Seniors help Knights stay alive, headed to state tourney

SOLDOTNA — With their high school careers dangerously close to coming to an end, Colony’s three seniors stepped up to make sure they wouldn’t be missing the state tournament for the first time as a Knight.

Senior John Meaney posted a pair of goals, senior Sean Colette scored and senior Ricky Kubacki recorded the shutout in the Colony net to lead the Knights to a 3-0 win over Grace Christian in the third-place game of the Northern Lights Conference Championships at Skyview High in Soldotna Saturday.

“It was a do or die game for the seniors and they all really came through,” Colony head coach Jeremy Johnson said by cellphone from Soldotna after the game.

Meaney scored his first goal late in the first half for the Knights, who advanced to the state tournament for the fifth straight year with the win. The senior gave the Knights the 1-0 lead during the 39th minute, capping and effort a number of players helped set up.

“It was a beautiful play,” Johnson said.

It started with the goalkeeper, Kubacki, who rolled the ball to Lucas Hickle. Colette took a pass from Hickle and brought the ball up the wing. Colette knocked the ball back to forward Chris Olsen, who sent a ball 40 yards up the field. Meaney ran down the pass, settled the ball and blasted a shot into the net.

Colony added a pair of goals in the second half. Colette scored in the 69th minute, a play set up by a pass sent through by Harrison Menard. Meaney scored his second goal off a corner kick in the 75th minute.

Johnson said Chas Stevens, who tried to use a header to knock in the Meaney corner kick, missed the header, but did just enough to distract the Grace keeper.

The Knights were pushed into the third-place match after a 1-0 loss to rival Wasilla in the semifinals.

“It was a defensive battle,” Johnson said of the loss to the Warriors.

Wasilla girls fall

SOLDOTNA — A similar storyline spelled the end of the Wasilla Warriors girls soccer season. Despite controlling play for the bulk of the game, the Warriors fell to Grace Christian 1-0 during the Northern Lights Conference Championships third-place match Saturday morning at Skyview High School in Soldotna.

“It seems like that’s been the story for our year. We possessed the ball for 75 percent of the game and had great scoring chances early,” Wasilla head coach Patrick O’Neill said by cellphone from Soldotna after the loss.

Grace scored the lone goal of the game with 10 minutes remaining in the first half. O’Neill said the goal was on a shot from about 40 yards out that carried in the wind and over the reach of the Warriors goalkeeper.

With the lead, Grace changed its game plan, O’Neill said.

“They put everybody back on defense,” O’Neill said. “They had maybe four shots on goal (in the game). Once they got that goal they fell back and played a real strong defensive game.”

Despite the loss and a premature end to the season, O’Neill said is he proud of what Wasilla was able to accomplish with a very young team.

“I think our inexperience come playoff time showed a little bit, but we had only four returning letterwinners. Basically, we had 16 girls on the roster who had never played in the playoffs,” O’Neill said. “Overall, we had a good showing.”

Wasilla graduated 13 players from a team that finished third in the NLC last year. O’Neill was in his first year as head coach, and he started about four freshman and four sophomores in basically every game.

“We got some good experience, and we’ve got a lot to look forward to,” O’Neill said.

Contct Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com and follow him at twitter.com/matsu_sports.