A weekend full of football upsets

Four games. Four upsets. And now the four lowest seeds of the ASAA 4A state football bracket are heading to the semifinals.

It’s certainly an exciting, and albeit unusual, start to postseason play.

The top two seeds in each of the two large-schools conferences fell, and three of those four teams watched their seasons end in lopsided fashion.

Only Chugiak’s 16-14 win over Railbelt champion Juneau-Douglas was decided by single digits.

Otherwise, Palmer stunned South Anchorage 48-12, North Pole whacked West Anchorage 36-12 and Bartlett bounced Colony 36-12.

It’s hard to say which comes as the biggest surprise.

I’ve got to throw a vote Chugiak’s way for the upset of the tourney. Not only did the Mustangs edge Juneau-Douglas, a team that is missing the semifinals for the first time since 2002, Chugiak managed that feat in Juneau.

The capital city is undoubtedly among the toughest places to play in the 49th state.

I am sure most who call the municipality of Anchorage home are still scratching their heads following the quick exits of West and South. The Anchorage loyalists, who had already moved West and South into the state final, suddenly have an open date on their calendars.

The most shocking thing about Bartlett’s win over Colony is probably the score. It’s a contest that I thought would be decided by a single-digit margin of victory, regardless of which team scored the victory.

This is the first time in at least 10 years that the four top seeds of the 4A bracket were sent home after the first week of the postseason. It could actually be the first time since ASAA expanded to include a playoff quarterfinal in 1993.

Before returning to the current system of interconference cross-bracketing for the first week of the playoffs prior to this season, teams played quarterfinal matches against squads from within their own conference from 2000-2008.

During that time in the Railbelt Conference, the low seeds were just 3-15 in 18 quarterfinal games. Palmer was the only No. 3 seed to win a quarterfinal game during that nine-year stretch, scoring a win over second-seeded Wasilla in 2007.

The No. 4 seed was 2-7 in nine years. Colony factored into both of those decisions. The Knights upset the Railbelt’s top seed, Palmer, 12-7 in 2003, but suffered a 25-13 loss to fourth-seeded Lathrop in 2002.

So, basically, it’s fairly unusual to see a bottom seed score a win, let alone sweep the weekend.

— Jeremiah Bartz