Early scores lead to win

COLONY -- Colony's win Friday was too close for comfort.

Despite being held scoreless in the final two quarters, the Knights held on for a 21-14 win over the Malemutes at Colony High School, in the first round of the ASAA 4A state football playoffs. With the victory, Colony earned a semifinal date with West, who advanced with a 44-30 win over Chugiak on Friday.

The Knights face West, the state's top-ranked team, at 6 p.m. at Anchorage Football Stadium.

Ben Richardson pulled Lathrop within a score with a 56-yard fumble return for a touchdown late in the fourth quarter.

"I did exactly what the coach told me," Richardson said. "I just went in there."

Richardson, blitzing from the right side, pushed hard into the Knight backfield, and after a Colony fumble on a handoff, the senior scooped up the ball and sprinted to the end zone for his first career touchdown.

"I knew we needed a touchdown," Richardson said. "I saw the ball hit the ground, so I picked it up and started running."

Richardson's score cut the Malemute deficit to just seven with 3 minutes and 36 seconds left in regulation.

Derrick Stevenson gave Lathrop an opportunity to tie the game, recovering a fumble with 97 seconds left in the fourth quarter, but two plays later on offense, Stevenson threw his third interception of the game to give the ball back to the Knights.

Colony defensive back Josh Morlan read Stevenson's throw and picked off the pass.

Rhett Magner also stopped a pair of Lathrop drives with interceptions.

Magner set up Colony 's second score with an interception at midfield in the second quarter and picked off a Stevenson fourth-down attempt early in the fourth quarter.

On offense, Colony did all of its damage in the first half. To add to his two picks on defense, at quarterback Magner completed six of seven passes in the first half and threw a pair of touchdown passes.

Kyle Coffman beat double coverage and caught a 26-yard Magner pass over the middle to open the Colony scoring and late in the second quarter Justin Schwartzbauer turned a short pass into a 33-yard touchdown reception.

Magner completed his first six passes of the game and the Knights were able to take advantage of Lathrop's six-man defensive front early in the contest. But as the game continued on, Colony's big-play offense lost momentum.

"We came out real strong on offense, then we just kind of stopped," Magner said. "People started missing assignments, the balls weren't thrown real well, there were fumbles. We just made too many mistakes."

A concern of Colony head coach Randy Magner, for the last three weeks of the season, has been a need for better efficiency on offense.

"I thought we did, we did pretty well," Randy Magner said of his team's performance early in the game. "But then we didn't do it anymore after that. I've got to watch the film - I don't know why."

Lathrop's defensive front was able to disrupt the Colony running game, and even in a losing effort the Malemute offense was able to control the ball, owning an advantage in both time of possession and total plays.

"It's kind of discouraging, especially this time of year," Randy Magner said. "We didn't run the ball until toward the end."

Lathrop gave itself momentum going into the second half with a late Willy Batchelder touchdown. Despite a bobbled snap and bobbled handoff, Batchelder sprinted around the right side of the Malemute offensive line to score.

Chuck Quint set up the Batchelder score with an O.J. Simpson-like 27-yard scamper. Quint cut back and forth on the sloppy CHS field to bring the ball down to the 6-yard-line with just seven seconds left in the second quarter.

Following the game, Quint was disappointed with the outcome, but already looking forward to his senior season.

"Next year's our year," Quint said. "We're gonna come out hard. This is good experience. It's hurts bad to go out in the playoffs, it hurts bad. But somebody has to win, somebody has to lose.

Lathrop has enjoyed a remarkable turnaround. Following an abysmal 0-4 start, the Malemutes, under a new coaching staff, finished the season 2-2 and greatly improved. "Hats off the coaches, hats off to the seniors -- we should have had this game," Quint said. "We blew it in the end."