Knights take care of business

PALMER — You don’t have to remind Don Witzel about first-round upsets. But the longtime head coach of the Colony girls’ basketball squad was sure to remind his players during the days that lead up to the Northern Lights Conference Championships.

Last season, Witzel’s Knights were the victims of the biggest first-round upset of the NLC tourney. His second-seeded Knights fell to Skyview, the third seed from the South.

In virtually the exact same position this year — a No. 2 seed facing a No. 3 — the focus was on not letting history repeat itself.

“We reminded them about it a lot,” Witzel said on Thursday about how coaches prepared players for the tournament. “We didn’t let them forget.”

And with the memory of last year’s defeat fresh in their minds, the second-seeded Knights did not see history repeat itself, as Colony cruised to a 68-34 win over the third-seeded Homer Mariners.

Witzel said he felt his team played a little flat early, but broke the game open midway through the contest.

The Knights outscored the Mariners 41-13 during the middle two quarters and stretched their lead to more than 30 points with a 23-7 run in the third quarter.

Juniors Kara Larson and Maria Bowker scored a game-high 12 points each. Hayley Hotchkiss, the lone senior on the squad, added 11.

Piper Daugherty led the Mariners with nine points.

Witzel was forced to make some changes to his team’s game plan as the Knights prepared for their first-round foe. Junior Tara Garrod, one of Colony’s top defensive players, has been lost for the season after she suffered an arm injury during the Knights’ regular-season-ending win over Wasilla.

“It definitely changes what we do defensively,” Witzel said of the loss of Garrod.

Garrod was normally the player with the task of guarding the opponent’s point guard.

With the win over Homer, Colony moves into the semifinals and will face Soldotna, the top seed from the South, on Friday at 3 p.m.

SoHi breezed into the semis with a 50-28 win over Kodiak.

With a win over Soldotna, Colony can clinch one of the conference’s three bids to the state tournament.

Following its loss to Skyview in the first round last year, the Knights suffered another loss to Palmer on the third day of the tourney. That defeat ended Colony’s season and snapped a streak of 13 straight years in the state tourney.

Contact Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.

KNIGHTS 68, MARINERS 34

Northern Lights Conference Championships

Thursday, Palmer High School

Colony 16 18 23 11 — 68

Homer 6 6 7 9 — 34

COLONY (68) — Hamann 2 1-2 5, Hotchkiss 4 0-0 11, Klapperich 3 0-0 6, Ma. Bowker 5 0-0 12, Lund 1 0-0 2, Grazulis 4 1-3 10, Coon 4 0-0 8, Eisenhower 1 0-2 2, Larson 6 0-0 12. Totals: 29 2-7 68.

HOMER (34) — Needham 0 1-2 1, Weaver 2 2-4 6, Stapel 1 0-0 2, Daugharty 1 7-9 9, Turner 1 0-0 2, Layland 3 0-0 6, Temple 3 2-2 8. Totals: 11 12-17 34.

Three-point field goals — Colony 5 (Hotchkiss 3, Ma. Bowker 2), Homer 0. Total fouls — Colony 13, Homer 5. Fouled out — none.

Kodiak boys advance, girls fall

PALMER — Thanks to some stellar shooting from beyond the arc, the Kodiak boys upset the Soldotna Stars 50-47 in the first round of the Northern Lights Conference Championships at Palmer HIgh School on Thursday.

The Bears hit four key three-pointers in the second half. David Diocares hit a pair of third-quarter threes. Randy Diocares and David Cratty also hit shots from beyond the arc in the second half.

Jon Bryant and Randy Diocares each scored 12 points to lead the Bears. Brad Blossom scored a game-high 16 for Soldotna. Liam Andrews added 12.

The Kodiak Bears used a 8-0 second-quarter run to take a 21-19 halftime lead over the Soldotna. Kodiak trailed 14-9 after the first eight minutes, but senior Michael Odell hit two buckets during the Bears' eight-point run to help Kodiak grab the lead. Odell put Kodiak up 21-19 with less than a minute remaining in the half with a layup.

The Soldotna Stars girls basketball squad opened the 2008 NLC Championships with a 50-28 win over the Kodiak Bears early Thursday morning.

Karen Senette scored eight of her game-high 19 points in the second quarter to help the Stars move into Friday's semifinal round.

With an even 10 points, Alysa Horn was the lone Kodiak player to reach double figures in scoring. SoHi held six other Kodiak players to five points or fewer.