Knights head south to face Bears

PALMER — If Colony has an advantage heading into Saturday’s first-round playoff game against Juneau-Douglas, it’s that the Knights essentially already have one must-win game under their belts.

After suffering through four consecutive losses, Colony had to pick up a win last week in the final game of the season against Lathrop just to get into the eight-team playoff as the No. 4 seed from the Railbelt Conference.

Colony coach Jamie Mayo said the fact his team knew it had to win last week helped get the Knights back on the winning track.

“That was the thought process last week, and the kids responded,” Mayo said during practice Thursday. “That was a positive.”

Colony (4-4 overall, 3-3 Railbelt Conference) is scheduled to fly to Juneau (8-0 overall, 6-0

Railbelt Conference) today in advance of Saturday’s 8 p.m. clash at Adair-Kennedy Memorial Field, where three weeks ago the Crimson Bears handed the Knights a 20-6 loss. In that game, Juneau held the Knights to just 163 yards of offense and just one score, a fourth-quarter touchdown pass from Collin Murphy to Ryan Rupe.

Juneau also racked up 202 rushing yards, including a game-high 132 from Silver Maake.

Mayo said the biggest thing this time around for the Knights will be to play better on the defensive side of the ball, noting that Colony missed 40 tackles in the first game against Juneau.

“If you’re missing 40 tackles, you’re not gonna win most of the time,” Mayo said.

In practice this week, Mayo said the emphasis has been on execution on offense and making sure the team’s defensive techniques are sound.

“Our whole emphasis has been on execution and finishing the play,” he said.

Mayo said having faced Juneau once likely won’t have much impact on the team’s game plan. He said Colony’s offense will be pretty similar to what the team has done all season.

“We’re not going to do anything different,” he said.

That means the Knights will need a big game from running backs Jaron Murphy and Gino Paoletti, who get the majority of the carries in Colony’s attack. Murphy leads the team in rushing yards, although Paoletti picked up a team-high 96 yards on just five carries against Juneau the first time around.

Quarterback Collin Murphy will also be called on to contribute, and it’s likely he’ll need to be sharper than in the teams’ first meeting, when Juneau held the junior to just 7-of-30 passing for 95 yards.

Colony will also have to find a way to slow down Maake, who in his sophomore season has emerged as one of the Alaska’s best backs. The state’s fifth-leading rusher, Maake has averaged nearly eight yards per carry this season for the undefeated Crimson Bears.

Juneau enters Saturday’s game as the state’s top-ranked large-schools team in the statewide media poll, but Mayo said that he believes this year’s playoffs are as wide-open as they’ve ever been.

“There’s a lot more parity this year than probably any other year,” he said.

That means that just because the Knights are the underdogs on paper, doesn’t mean Colony won’t have a chance Saturday night — or, for that matter, for the duration of the playoffs.

“I think just about any team can beat any other team if they play their good game,” he said.

While Juneau is a notoriously difficult place to play, Mayo noted that in 2001, the Dimond Lynx traveled to the capital city as a No. 4 seed, beat the Crimson Bears, and eventually went on to win the state title.

“It can happen,” he said. “But we’ve got to make it happen.”

Contact Matt Tunseth at 352-2265 or matt.tunseth@frontiersman.com