Colony debuts new field tonight; 3 local teams on road

PALMER — Brian McIntosh has never seen a group of players enjoy bear crawls so much.

Typically, the bear crawl — a staple during most pre-football practice sets of calisthenics — is more popular with the coaches watching, rather than the players crawling. That’s probably because most bear crawling is done over muddy, snowy or maybe even rocky practice fields.

But conditions are a bit different at Colony High. With the school’s state-of-the-art artificial turf field the Knights are set to debut with their 2012 home opener against Kenai tonight at 7 p.m., something as grueling as bear crawls has become down right gratifying.

“They love it,” McIntosh, Colony’s head coach, said of his players and the new turf. “The first day of two-a-days, we were going through conditioning. During the bear crawls I thought some kids were complaining. They weren’t complaining. They said there’s no rocks, it’s the easiest bear crawls they’ve ever done.”

The Knights have spent the bulk of their first three weeks of practice on their new turf, and hope to defend that turf tonight as Colony hosts Kenai, the defending medium-schools champion. Kenai marks the second straight medium-schools opponent for the Knights, who blasted Skyview 56-7 last Saturday.

McIntosh said regardless of whether the Knights face Skyview, Kenai or a Valley rival, his players will be prepared for anyone.

“This group is definitely not overlooking anybody, they’re focused,” McIntosh said.

Kenai is the defending champs at the medium-schools level, but the team that visits Colony tonight will be very different than the squad that beat Homer last October to win the title.

Only three players return from that squad — Grayden Mendenhall, Duncan Brewer and Brad Smithwick.

Again, McIntosh echoed his own statements.

“Us as a coaching staff, it’s our job to have the players mentally prepared,” McIntosh said. “Whoever our opponent is, we’re not overlooking anybody.”

While Kenai suffered a 42-7 loss to large-schools East Anchorage last week, the Knights cruised past Skyview at Skyview High in Soldotna.

A pair of Knights topped the 100-yard mark and scored twice. Reserve signal-caller Bryce Niver galloped for a game-high 140 yards and the two scores. Senior Wyatt Peltier added 111 yards and his two touchdowns. Senior Rob Lorentz finished the game 9 of 11 passing for 132 yards and connected with Antonio Bush on a 5-yard touchdown pass.

Teamwork is what stood out to McIntosh, he said.

“That’s the first time in a long time I saw them play as a team,” McIntosh said.

While Colony is hosting its first game on turf, three Valley teams hit the road for the weekend. Palmer (0-0, 1-0) is in Fairbanks to play Lathrop tonight at 7 p.m. Houston (0-0, 1-0) opens Northern Lights Conference play Saturday at 2 p.m. against the Bears in Kodiak. Wasilla (0-0, 1-0) plays in the final game of the weekend, facing Juneau-Douglas Saturday at 8 p.m. in Juneau.

Palmer opened its season with a 27-7 win over small-schools power Soldotna in Soldotna. The Moose led early against the Stars, who have won four medium-schools state championships in the last six years. James Nisbett gave Palmer that early advantage with an 80-yard touchdown run on his team’s first offensive play of the game.

The score was one of a number of big plays. First-year varsity starting quarterback Cameron Christiansen connected with Daniel DeLay on a 50-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter.

Lathrop also improved to 1-0, outlasting small-schools Nikiski 44-41 last week.

The Palmer-Lathrop match will mark the Railbelt Conference opener for both teams.

Houston is the lone NLC team at 1-0 against varsity competition after a rough first week for the Northern Lights. The Hawks will test that undefeated mark with a Saturday matinee at Kodiak. Newcomer Waylon Soptick led the Hawks to a 26-0 win over Valdez at Houston High. Soptick led all Valley runners with 167 yards during Week 1.

Wasilla, which improved to 1-0 with a 21-14 nonconference win over Bartlett in Anchorage last week, makes the trip to the Capital City to face undefeated Juneau-Douglas. The Crimson Bears beat island rival Thunder Mountain in the opening week.

Junior Cash McGregor caught a 20-yard Ben Fielder touchdown pass and grabbed a key second-half interception on defense to lead the Warriors. Corey Hogan also came up with a pivotal 25-yard interception return for a touchdown.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com, follow him at twitter.com/matsu_sports and find him by searching Valley Sports Huddle on Facebook.