Busy night: 4 Valley squads hosting games Friday night

PALMER — With three consecutive nonconference losses, the Palmer Moose had a rough start to their 2016 season. But to the Moose, that’s old news now. Palmer is 1-1 in Northern Lights Conference, with two key conference games at home during the next two weeks.

If the Moose can find away to win both games, Palmer should be looking at a trip to the playoffs.

It all starts Friday when Palmer hosts Eagle River at 7 p.m. at Machetanz Field.

“We need to play well, that’s for sure,” Palmer head coach Rod Christiansen said earlier this week.

Palmer posted its first victory of the season, a 35-18 win, two weeks ago at Kodiak. Last week, the Soldotna Stars extended their state-record winning streak to 44 with a 42-21 victory over the Moose at SoHi. After two long road trips, Palmer is hosting its first home game since Week 3.

“We’ve been on the road two weeks in a row. It takes a lot of planning and time and work,” Christiansen said. “It’s definitely good to be home.”

Despite the loss to SoHi last week, Christiansen said he saw some good things.

“At times we did some things pretty well. We were definitely competitive throughout,” Christiansen said of his team’s work against the four-time defending medium-schools state champions. “The are a lot of things we need to do better if we want to compete.”

After starting the season with a 425 total yards and 16 points combined during the first three weeks of the season, the Moose have rebounded with 674 total yards and 56 points in the last two weeks combined.

“On offense, we’ve made things happen,” Christiansen said.

Larry Cutsforth and Nick DeBach have combined for five rushing touchdowns in the last two weeks. Quarterback Clayton Southwick tossed a pair of touchdown against the Stars.

Last week, Palmer faced a Soldotna team that owns the state’s longest current winning streak. Tonight the Moose face an Eagle River team that recently snapped, what was, the state’s longest current losing streak. The Wolves used a 22-20 win over Barrow in Week 3 to break the team’s 25-game losing skid. Eagle River managed to top that by earning its first road victory in program history, a 47-28 win, last week at Ketchikan.

Friday marks just the second meeting between the Moose and the Wolves, and Eagle River’s first trip to Machetanz Field.

Valley home to big Railbelt contests

Friday also includes a pair of big Railbelt Conference games in the Valley. Colony (4-1 overall, 1-0 in the Railbelt) hosts West Valley (2-3, 0-2), and Lathrop (4-1, 1-0) is at Wasilla (2-3, 1-1). Both games start at 7 p.m.

While playoff berths may not officially be clinched tonight, a win for the Knights and a victory for the Warriors would set up the likely scenario of both teams advancing to the postseason. With the addition of Chugiak this season, there are five teams in the Railbelt, which gets four berths for the large-schools playoffs.

Colony improved to 1-0 in conference play with a 50-0 win at Wasilla last week. The Warriors are 1-1 in conference play, thanks to a 36-28 victory over West Valley two weeks ago and the loss to Colony last week.

Lathrop’s first conference victory of the season came with a 35-33 win over Chugiak Sept. 3. West Valley has dropped conference games to both Wasilla and Chugiak.

Voznesenka at Redington

The Redington Huskies are also among the four local teams hosting a home game Friday in the Valley. Redington, a first-year varsity program, will be in search of its first victory against Voznesenka, a fourth-year program that has not posted a victory since its inaugural season in 2013.

The Voznesenka Cougars, a squad hailing from a small unincorporated village located about 25 miles north of Homer, is currently 0-4, with losses to Monroe, Houston, Nikiski and Valdez.

Redington is 0-5, with losses to Monroe, Ketchikan, Valdez, Seward and Nikiski.

Kickoff tonight is scheduled for 7 p.m.

Houston at Valdez

Houston is the lone Valley team to hit the road this week, making the trip to Valdez for a key Aurora Conference match Saturday at 1 p.m.

Houston is 3-2 overall and 1-1 in conference play, following Eielson’s 27-21 come-from-behind victory over the Hawks last week. Valdez improved to 4-1 with a 60-14 win over Voznesenka.

Eielson currently leads the Aurora with a 2-0 mark.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.