Sports

Long time Juneau resident Bruce Denton is glad to be alive. The 63-year-old contractor nearly died the morning of August 27 in a rowing accident in Aurora Harbor. He credits the quick actions of four Aurora Harbor residents for saving his life.

Denton’s story was told at the Juneau Assembly meeting Monday night, and the four Good Samaritans were given Citizen Commendations for what Mayor Bruce Botelho calls “acts of heroism.”

It started like this: Crystal and Bert Fawcett were driving away from the parking lot near the Yacht Club when she spotted a man in a rowing shell between the shore and main floats, just north of the H-float ramp.

Then she noticed the shell had stopped. She could not see the boater, but saw blood and called 9-1-1. Her husband Bert and Jerry Burns – who was on his way to his boat — rushed down the ramp.

They saw the boater submerged next to the shell about 15 feet from the main float and dove into the water. He was unconscious, not breathing, and foam was in his mouth. As Jerry cradled his head above the water, they tried to drag him back to the dock, but his feet were still strapped to the 24-foot shell.

Meanwhile, Crystal got the attention of another harbor resident, John Feller.

Mayor Botelho continues the story:

“So he started down to help, grabbing a long-handled deck brush along the way. He was able to reach out with the deck brush to help Bert and Jerry, and once John was able to reach out and hold the victim, Jerry made it onto the dock while Bert was able to release the Velcro straps that were keeping the victim anchored to the shell. While Jerry cradled the victim’s head, John began doing CPR chest compressions, which expelled volumes of water,” Botelho said.

Then Denton coughed and started to breathe.

Capital City Fire and Rescue provided advance life support to Bartlett Regional Hospital, where he spent the night in Intensive Care. Denton was released the next day.

He was in Assembly Chambers as his story was being told. In addition to publically thanking the four citizen responders, CCFR, and hospital staff, he encouraged the public to learn the skill of CPR.

“I would like to think that something good for me, besides surviving, that’s coming from this thing is that it would be an opportunity to encourage people to take a class,” he said.

Jerry Burns works for Juneau Marine Services in Auke Bay. Bert Fawcett has been a fireman and worked in tourism this summer, Crystal Fawcett is a student at UAS, and John Feller is a retired commercial fisherman.

“They all have in common that they are residents of our Juneau harbor,” Botelho said.

A high school football team from the Southern California desert left the Juneau-Douglas Crimson Bears scoreless on Saturday. The Murietta Valley Nighthawks beat the Crimson Bears by 59 points in a game played on the Bear’s home turf.

Senior Night
Saturday’s downpour stopped just about the time 14 senior players and their families took the field for the annual senior night presentation.

It was the seniors’ last regular season home game and possibly their high school football career.

It was also a bye week, and the Bears had no conference game scheduled. In recent years, the Juneau team has filled bye weeks with games against teams from the Lower 48.

It didn’t take long for the Nighthawks to score two points on a safety. By the end of the first quarter, they had 17 points; 31 at the half. The Nighthawks were 45 points ahead at the end of the third quarter, when the Mercy Rule kicked in and the clock continued to run. In the fourth, they scored even more touchdowns to end the game 59 to 0.

Going into the game, both teams thought it would be more competitive.

“Watching on film, I thought it’d be a much closer game, I really truly did,” said Greg Ireland, Murrieta Valley head coach.

“But I think when you lose your leader, you lose your quarterback, it’s very difficult, you know, very difficult. And that’s when the game changed,” he said.

The Juneau-Douglas Crimson Bears are on their third quarterback of the season. Senior Phillip Fenumiai, a strong team leader, was injured in the first game this fall, and recently had knee surgery. Sophomore Dorian Isaak has been starting as quarterback, but was injured early in Saturday night’s game when he was sacked in the end zone. Then senior fullback Trevor Pfaff switched to quarterback.

Crimson Bears head coach Rich Sjoross arranged the game with Murrieta Valley two years ago.

“You don’t have a crystal ball that tells you you’re going to lose Philip, or you’re not going to have some key pieces,” Sjoross said. “There’s no way to forecast that kind of stuff. Everybody shows up and plays the games and does the best they can.”

