Wasilla girls rally to beat Colony, clinch No. 1 seed

WASILLA — After a rough 2013 campaign, Wasilla head coach Patrick O’Neill entered the new season with a fresh set of goals he hoped would help rejuvenate the Warrior girls soccer program.

O’Neill called for his team to finish perfect against its Valley rivals, earn a No. 1 seed in the Northern Lights Conference tournament, win regions and make it to state.

Some may find those lofty for a team that posted only a pair of wins last season. But O’Neill saw the potential in his young team, and Friday, the Warriors reached a pair of those goals.

Wasilla scored three unanswered goals to post a 4-1 win over the Colony Knights at Colony High School. With the win, Wasilla finished the regular season 5-0 against its Valley rivals and clinched the NLC North Division No. 1 seed for the conference tournament, which starts Thursday at Wasilla High.

“Overall, I’m really happy,” O’Neill said. “We’re 11-3. We had two wins all of last year. Our goals were to beat the Valley rivals, we were 5-0, gain the No. 1 seed, win a region championship and go to state and give it our best. We’re still on track to reach all of hour goals.”

O’Neill said his team had to battle a much-improved Colony squad to earn the win Friday. Wasilla took an early lead with an Alexis Abbott goal during the 15th minute, but later in the first half, Colony converted a penalty kick to tie the game at 1.

O’Neill said Colony played very tough in the first half, and showed much improvement over the last time the rivals faced early in the season.

“The carried the play during the second part of the first half pretty well,” O’Neill said. “They played well. The stringed passes together and got it deep in our end. Their girls made it pretty sketchy for us.”

O’Neill said he felt the Warriors were able to take advantage of about a 20-minute chunk of the second half, and take the lead. Ally Hull gave the Warriors the go-ahead score, ripping a shot into the corner of the net. Minutes later, Alexa Starr drove the ball from midfield, made a move past a defender and booted a shot into the back of the net to give the Warriors the 3-1 lead.

Abbott tallied her second goal of the game in the 70th minute to give Wasilla the 4-1 advantage.