Prep football preview: Knights focus on the climb, not the fall

PALMER — For the Colony Knights, the 2008 season is all about the climb and not the fall.

Even though Colony cruised to a 3-0 start and qualified for the postseason last year, the Knights ended the 2007 season with four losses in their final five games. That stretch included a season-ending defeat to Juneau-Douglas, the eventual state champion, in the first round of the playoffs.

Now, as Colony prepares for a 2008 season that starts Saturday at North Pole High School, the Knights are focused on the climb toward the top and preventing another late-season fall.

“We don’t want to make the same mistakes we did last year,” Colony head coach Jamie Mayo said during his team’s practice on Wednesday. “We made our share, players and coaches. We did some things that maybe we didn’t do as well as we could have. There are some things we didn’t do that we should have.”

And more than likely, the Colony veterans who return from that 2007 squad will remember the lessons learned from the late-season losses.

“It was frustrating to the kids because they all knew they could do better, it was frustrating to the coaching staff because we all knew as coaches we could do better,” Mayo said. “But for whatever reason it didn’t happen.”

But regardless of their finish, the Knights still enter the 2008 season as a team fresh off a playoff appearance. And now Mayo and his staff will look to an experienced defense and athletic offense to lead the Knights back to the postseason.

On defense, the Knights return eight starters from last season, including senior Gino Paoletti, who earned first-team all-state honors at linebacker as a junior.

“He’s going to be extremely important to the success of our defense,” Mayo said of Paoletti. “Not just playing, but his leadership abilities.”

Senior cornerback Matt Swan, senior safety Tim Jaronik, senior defensive back Collin Murphy, senior linebacker Balin Babcock, senior defensive end Chris Krieg, senior defensive end Matt Packa and junior defensive tackle Eric Fan also started for the Knights last season.

Fan will lead a very deep group of interior defensive linemen.

“Since I’ve been here either as a head coach or assistant coach this is probably, one through six, the deepest and most talented set of defensive tackles I’ve had,” Mayo said.

Mayo said the Knights can boast both size and quickness with their defensive tackles and plan on using a rotation of interior linemen to help stuff the opposing running games.

“We’ve got some bigger guys who are much more powerful, and we’ll play them for a while, and we’ve got some guys who are a little bit smaller, but are somewhat quicker,” Mayo said. “We may mix a big strong guy with a quick guy, play some different games along the front.”

Joining Fan at that position are senior Thaddeus Muetz, junior Shane Duque, sophomore Trey Farber and sophomore Renn Wright.

Packa, Krieg and junior Hayden Summers will line up at defensive end.

While the defensive line is arguably the deepest unit on the Colony squad, the Knights are looking to a new crop of offensive linemen to pave the way for a quick and talented group of running backs.

“Offensively, our biggest hole is on the offensive line, just because most of our seniors (last year) played on the offensive line,” Mayo said. “We’re potentially starting two sophomores and two juniors on the offensive line. But the kids who are there are good kids.”

Leading the Colony offensive linemen are Packa, Fan and Babcock. Both Packa and Fan will play tackle, while Babcock is anchoring the line at center, Mayo said.

Lining up behind Babcock is Murphy, who inherited the job at starting quarterback following an injury to former starter Brad Truax during the 2007 season.

“He kind of got a little baptismal by fire,” Mayo said of Murphy. “He’s doing a real good job of running our offense.”

Also in the backfield are Paoletti, who rushed for 335 yards and four touchdowns during the regular season last year, Krieg and junior Matt Jaronik.

“I think that’s probably going to be our strong point,” Mayo said of the Colony backfield. “We have three very good running back and a very good quarterback.”

On the outside, the Knights have a pair of speedy receivers — Swan and Tim Jaronik.

“I think we’re going to have a little better team speed than we did last year,” Mayo said. “When you look at the offensive side of the ball, I definitely think we are a faster team overall from what we were last year.”

Colony will certainly need that experience on defense and speed on offense to battle through a difficult slate of games.

“If we don’t have the toughest schedule in the state, it’s got to be pretty close near the top,” Mayo said.

The Knights’ schedule includes five playoff teams — Soldotna, East Anchorage, Palmer, Wasilla and Juneau-Douglas — and both the small-school (Soldotna) and large-school (Juneau-Douglas) state champions.

Colony’s first opponent, North Pole, just missed a postseason berth last season after finishing in a fourth-place tie with the Knights in the Railbelt Conference. With both teams at 3-3, Colony won the tiebreaker. Even though the Patriots missed the postseason, North Pole is annually seen as a playoff contender.

“North Pole is going to be a very, very tough game,” Mayo said. “Win or lose, it’s going to be a tough game.”

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