East ready for rematch with Juneau
ANCHORAGE - Any coach hates to lose, but a loss may have been the best thing for East Anchorage High School when the Thunderbirds came to Juneau and fell 42-18 to the Juneau-Douglas Crimson Bears in the second week of the season.
All season long, the Crimson Bear players felt as if they hadn't played the real East team, and they've said they think Thunderbirds looked past them in that game.
East will get a second chance as the T-Birds earned the right to play Juneau for the state championship with a 42-35 overtime victory over the Colony Knights Saturday afternoon at Anchorage Football Stadium. The Crimson Bears and Thunderbirds will kick off at 1 p.m. this Saturday at AFS in the large schools championship game.
"Thanks to Juneau, it woke us up," said East offensive coordinator Numi Ilalio, a former Juneau assistant coach. "We took them for granted and we needed to be real humble. After Juneau we were able to rework our whole season."
"It's time for revenge," said East wide receiver Casey Flair, who was voted the Cook Inlet Football Conference's offensive player of the year by CIFC coaches late Thursday night and caught two touchdown passes from quarterback Derek Laws on Saturday. "Juneau's a much-improved team, and they pounded us pretty good when we went down there."
In Saturday's small schools championship, the Kenai Central Kardinals won their second straight championship with a 46-0 victory over the Eielson Ravens as Dakota Craig ran for four touchdowns
In Saturday's East-Colony semifinal, the Knights jumped out to an early lead and led 21-14 at halftime. From there, the teams alternated scores, with East tying the game at 21-21, falling behind 28-21, then retying the game 28-28 in the third quarter.
The Thunderbirds took a 35-28 lead midway through the fourth quarter, but Colony, the fourth-seeded team from the Northern Railbelt Conference, forced overtime when quarterback Rhett Magner hit Kyle Van Sant with a 21-yard touchdown pass with 40 seconds left in regulation. The Knights stopped East's final drive, forcing a punt with 2 seconds to go, but Colony only had time for one play.
In overtime, East gave the ball three straight times to running back Ryan Stickler, who scored his third touchdown of the game on a 1-yard plunge to make it 42-35 East. On Colony's overtime possession, Shawn Olivera ran for a yard, Magner ran for six and then two more to put the ball on the 1-yard line. But East linebacker Joe Lyman, the CIFC's defensive player of the year, stopped Colony fullback Kylan Robinson for no gain on fourth down, clinching the victory for the T-Birds.
While the East players were happy to escape with Saturday's win, they already were looking forward to this weekend's game. Lyman didn't travel to Juneau when East made its early season trip, so he's especially looking forward to the matchup.
"It's going to be a dogfight, like this game," Lyman said. "I think we really match up with them. (Juneau's Brian) Felix is probably the best running back I've seen for awhile in this state, and (wide receiver C.J.) Keys is tough. We're both good football teams."
• Charles Bingham can be reached at cbingham@juneauempire.com.