Colony girls move into fourth-place match

Frontiersman

ANCHORAGE — The Wasilla Warriors found themselves back in an all too familiar position on Thursday — a shootout.

And for the second time in less than 24 hours, the Warriors were on the losing end of a tiebreaker after playing more than 100 minutes of soccer.

Four straight Knights scored during the shootout to lead Colony to a 1-0 win over Wasilla in the consolation semifinals of the ASAA/First National Bank State Soccer Championships at Anchorage Football Stadium.

“The girls were spent,” Wasilla head coach Amber Craig said of her team, which suffered a 3-2 shootout loss to second-seeded Chugiak in the first round on Wednesday. “The girls would come off the bench and say I’ve got the wind, but my legs won’t move.”

Jamie Krediet, Jessica Farrell, Jessica Parker and Kara Larson each scored in the shootout to help the Knights advance to the fourth-place game, to play an opponent yet to be determined in a match slated for Saturday at 8 a.m.

“It was a well-played game, but a very, very unfortunate situation to be playing Wasilla,” said Colony head coach Lorie Miner, who watched as her team played its chief rival for the third time this season.

Kendra Miner and Nikki Vanni scored for the Warriors during the shootout, but Colony sophomore keeper Meghan Riopelle made two big saves on the penalty kicks.

“That was huge,” Miner said.

The match went scoreless through 80 minutes of regulation, two 10 minute overtimes and a pair of five-minute sudden death periods. Both teams had quality chances, but both Riopelle and Wasilla senior keeper Sammy Becker made game-saving stops.

Wasilla even had a handful of 1-on-1 chances in the match, but Riopelle made the saves. Miner said that was something the Knights worked on during the two days of practice that preceded the tourney.

“(Meghan) stepped up her play today and shined,” Miner said.

While Colony has one more match left, Wasilla is eliminated after the two shootout losses.

“It’s heartbreaking to see them work so hard, and on paper, everyone will only remember that we were out in two games instead of the battles we fought,” Craig said. “Yesterday we gave everything we had. Today we gave everything we had. We consistently played well through the whole season.”