Prep girls soccer: Colony girls continue streak, earn top seed in NLC's North Division

PALMER - The Colony Knights are arguably the most improved girls soccer team in the Northern Lights Conference.

After losing its first two games, Colony is 5-1-3 in its last nine games.

After the first week of the season, with a very young team, it looked like the Knights, normally seen as a conference power, were in for a rebuilding year.

But then everything started to come together.

Colony head coach Lorie Miner said the Knights usually travel to Juneau to play the Crimson Bears during the opening weekend of the season. But Colony didn't have that this year. This season, Colony opened with Wasilla, and dropped a 4-1 decision.

&#8220We (usually) looked to utilize that trip to Juneau, come back and restructure our lineup or format,” Miner said. &#8220We didn't have that. So it took our first two games against Wasilla and Soldotna to see what we needed to do.”

Since losing a pair of games 4-1 and starting out the season 0-2-0, the Knights have notched five wins and five shutouts.

The Knights have five freshman on the varsity squad, and they started to contribute. Four of the five first-year players rank among the Knights' leading scorers.

Freshman April Bleicher leads the Knights with eight goals. Another freshman, Kara Larson, has scored five. And yet another freshman, Tara Garrod, has four goals.

Senior Megan Pfile also has a team-high eight goals.

Colony opens the region tourney against Skyview today at 10 a.m. at Skyview High School. The Knights edged SHS 3-2 during the regular season.

Wasilla, the third seed of the North Division, faces Kenai today at 10 a.m. at Skyview High School.

Kenai defeated Wasilla 4-0 during the regular season.

Leading the Warriors is junior Csesalie Lease, who scored seven goals this season.

Palmer, the fourth seed of the North, faces Homer in the first round at 10 a.m. today at Kenai High School.

Freshman Tess Anderson leads the Moose with eight goals. Senior Kate McNiven and sophomore Jessica Wyckoff have each scored seven.

Grace Christian is the second seed from the North. Houston did not qualify for the tournament.