Boys soccer: Knights blast Homer in NLC 3rd-place game

SOLDOTNA — There would be no tears on this day.

Colony quickly erased any chance of a repeat from last season, scoring early and often during a 7-0 thrashing of the Homer Mariners in the third-place game at the Northern Lights Conference Soccer Championships in Soldotna.

The victory guaranteed the Knights a return to the state tournament, an event Colony had never missed until an emotional loss to Soldotna in last year’s third-place game.

“We said we need to start from the get-go to play with that sense of urgency, because we don’t want a repeat of last year,” Colony coach Jeremy Johnson said.

Despite reaching the state tournament, Johnson said Saturday’s win was a bit bittersweet because of what preceded it Friday, a tough 1-0 loss to Kenai Central – Colony’s first defeat of the season.

“We wanted to win the region tournament. We thought we had a team that could contend for it, and we still do,” he said.

In Friday’s game, Kenai’s McKenan Steinbeck hit a nearly-unstoppable shot from the top of the penalty box that snuck just underneath the crossbar and inside the far post for the only score of the game.

“He had a highlight reel goal. It was just an excellent goal,” Johnson said.

Led by all-conference goalie Justin Wisnewski, Kenai was able to hold on and drop the Knights into the consolation round for the second consecutive year.

“We had a few chances, we just couldn’t sneak one in,” Johnson said.

Unlike last season’s region tournament, however, Colony wasn’t about to fade away in the third-place game this time around.

Junior midfielder Bridger Van Ness got the scoring going early Saturday, putting the Knights up 1-0 just five minutes into the game.

Van Ness wasted little time getting a second tally, putting in Cody Fritz’s rebound.

Junior Tim Jaronik got into the act at the 25-minute mark when he stole the ball from a Homer defender and raced in alone on the goalkeeper, finishing off his run with a low shot into the corner of the net.

Just one minute later, sophomore Jesse Rouse found the back of the net, blasting a hard shot from the top of the box to stake the Knights to a 4-0 edge after just 26 minutes of play.

Freshman James Meaney, sophomore Dylan Crawford and junior Chris Bardsley each scored in the second half to give the Knights their final margin of victory. Back-up goalie Jessie Krey played the entire game in net to earn the shutout.

Colony is now 10-1-1 on the season.

While he would have rather been playing for a region title Saturday, Johnson said the balanced tournament — which saw a total of three Valley and three Peninsula teams advance to state — showed how strong NLC soccer has become.

“It’s very disappointing, but it says a lot about the region, about how the whole level of the region is coming up,” he said.