Lathrop wins shootout at Wasilla

WASILLA — It’s hard to stop an avalanche once it gets rolling.

That’s what Wasilla head coach Kent Rilatos said about a 48-32 home loss Saturday to Railbelt Conference rival Lathrop.

“We started the game up 14-0,” Rilatos said. “Then we just made some (big) mistakes.”

The miscues could mostly be attributed to mental errors and some personal foul penalties that got out of hand, the coach said. And those errors weren’t limited to the playing field.

“I apologize to our administration and our school,” Rilatos said. “Us as a coaching staff just didn’t do a good job in the game today. We were out-coached and it’s frustrating, because games like this one come down to coaching. It’s something we have to do a better job of.”

Making sure the Warriors keep their composure on and off the field is “the No. 1 thing we’re going to work on this week, the personal fouls” the coach said. “If we can’t play a clean game and be a class act, we need to work on that before we need to work on winning games.”

While the final score favored Lathrop, there were some good things Rilatos saw from his Warriors, and the offense did put up 32 points.

“We moved the ball well on them, but when it came down to being able to stop them, that’s been our Achilles heal all year,” he said.

After scoring to go ahead 14-0, Rilatos said Lathrop took momentum back by returning the ensuing kickoff back for a touchdown. After that, Wasilla gave up a safety.

“We lost our momentum giving up that big kickoff return,” he said. “Once it snowballs on us, we don’t have a veteran group that can stop that snowball effect. We’re getting better as far as technique every week, we just need to get better as a team.”

That teamwork will be tested Friday when Railbelt Conference-leading North Pole visits Veterans Memorial Field for a 7 p.m. homecoming game with the Warriors.

Editor’s note: Final results of Saturday’s Wasilla-Lathrop football game were not available at press time.