Prep girls soccer: Moose girls finish sixth

ANCHORAGE - With the extremely short girls soccer season, it's usually rare for the Palmer Moose to have the opportunity to play anyone outside of the Northern Lights Conference.

In the first round of the ASAA state soccer tournament on Wednesday the Moose saw a team from the Cook Inlet Conference, the Chugiak Mustangs, for the first time this season.

And on Saturday, in Palmer's final game of the tourney, the Moose met a team from Fairbanks for the first time in school history.

In its first game against a team from the Interior, Palmer suffered a 2-0 loss to West Valley in the fourth-place game of the tournament.

Until this season the Fairbanks area schools scheduled its prep soccer seasons during the fall. All of the other teams in the state have always had spring soccer seasons.

&#8220It was good to see them,” Palmer head coach Brian Fish said. &#8220I imagine in the upcoming years we'll try to schedule with them more.”

Palmer moved into the fourth-place game against West Valley with a 1-0 win over Grace Christian on Thursday.

Freshman Tess Anderson scored the lone goal in the contest.

It was Palmer's third meeting against its NLC rival. Palmer played Grace to a 1-1 tie during the regular season, and edged the Grizzlies 1-0 in the semifinals of the NLC tourna-

ment.

Palmer was awarded the tournament's team sportsmanship award following the championships.

Dimond won the state title with a 2-0 win over Juneau-Douglas.

South Anchorage, the 2005 state champions, fell to Dimond 7-0 in the semifinals. The Wolverines bounced back to claim third place with a 6-0 win over Chugiak.

The Mustangs sent the Moose into the consolation side of the bracket with a 5-1 win.