During the game, fullback/linebacker George Sua suffered injury and is likely out for the rest of the season. Just before half time, running back Demetrius Campos went out with a pulled hamstring. Even so, he said getting tromped by the Nighthawks “was fun, because they’re a good team and we need the motivation to do good against Palmer next week.”

Coach Sjoross said the bye week games against Lower 48 teams prepare the Bears for the end of their Railbelt Conference season.

“They get to find out who some of their leaders are,” he said, “and that’s probably the biggest thing going down the stretch — we got to know who the guys are that we can lean on when times get tough, because we’re going to go into Palmer and West Valley and they’re two of the top teams in the state. And if we have any hopes of making the playoffs we kind of got to know where we’re at physically, and these kinds of games show you. They show you a lot about your character.”

Travel costs
Nearly 50 Varsity Nighthawks suited up for the game, more than the number of Crimson Bears Varsity and Junior Varsity players combined.

Travel is the most expensive part of playing sports in Juneau and the high school football team has long picked up some of the cost of visiting teams’ airfare. In this case, the Crimson Bears gave Murietta Valley $20,000 toward the $80,000 trip.

Murrieta Valley brought 84 students, including managers; 11 coaches and 32 parents. Coach Ireland said for many of the boys coming to Juneau was not just their first major trip, it was their first airplane ride.

“Usually it’s San Diego, maybe half hour away or something. But nothing like this. Never done this,” he said.

After the game, senior quarterback Andrew Blake said the Nighthawks were savoring more than a huge win. They’ll remember the Mendenhall Glacier, Nugget Falls, and hanging out as a team.

“We came together so much as a team, it was a great experience,” he said. “We’ll remember that for the rest of our lives, you know.”

Then Blake pointed toward the Crimson Bears in a huddle at the end of the field.

“I just gotta thank them for inviting us up here and paying for 35 of our tickets. That’s amazing.”

JV Nighthawks beat Crimson Bears
The Junior Varsity Nighthawks trounced the Crimson Bears JV on Friday night, on a score of 34 to 6. On Saturday, they were the varsity cheering section as well as chattering about their four-day Alaska adventure.

“The iceberg, it’s the beautifulest thing I’ve ever seen. The bluest, the coldest thing ever,” said
JV outside linebacker Jake Gomez. He’s never seen so much green, so many tall trees, or rain in his life.

“I love the rain, it’s so beautiful here. It’s the first time that I’ve see it rain all day, every day for almost a week. It’s awesome,” he said.

The desert city of Murrieta Valley is about 65 miles north and east of San Diego. In the 2010 census, it had a population of 103,466 people, having grown nearly 134 percent since the year 2000. Murrieta Valley has three high schools.

And the Nighthawk? Well, it’s a medium-sized bird that pursues flying insects at dusk and dawn. It does not migrate to Alaska.

Weekend Thunder Mountain football
The Thunder Mountain Falcons beat the Ketchikan Kings 43 to 14, in a game played in Ketchikan over the weekend. The Falcons play in the Southeast Conference, against Sitka and Ketchikan.

The Falcon’s bye week is coming up at the end of the month, when they will host Argonaut High School from Jackson, Calif., a town about 50 miles east of Sacramento.

Termination dust has been seen around Juneau, and though snow hasn’t hit the top of Eaglecrest yet, it’s time to think about winter.

The city-owned ski area will celebrate the annual Discover Eaglecrest Day on Saturday in recognition of the end of summer – which we never had anyway — and what skiers and boarders hope will be a great winter in the mountains.

General Manager Matt Lillard says the Porcupine chairlift will be running tomorrow to take people up to the Porcupine area. “They’ll be able to walk down and they’ll go through what’s called the Decomposition Decathlon, which is put on by Discovery Southeast.”

Eaglecrest summer partners Alaska Zipline Adventures and Cycle Alaska will offer discounted rates; there will be an Alpine BBQ, Beer Garden, and Mountain Lift will be open.

Discover Eaglecrest Day is also a chance to purchase season passes at the lowest prices of the season.

“October 8th is when it will go up again and then from October 8th to November 3rd, which is the ski swap weekend, that’s the next price break,” Lillard says. “And then after November 3rd, the price will go up again.”

The City and Borough of Juneau has budgeted a four-and a half month ski season, beginning December 1, assuming the weather cooperates.

