Valley rivals meet in first round

MAT-SU — Colony head coach Jeremy Johnson wasn’t surprised when he discovered his Knights had drawn rival Wasilla in the first round of the ASAA/First National Bank State Soccer Championships.

Johnson wasn’t elated, but not terribly broken up about it either.

“It’s just the way it is,” Johnson said. “The ultimate thing is, we’ve got to win three games. Every team in this state tournament is a quality soccer team.”

Before ASAA released the state tournament brackets on Sunday, Johnson actually had a suspicion the Knights would see either Wasilla or Soldotna, the third seed from the Northern Lights Conference, in the first round.

“I sort of expected the chances were pretty high that we’d be playing either Wasilla or Soldotna,” Johnson said. “Traditionally, our second and third teams (in the Northern Lights Conference) are seeded six, seven or eight.”

While Colony drew the second team, thanks to an assortment of criteria ASAA uses to seed the teams, Wasilla is the seventh and Soldotna is the eighth seed in the tourney.

So rather than dwell on seeing a familiar team in the first round, Johnson said, each Valley squad will have to be a rival, when the teams meet Wednesday at 4 p.m. at Anchorage Football Stadium.

It’ll mark the third meeting in 12 days for the two teams. Colony and Wasilla played to a 1-1 tie to cap the regular season on May 16. Last Saturday, Colony used a 2-0 win over the Warriors in the NLC championship game to win the conference title.

Dimond, a team Colony tied 1-1 early in the year, is the tourney’s top seed. At No. 2, Colony holds its highest seed in program history. The Knights, who were seeded third in 2006, are in search of their first trip to the state title match since 2005 and their first state title since 2000.

Wasilla is back in the state tourney, after missing the event last season. The Warriors posted consecutive fifth-place finishes in 2006 and 2007. Wasilla finished a program-high third in 2003.

Colony was 11-1-2 overall during the regular season and Wasilla finished 7-3-3.

On the girls bracket, Wasilla and Colony drew the seventh and eighth seeds.

Wasilla will face second-seeded Chugiak at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, while Colony meets top-seeded Service at 2 p.m. Wednesday.

The Service girls are one of two prep teams in Alaska without a loss this year. The Cougars, who join the 13-0-3 West Valley Wolfpack among the Alaska unbeaten, are 19-0-1 overall, and 13-0-1 in the Cook Inlet Conference.

Service beat Chugiak 3-1 to win the CIC title last week. The Mustangs finished 13-4-1 during the regular season and 10-3-1 in CIC play.