling his two-year-old son Luca along in a stroller during a 5K race against the team of teens.

Dapcevich said he found out two weeks ago about the Sayéik Invitational, an unofficial meet pitting the cross-country team at the newly consolidated Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé against local high school alumni. He said he brought his son in the stroller after signing up for “the entertainment and the challenge.”

“I work outside, labor-intensive jobs and so I get to push weight around all day,” he said.

Besides, his goal for the event — which tracked only the placing for the men’s and women’s finishers, not their times — was modest.

“It would be good not to lose,” he said.

More than 30 girls and 30 boys each took on roughly a dozen alumni who graduated anywhere from this year to many years ago. The students were divided into several subgroups by jersey color to increase the team competition aspect of the event.

The student-alumni event was initiated by Zack Bursell, the boys’ cross-country coach, who said part of the motivation was “me just wanting to race the team.” He said it’s also a way to prove early season competition for the team since some regional events at this time of year don’t get strong participation from visiting schools — but it’s also when plenty of adult runners are taking part in some of the year’s toughest races.

“There’s a lot of people here who are running who are really, really fit,” he said. “So it gets these guys some good early season exposure. But then at the same time, it’s laid back. There’s no pressure. We have no clock at this race today. It’s all just about place.”

That said, Bursell noted “my relationship with running has spiraled out of control — I’m training for ultra marathons now,” and for Saturday’s race his intention was “I’m going to stay up in the front.”

“I want to try to finish in front of all of them,” he said. “That’s the plan for today. We’ll see though — they’re really fast this year.”

The consolidation of two high schools last year into one this year means more than 80 students have signed up for the cross-country team, meaning tougher competition to make varsity events and other adjustments, said Bursell, who first joined JDHS as a cross-country assistant coach in 2017.

“It’s tough to describe, but some teams are a little bit more like focused, regimented,” he said. “Other teams are kind of laid back.”

JDHS tends more toward the latter, Bursell said.

”The cool thing is there’s so many kids who want to run in Juneau, it’s so much bigger,” he said. “We had a team of, like, 30 and it seemed big back then. Now we’re in the 80s. So there’s a lot of enthusiasm for running. It’s across all abilities. When it’s come down to merging the two team cultures, it’s surprisingly similar. It’s nothing like ‘Remember the Titans,’ we went straight to just like being a team. It’s a little awkward, but these guys just love running.”

Anna Reiter, a sophomore who was a member of Thunder Mountain High School’s cross-country team last year, was wearing a shirt from that team on Saturday, but said she’s finding her stride as a member of the JDHS team.

“It’s definitely different — like different leadership and we do some different things,” she said. “But I do like that this year we work a lot more on team building and connecting with each other as a team.”

Being downtown instead of the Mendenhall Valley means there’s also more earthy differences, Reiter said.

“We do more hills because they’re centered downtown, so it’s a lot of the Perseverance Trail and running around downtown streets that’s a lot more uphill,” she said. “I think it’s good because the more uphill you do the stronger your legs get, so you’re better at that during races and when it’s on flat ground you’re like ‘oh, this is easy because it’s not uphill.’”

Students said the alumni race is a chance to get a feel for events against unfamiliar opponents as well as test their abilities against strong “competitors” such as their coaches.

“It gets us used to being a team running at a race,” a Kennily Richardson, a freshman who competed in middle school cross-country events last year. “And it also gives us another amount of confidence just knowing that we can run it and that we can do it.”

The JDHS cross-country team’s first official home event is the Capital City Invite on Sept. 21.

Alumni runners said they hope one of the things students take from the event is the value of persisting at such athletics throughout school and beyond.

“They get to see people who have already had the experience of doing it and us setting an example for them, and they look up and see something like ‘oh, you know, I might aspire to push myself to that,’” Dapcevich said.

Among alumni Bursell achieved his goal by finishing first in the men’s race, roughly 20 seconds ahead of Nick Iverson who was the top student finisher in that division. Dapcevich finished far from last, placing 31st among 47 male runners.

The women’s race was won by Kaia Mangaccat, a sophomore who had a handful of top-five finishes at events as a freshman for JDHS last year, with Hillary Young coming in fourth as the top alumni finisher.

Dapcevich acknowledged the race was harder on his legs and lungs than he remembers during his high school days. But Elisha Thibodeau, who said the last time she ran a 5K was during her senior year as an alumni from 2009, said the event was mostly just about being part of what this year’s team is going through at the starting line of its season.

“It just brings you back to the years in high school where we just had a lot of fun,” she said. “There’s really amazing camaraderie that I remember.”

• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.