Disappointed Knights finish sixth

ANCHORAGE — The Colony Knights kept looking for that play, that goal to give them a spark. Unfortunately for the Knights, that didn’t come until the 78th minute.

Thanks to two scores in the first 43 minutes, Juneau-Douglas posted a 2-1 win over Colony during the fourth-place game of the ASAA/First National Bank State Soccer Championships at Anchorage Football Stadium on Saturday morning.

Senior Collin Murphy knocked a shot into the net with two minutes remaining in regulation to put the Knights on the scoreboard, but Colony didn’t have enough time to recover from the deficit in the match or rebound from what generally was a frustrating weekend on the offensive side of the turf.

“Bottom line, we only scored three goals in the tournament,” Colony head coach Jeremy Johnson said of his Knights, who were shut out by Wasilla in the first round and sandwiched a pair of losses with a 2-0 win over Soldotna during the second day of the championships. “You don’t win a state tournament by scoring three goals.”

Junior Oliver Querin set up the score with a corner kick that junior Logan Smith also touched before Murphy buried.

The typically potent Colony offense had its opportunities in the match, but Murphy did the only damage against Juneau.

“I didn’t think we had a great offensive tournament all weekend,” Johnson said. “But I thought we had some chances today.”

Sophomore Max Smith crashed the back side of the net to redirect a shot from right during the 20th minute to give the Bears the early advantage. Senior Aaron Badilla scored three minutes into the second half to push Juneau’s lead to two goals.

Colony, the Northern Lights Conference champions, were seeded second, but upset by Valley rival Wasilla 1-0 in the first round. A 2-0 win over another conference foe, Soldotna, put the Knights into the fourth-place game, but Johnson said it was tough for the Knights, who expected so much more, to suddenly find themselves playing for fourth.

“We feel like we underachieved,” Johnson said. “Two years ago if we were in this spot, we’d of felt great when they were all freshmen and sophomores. But now they’re juniors and seniors. We felt like we should have done better.”

Random shots … Colony is now 13-13 overall in 26 state tournament games, and 3-6 in the first round … Juneau, the 2008 state champion, was 9-0 in the first round before suffering a 2-1 loss to South Anchorage in the first round on Thursday … The three-time state champs had never finished lower than third before this season … The match marked a meeting between the state’s all-time winningest coaches. Juneau’s Gary Lehnhart now has 185 wins, while Johnson is second in Alaska state soccer history with 155 victories .. Smith was Colony’s lone representative on the all-tournament team … South won the boys state title with a 3-0 win over West on Saturday.