(Photo by Shelby Herbert/KFSK)
The Petersburg Vikings are back on the hardcourt — and they started their season with a bang, competing against several elite teams at the Coastal Holiday Shootout in Sitka last week.
But the girls’ team will enter the new year without the gym teacher who has coached them for decades.
As KFSK’s Shelby Herbert reports, Dino Brock has stepped down — and his assistant coach, Matt Pawuk is stepping up to lead the Lady Vikings.
Dino Brock hasn’t had a “real” winter vacation in over three decades. And that’s because he’s spent all of those seasons coaching basketball — first in Wrangell, then in Petersburg.
He said he’s stepping down from coaching the girls’ teams because it just felt like “the right time.”
“It gives me a chance to do some other things while I’m still teaching,” said Brock. “And so I’m excited about it. It’s different, for sure.”
While he’s excited about this new chapter of life — volunteering in the community and traveling the world in all his newfound free time — he said it’s bittersweet. He’s spent a lot of time reflecting on his long coaching career and on all the people who made it special.
“It was amazing,” said Brock. “The amount of people that reached out and just thanked me and my old players were on Facebook, arguing about which one was my favorite team. And I kept my mouth shut on that one!“
Dino thanked Petersburg School District faculty, parents, players, and fans for sustain such a vibrant community around high school basketball.
“We don’t get to do this without the support of everybody,” said Brock. “Thank you to everybody — I guess is what I want to say — for all the support. Because we can’t do without all of you guys.”
He said it’s difficult to part with a sport that’s become such a fixture in his life — but he’s happy he gets to hand over the reins to Matt Pawuk, his assistant coach.
“We’ve been together for a long time,” said Brock. “He’ll do fine! I’m excited to watch them play and grow as the year goes on. They’re in good hands.”
This will be Pawuk’s first year as head coach for a varsity team, but he knows his players well. He coached girls’ basketball at Dino’s side for four years, and he spent another 13 coaching the middle school boys’ team.
Even still, Pawuk said Dino has left behind a big pair of shoes to fill.
“You know, Dino — he made a comment to me a few weeks ago about how he felt like I upheld the tradition of girls’ basketball and Petersburg,” said Pawuk. “And my comment to him was that he was the tradition for Petersburg girls’ basketball.”
He said he’s grateful for the opportunity to carry on that tradition — and also sprinkle in some new things.
Pawuk traveled with the team to a three-game tournament in Sitka last weekend. The varsity Lady Vikings lost all three of their matches — albeit, to a few teams above their league. They played their best game on Thursday against the Sitka Wolves, who are one division above the Lady Vikings. The Wolves won that game 61-to-22. Their next game was against the Chugiak Mustangs, who are two divisions above them. Chugiak won 37-to-8.
Then on Saturday, they played their last game against Idaho’s Kendrick Tigers — who won 45-to-2. The Tigers were the only team at the tournament who were in the same league as the Lady Vikings. And they’re the third best team in their whole home state.
Pawuk said that final game was a lot of fun to watch — even while his own team was struggling. He said he has a lot of respect for the Tigers.
“I caught myself sometimes even in the game that they’re playing against us going, ‘Wow! That was… Oh wait, that’s against us!‘” Pawuk said, laughing. “But yeah, they were a very, very well oiled machine.”
Pawuk said it was a challenging start to the season for his players. But he’s pleased with how they’re improving their defense. He says they made the other teams work hard for every point that they scored.
“I just wanted to find things in each game that we could take away that were positives,” said Pawuk. “And it was surprisingly easy to find good stuff. The growth across the three games — I was really happy to see that.”
Petersburg’s varsity boys fared somewhat similarly against their upper division opponents at the Sitka tournament. They played their first game against Chugiak, and the Mustangs took a narrow victory: 55-to-52.
They played the Sitka Wolves next. The Wolves won that game a little more soundly — 51-to-40.
But the Viking boys flipped the script on their final day of the tournament. They won their match against the Lumen Christi Archangels 61-to-31.
Mik Potrzuski, the boys’ assistant coach, says it was a successful weekend for the whole program. He filled in for Coach Rick Brock at the tournament in Sitka, and he said he’s glad his players got some court experience from teams they don’t usually get to play.
“It’s great [for them] to play some schools that you don’t see,” said Potrzuski. “Whether they’re not from Southeast, or not in your conference — just playing some bigger schools and some smaller schools and see some different things on the basketball court. I thought we got a lot out of it, and they’ll be able to really build on where we started the season.”
Even though Dino Brock has stepped off the court for good, he won’t stop paying attention to the Vikings’ progress — now, as a spectator.
“I like to be involved in any way,” said Brock. “So, I’m sure that I’ll be heading to Wrangell in a few weeks to watch the games over there.
But before that game rolls around, he’s looking forward to catching a country music concert in Las Vegas — in what will be his first winter vacation in over 30 years.
The Viking boys basketball team will face off against an alumni team at 7 p.m. tonight in the high school gym. Petersburg’s high school basketball teams will have their next sanctioned games after winter break, on the first weekend of January.
