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| | |  | It's Playoff Time In the Valley |
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| Posted By: Mitchell Swetzof on 2008-10-04 18:43:01 EST | Email Story | Flag As Spam | Comments (0) |
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It's playoff time in the ValleyBy Jeremiah Bartz
Frontiersman
Published on Friday, October 3, 2008 1:00 PM AKDT PALMER — Sitting in his small folding camp chair just beyond the end zone at the Colony High field. Rod Christiansen had a front row seat as he watched the Juneau-Douglas Crimson Bears earn a 22-19 win over the Colony Knights last week during the final week of the regular season.
And tonight, once again, the longtime Palmer head coach will have a spot in the front row for another Juneau game, when Christiansen’s Moose host the defending state champion Crimson Bears in a quarterfinal playoff game at Machetanz Field.
“They were impressive,” Christiansen said. “I think we got them at the time they are peaking.” 
(ROBERT DeBERRY/Frontiersman) Mitch Swetzof completes a pass during the 2008 Potato Bowl at Palmer high School.
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Juneau snapped a four-game losing streak with the win over the Knights, a streak that began midseason with a loss to the Moose at Palmer High.
While the Bears have gone through significant change — all-state running back Silver Ma’ake is no longer with the team — there are a few things that have stayed the same.
One of those things is the Bears’ ability to hurt teams with talented senior Alex Fagerstrom.
In the win over Colony, Fagerstrom accounted for 29 of Juneau’s 42 offensive plays, and gained 184 of the Bears’ 191 total yards.
Fagerstrom rushed for a game-high 184 yards on 29 carries.
While he isn’t quite sure if Fagerstrom will have another 29-carry day against the Moose, Christiansen knows the 2007 Railbelt Conference Offensive Player of the Year will obviously be the focal point of the Juneau offense.
“They’re going to try to get them the ball,” Christiansen said of Fagerstrom. “It’s how they’ve been the most successful. It just might not always look the same.”
Fagerstrom lines up at a handful of positions. He spent most of his time at running back in the win over the Knights, but lined up at quarterback against the Moose earlier this year.
“They’ll put him a quarterback and run the ball out of the shotgun,” Christiansen said. “He’ll throw the ball too.”
Fagerstrom rushed for a game-high 165 yards against the Moose during the regular season, but 86 of those yards came on a long touchdown during the second quarter.
While the Bears have Fagerstrom, the Moose have an emerging weapon in senior Mitch Swetzof.
Swetzof caught Palmer’s first touchdown pass of the season during a 42-14 Potato Bowl win over Wasilla, using his long arms and athletic ability to make the leaping catch.
“He does that in practice every day,” Christiansen said. “We were expecting him to do things like that. He’s quite an athlete.”
In the last three weeks, Swetzof has 11 catches for 214 yards and a touchdown. He topped the 100-yard mark for the first time in his career, collecting four catches for 114 yards during a 14-7 loss to North Pole two weeks ago.
Swetzof also had a pair of key interceptions on defense during the win over Wasilla.
“He’s an all-around player for us,” Christiansen said.
Junior Johnny Daly is another player who has had a big second half of the season. Daly has 444 yards rushing and has scored in each of Palmer’s last five games.
Daly returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown during the regular season win over Juneau.
While Palmer has the opportunity to host a first-round game, Juneau’s win over Colony sent the Knights north for the first round.
Now, Colony has to face Railbelt champion North Pole on Saturday at 6 p.m.
North Pole capped a perfect regular season with a 43-6 win over Lathrop last week.
North Pole and Colony met during the first week of the season. The Patriots earned a 20-16 win at Patriot Pride Field in North Pole, but needed a pair of late scored to grab the victory.
North Pole quarterback Lee Jones scored twice in the second half to help North Pole grab the early win.
Juneau’s win over Colony snapped the Knights’ five-game winning streak, a stretch in which Colony averaged more than 400 yards of offense per game.
The Knights averaged more than 38 points per game during those five wins. That potent Colony offense will line up against a North Pole defense that allowed a state-low 10 points per game during the regular season.
Colony senior quarterback Collin Murphy has accounted for much of that yardage and scoring. Muprhy has 1,595 total yards and 22 total touchdowns. The senior has rushed for 891 yards and 13 touchdown, and has thrown for 704 yards and nine scores.
Houston is making the long journey to Barrow to face the Whalers during the first round of the small-schools playoffs.
The Hawks are the fourth seed from the Northern Lights Conference, while the Whalers are the top seed in the Greatland.
Contact Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.
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| Posted in football, high school sports, men's athletics |
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