Week 3 football: Déjà vu — Moose host Knights for 2nd straight year

PALMER — The Colony Knights have eight games on their regular season schedule, just like every other large-schools team in the state. Four games at home, and four on the road.

But for the first time in its 25 years as a varsity program, the Knights will not have a regular-season home game against one if its Valley rivals.

Friday, Colony will make the short trip to Palmer High to play the Moose at Machetanz Field for the second straight year.

It’s a scheduling oddity, created after Palmer’s departure from the large-schools Railbelt Conference and arrival to the medium-schools Northern Lights Conference prior to the 2015 season. In order to guarantee a Colony-Palmer matchup on the master schedule, while ensuring that both Colony and Palmer have four home games and four away games on each of their respective schedules, schedule-makers were forced to make Palmer the host of the matchup for the second straight year. Sacrificed was the typical rotation of home team on an annual basis.

Colony head coach Rhett Magner is not fixating on the situation.

“So be it,” Magner said recently. “We’re OK with that as long as we get to play that game. It’s important for us. If we have to go there back-to-back years, we’ll take it. We’ll roll with it, and try to win that game no matter where it is.”

Both squads have other things to worry about.

The Knights, who also visit Wasilla later this season, are on the rebound, after a tough 22-7 loss to East Anchorage last week. Palmer is hungry to bounce back after its 0-2 start.

Both coaching staffs will have plenty of tape to look at. Both Colony and Palmer played East Anchorage and Bartlett during the first two weeks of the season.

East Anchorage scored 16 unanswered points after Colony led 7-6 at Colony High Aug. 19.

“We’ve got a lot to work on honestly,” Magner told the Frontiersman after the loss. “There’s some things we need to get better at. Some things we need to clean up. Execution was not very good, effort was not very good, energy was not very good.”

Colony (1-1) managed only 103 yards of total offense — 92 on the ground an 11 through the air — a week after shellacking Bartlett 47-6. During the win over the Golden Bears, Colony amassed 337 yards on the ground, and added 27 through the year. That total included a career-high 175 yards and three touchdowns for Cade Havel. The Knights scored on offense, defense and special teams.

Palmer is 0-2 after consecutive losses to Cook Inlet Conference programs East and Bartlett.

Last week, the Moose suffered a 59-9 loss at Bartlett. Larry Cutsforth led Palmer with 81 yards rushing and a 5-yard touchdown run in the fourth. Quarterback Clayton Southwick had seven completions for 81 yards.

Friday marks the 25th regular-season meeting in series history, and 27th meeting overall. The series is currently tied 13-13 overall, 12-12 during the regular season and 1-1 during the postseason. Palmer won the first five meetings between the Palmer-area rivals. Colony is 5-3 against the Moose since 2008.

Kickoff Friday is slated for

7 p.m.

Soldotna at Wasilla

In Week 1, Wasilla said goodbye to a nine-game losing streak with a 29-14 win over Eagle River. Friday, the Warriors (1-1) will host the team with the most celebrated streak in the state.

Soldotna (2-0) currently has the fifth longest current winning streak in the state, according to maxpreps.com. The Stars have won 41 straight, and have not suffered a loss since Palmer beat Soldotna at SoHi 27-7 Aug. 11, 2012.

Soldotna, the four-time defending medium school state champions, opened the season with a victory over West Anchorage, the defending large schools state champs. Last week, Soldotna buried North Pole.

After the win over Eagle River in Week 1, Wasilla suffered a 28-10 loss at Dimond, a team that advanced to the large-schools semifinals last year. The Warriors led early, with an Aeron Milliron touchdown in the first quarter.

Wasilla, which has installed a double-wing offense under first-year head coach Will Stout, has had success running the ball early. Milliron, a wing, has 229 yards and three touchdowns in two games. Fullback Sean McDermott has added 222 yards and a score in two games.

Kickoff is slated for 7 p.m.

Houston at Voznesenka

Houston (1-1) continues nonconference play with a match against Voznesenka (0-1) Saturday at noon in Homer.

Houston, which opened with a 14-0 loss at Kodiak in Week 1, steamrolled Eagle River 34-0 at Houston High last week.

The Houston defense forced turnovers while allowing medium schools Eagle River to only 136 yards of total offense. The Hawks meanwhile put up nearly 300 yards of their own on offense, finishing with 216 yards rushing in the win. Senior Ben Pelesasa rumbled for a game-high 121 yards and two scores. Quarterback Robert Ritter also added a pair of short rushing touchdowns.

It was the second straight week in which the Hawks played a team from the medium schools Northern Lights Conference.

“It helps us clean up mistakes,” Houston head coach Glenn Nelson said of playing teams from a higher class. “It gives us a lot of confidence.”

Voznesenka opened its 2016 season with a 49-0 loss to Monroe Catholic.

Valdez at Redington

Redington will host its second varsity game in the history of the program Saturday at 1 p.m. against Valdez.

The Huskies are off to an 0-2 start, after a loss to Ketchikan in Ketchikan last week. But the first-year varsity squad has been able to find the end zone in each of the first two weeks of the season. Brian Horne made history in Week 1, scoring the program’s first varsity touchdown. Last week, Kyler Rumfelt returned a kickoff 75 yards for a score against the Kings.

Valdez is now 2-0. The Buccaneers started the season by upsetting defending small schools state champion Nikiski 38-20. They followed with a 26-14 win over Seward last week.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.