Lillard says he hopes the cold, wet summer means a lot of snow like last year, when Eaglecrest had more snow at times than ski areas around the world.

“Obviously Mother Nature will do what she’ll do. I know that we have an El Nino coming up and we’ve looked at the patterns there and that doesn’t tell us much. We’ve had great seasons and we’ve had not so great seasons with that weather pattern, so we’re just going to have to wait and see and get a little closer to get some better indicators,” he says. “But if cold and wet is what the summer was and winter’s going to be a little bit colder and just as wet, we should be looking pretty good.”

Over the summer, crews exchanged the noisy, high-carbon diesel fuel motor on Hooter chairlift for a more energy-efficient electric one. The Black Bear lift also has new chairs, similar to Eaglecrest’s other lifts and without a pole in the middle. The chairs are courtesy of Mount Sima in Whitehose, Yukon. The old Black Bear chairs will be sold to raise funds for Eaglecrest Foundation projects.

The Thunder Mountain Falcons football team has raised about $3,500 dollars for a former Juneau resident severely wounded in Afghanistan.

All of the proceeds from Saturday’s game against the Kodiak Bears have been donated to help build a “smart home” for Staff Sgt. Tom McRae, a U.S. Marine who was injured January 16th when an explosive device detonated under him. McRae lost an arm, both his legs and an eye in the accident.

Peregrine Booster Club member Jenny Smith says all sales from the gate, concession stand, Falcon clothing and gear, and a silent auction have been donated to the home project for McRae and his family. They live in North Carolina.

McRae was in the stands for the game, which the Falcons won by a score of 14 to 13. He and his family remained dry under a special tent, as a steady rain – sometimes heavy – drenched the fans and players, and made it hard to hang onto the football.

During halftime, Juneau Rep. Cathy Munoz and Haines Rep. Bill Thomas – a Vietnam veteran — introduced McRae and presented him with a Falcons football jersey sporting the number one. Then the Falcons football team saluted McRae before stepping back onto the field for the second half.

McRae was born and raised in Juneau and played youth football. He graduated from Juneau-Douglas High School in 2001 and enlisted in the Marine Corps right after graduation. He served three tours of duty in Iraq and two in Afghanistan.

Donations can still be made to the smart home project. A Smart Home is a custom designed, fully accessible home built to address the individual needs of severely injured members of the U.S. military.

The program is through Building for America’s Bravest, a charity of the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation. Donations can be made online by clicking on McRae’s name.

Checks also can be made out and mailed to Tunnel to Towers Foundation, 2361 Hylan Blvd., Staten Island, New York 10306. Write Staff Sgt. Thomas McRae in the memo line.

Other football scores
In other football news over the weekend, the Juneau-Douglas Crimson Bears beat the Colony Knights also by one point. The score from the game played in Palmer was 21 to 20.

This weekend’s high school football game between the Thunder Mountain Falcons and Kodiak Bears will benefit a former Juneau resident seriously hurt by insurgents in Afghanistan.

Marine Sgt. Thomas McRae lost both legs, an arm and an eye when he was hit by an improvised explosive device.

Thunder Mountain’s Peregrine Booster Club will donate gate receipts from Saturday’s game toward the purchase of accessible equipment for McRae’s home.

McRae now lives in North Carolina, and according to the Falcons’ team website will be in Juneau for the game. A dedication ceremony is planned at halftime.

The varsity game kicks off at 7 o’ clock tomorrow night.

The Juneau Douglas High School Crimson Bears are on the road this week taking on the Colony Knights.

JDHS is coming off a loss to the North Pole Patriots last weekend.

Tonight’s game starts at 7 p.m. in Palmer.

A win and a loss in weekend Juneau high school football action.

The Thunder Mountain Falcons beat the Ketchikan Kings 55 to 21, giving the Falcons two wins so far in the Southeast Conference season.

The Juneau Douglas Crimson Bears lost to the North Pole Patriots on a score of 47 to 26.

Two weeks into the regular season, the Patriots are the dominant team in the Railbelt Conference. They were trounced by the Bears last year, so they stepped onto Adair-Kennedy Field Saturday with a score to settle.

The Crimson Bears now have one win and one loss in league play this season.