Knights survive Palmer rally, edge Moose boys

PALMER — Tuesday night at Wasilla High School, the Colony Knights watched as their double-digit lead slowly disappeared during an overtime loss to the rival Warriors.

Fast forward to Friday. Colony led its other rival, Palmer, by as many as 20. But the Knights were jolted with a striking case of deja vu by a late Moose rally.

But rather than surrendering another lead, the Knights held on to grab a 52-47 win over the Moose at Colony High School.

“We’ve got to get back into our game. It slipped away Tuesday, but today we got a good ‘W’,” Colony senior Anton Chamblee said after the win. “We were able to persevere, and get a good (win) before going into regions next week.”

With the win, the Knights clinch the No. 2 seed in the Northern Lights Conference Championships, which start Thursday at Palmer High School. The top-2 seed comes with a first-round bye for Colony, which improved to 7-3 in NLC play. Palmer fell to 6-4 and is the No. 3 seed. The Moose will host sixth-seeded Kodiak in the first round.

Wasilla clinched the No. 1 seed with its win over Colony Tuesday.

“We talked a lot more about the No. 1 seed. Once that was lost, we said we need this one,” Chamblee said of the second seed.

Senior Tyler Boyer scored 10 of his game-high 25 points in the fourth quarter to help the Knights weather the Palmer rally.

“Boyer’s been doing a great job of getting rebounds, and he finds himself wide open in the post late,” Chamblee said. “That’s been a lot of help. That takes a lot of stress off the guards.”

After managing to score only 22 points through three quarters, Palmer exceeded that total in the fourth quarter alone. The Moose netted 25 fourth-quarter points, a sum that included six three-pointers. Senior Michael Kluting hit a trio of those threes, and scored 14 of his team-high 18 points in the fourth quarter. Senior Brady Southwick also hit a pair of three quarters in the fourth. Senior Chase Ferris added another.

The long balls helped Palmer cut into a double-digit lead that Colony held for the majority of three quarters.

Junior Payton Martin knocked down a three-pointer in the third quarter to cut Colony’s lead to eight points. Midway through the fourth, Kluting used a three-pointer to cut Colony’s lead to 41-36. Ferris used his three-pointer to cut Colony’s advantage to 48-44 with 1:19 left, and Southwick nailed a three with 58 seconds left to bring the Moose within three points. But that would be as close as Palmer would get.

Colony jumped out to an early lead with a 13-point first-quarter run. The Knights led 19-4 after the first quarter.

In addition to Boyer’s 25, senior Joshua James added 11 for the Knights. Chamblee chipped in eight.

Kluting led Palmer with 18, and Southwick added 13.

Colony girls 49, Palmer 31

Colony held Palmer to single digits in scoring in each of the final three quarters, and posted a 49-31 girls basketball victory over the Moose Friday at Colony High.

The teams were tied at 10 at the end of the first quarter, but Colony started the second quarter with a 10-0 run to break the game open. Amanda Smith scored half of her 12 points during Colony’s 15-point second quarter.

Alex Carlton led Colony with 14 points. The sophomore hit four three-pointers in the victory.

Abrianna Busbey led the Moose with nine points.

Colony enters the NLC tournament as the No. 2 seed with a first-round bye. Palmer is the No. 3 seed, and will host sixth-seeded Kodiak Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at Palmer High. The winner of the Palmer-Kodiak game faces Colony Friday at 1:30 p.m.

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