Retiring teacher, coach urges Colony grads to ‘find their 68’
By Jeremiah Bartz Frontiersman.com A football coach using a hockey reference as the centerpiece for his keynote address may
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PALMER — The regular season records may not clearly indicate, but parity seems to be the word used most often when speaking of the North Star Conference this season. And that could lead to a pretty exciting North Star Conference tournament, which starts Thursday at the MTA Palmer Ice Arena in Palmer.
“It’s anybody’s game as far as I’m concerned,” Colony head coach Jamie Smith said of the tournament recently.
The six-team field includes a team without a loss and another without a win, but that isn’t causing the conference’s coaches to make any automatic judgments.
“All the games have been close with all of the teams,” Wasilla head coach Bill Sturdevant said. “Everything’s been closed. I think it’s going to be a great tournament over in Palmer.”
Palmer enters the tourney as the top seed with a 9-0-1 mark and will play the winner of the Colony-Kenai quarterfinal on Friday. The Moose capped their regular season with a 2-2 tie against Colony last Saturday at the Brett Memorial Ice Arena in Wasilla. The Moose won their first nine conference games of the season, but many were close.
Palmer beat Wasilla 4-3 twice, Kenai 4-3 and Soldotna 4-3. The Moose also beat Homer 2-0 recently.
Homer, the No. 6 seed with a 0-9-1 mark, has played all the Valley schools tough. Palmer, Colony and Wasilla beat Homer with identical 2-0 finals during a three-day weekend in January.
Homer also tied its quarterfinal opponent, third-seeded Soldotna (4-3-3) this season. It was one of three ties for the Stars. Soldotna also tied Wasilla (6-3-1) and Colony (2-6-2).
Soldotna jumped into the tourney’s three seed during the final weekend of the regular season with back-to-back wins over Kenai and Homer.
Wasilla enters the tournament as the No. 2 seed with its 6-3-1 mark and will play either Soldotna or Homer in the second round.
Colony opens its tourney play Thursday at 7 p.m. against Kenai.
The championship is scheduled for Saturday at 7 p.m. Both teams in the title game advance to next week’s state tourney.
Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com and follow him at Twitter.com/matsu_sports.
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