Dazed and contused: Soldotna Stars stun Colony girls; SoHi gets past injury-plagued Knights boys

PALMER — After watching his team fall behind during the first 40 minutes, Soldotna head coach Jimmy Love didn’t hesitate to be brutally honest with his players during his halftime speech.

Apparently the message was received.

Soldotna scored a pair of unanswered goals to notch a tough 2-1 Northern Lights Conference girls’ soccer win over Colony Saturday afternoon at Colony High School.

“We weren’t very nice at halftime,” Love said after the win. “We weren’t even remotely close to playing how we can play. We gave them an ear full.”

Junior midfielder Abi Tuttle tallied both SoHi goals in the second half. She struck for the game-tying score within the first minute of the second half. Right off the opening whistle, Soldotna worked the ball up the field. Tuttle, in the left side of the box, challenged Colony goalkeeper Maddy Zmuda, who came forward to try to make a play. Tuttle responded by tapping a shot into the right side of the net. Love said, whether the speech had anything to do with the early strike, he doesn’t know. But with her second goal, Tuttle must have taken Love’s halftime message to heart.

During the 47th minute, Tuttle booted a long, high shot, tucking it right underneath the crossbar in the left side corner of the net to give the Stars the 2-0 lead.

“Finally, we took some shots we should have been taking in the first half, that we’d been pulling away from,” Love said.

Colony head coach Lorie Miner said Soldotna didn’t take Colony by surprise with Tuttle’s first goal. Instead, Tuttle took advantage of a Colony breakdown.

“She’s talented and has got some ball skills,” Miner said of Tuttle. “She took advantage of us having a gap, and not putting pressure on her.”

Miner praised Zmuda’s play in the Colony net.

“Maddy did a great job in net. She’s very solid, works very hard,” Miner said. “She’s working hard to maintain a good record. The defense is working hard.”

Colony had a handful of late opportunities to tie the match, but Miner said she felt like her team didn’t exercise enough patience in the clutch.

“We started going into panic mode, instead of patient mode,” Miner said.

Colony took the lead in the first half with a hard strike courtesy of senior Peyton Johnstone during the 34th minute. Gabby Wakaliuk notched an assist on the play.

Stars top injury-plagued Knights

Soldotna took advantage of an injury-plagued Colony squad, and handed the Knights their first NLC loss of the season.

SoHi used three second-half goals to cement a 5-2 victory over the Knights at Colony High School Saturday afternoon.

Eric Mayoral scored twice in the win for the Stars.

Alex Valdez and Noah Krozel netted goals for Colony, which was without a number of key players, including reigning NLC Player of the Year Ben Sande.

Knights post win, tie against Kards

Colony used an early goal to post a 1-0 NLC boys’ soccer win over Kenai Friday night at Colony High School.

Cameron Shaw scored in the 12th minute to provide the lone goal in the game. Alex Valdez notched an assist on the play.

In girls’ action, Colony and Kenai played to a 0-0 tie. Each team finished with 10 shots on goal. Maddy Zmuda recorded the shutout in the Knights net. Allie Steinbeck earned the shutout for the Kards.

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