Colony girls enjoy continued success

PALMER — The Colony Knights completed a swift and thorough rout of the Kenai Kardinals on Friday night at Pride Field at Colony High School. Behind two quick goals from sophomore forward Samantha Johnstone, the Knights prevailed 3-0 over the Kardinals.

“Sometimes when we play, we don’t always come with our game up front, but this time we stepped up early and woke up immediately and got those early,” said senior goalkeeper Ashlynn Cornelison.

The Knights took the early lead when just under 10 minutes in the game, Johnstone struck first. She handled the ball to Kenai goal keeper Kailey Hamilton’s right, then used a tough angle to pop the ball up and over Hamilton and into the net for her first strike. Johnstone wasted no time in extending the Colony lead, finding the back of the net again just two minutes later.

Colony head coach Jeremy Johnson was pleased with the victory, but would’ve liked to have seen a little more scoring and noted some key missed opportunities to extend the lead.

“If even one or two of those goes in, the game is really out of reach and over. But as far as the defensive side of the ball, we didn’t give them any real good chances on our goal. Everything was shot from distance, which was an easy save for our goalkeeper to make. So on that end of the field, we absolutely stuck to our gameplan perfectly,” Johnson said.

Johnson said that he is pleased with how his back line of defense has progressed. Johnson took over the girls soccer program three years ago with three freshmen and one sophomore. The Knight’s back line has not changed, and Johnson now has three juniors and a senior on the back line. Kenai struggled to find offensive opportunities around the Colony defense.

“One of our missions this year is just trying to generate more offense. We have a strong defense and we can usually stick with most teams,” said head coach Dan Verkuilen.

Johnstone and senior forward Gabriel Wakaliuk continued to pound the net with shots. Wakaliuk had a goal called back from an offsides call late in the first half, but would find the net late in the second half to extend the lead to 3-0.

“These are great games. We don’t see this kind of challenge all the time and so it was really nice. They’ve realized how hard they’ve got to work to get an opportunity against a good team. These are invaluable games,” said Verkuilen. Verkuilen noted the strong play of sophomore Bethany morris and Olivia Brewer on the outside and Kailey Hamilton in goal. Despite allowing three goals to the Colony offense, Hamilton stopped a handful of hot shots at the net.

“She’s not afraid and she played Wasilla last night to a real good game and got kicked in the nose and it opened up her nose and she’s back out here today willing to go and get in the middle of it again. So she’s a very smart kid and she’s been working hard at being a goalie for a very long time so we definitely rely on her,” said Verkuilen.

Verkuilen noted that Alissa Maw and Anya Danielson both played well. Kenai moves forward with conference play in a three-way tie with other Kenai Peninsula teams. Verkuilen said that the season really starts this week for the Kardinals. The Knights will not get a chance to play rival South, and carry a 10-1-1 record into conference play