Photos: Service Snowball Sprints cross country ski race

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Service High's Conner Truskowski leaves the starting area as Chugiak's Ty Jordan follows behind. Service High School hosted the Service Snowball Sprints, an interval-start race on the Hillside Ski Trails for Anchorage high schools on Saturday, December 6, 2014.

West's Lydia Blanchet announced her return to the Anchorage Nordic skiing scene by winning the first prep race of the season.

Blanchet – a senior who was the 2013 high school Skimeister at the state meet – didn't race during the 2013-14 prep season while studying as a foreign exchange student in Norway. But she showed she's still in top form by outracing Service's Taryn Hunt-Smith and Anna Darnell to win Saturday's Service Snowball freestyle sprint A final on the Hillside Trails. Magdalen York of West was fourth, East's Annika Flynn finished fifth and Service's Emma Tarbath was sixth.

Read more: Blanchet, Muffoletto win season-opening prep ski race