The Soldotna Stars football team does not endure many uneasy moments, but when they do, their ability to shake off the nerves is uncanny.<\/p>\n
The Stars survived an early scare Saturday against Thunder Mountain to secure a 49-13 victory in the medium-schools state semifinals at Dimond Alumni Field in Anchorage.<\/p>\n
The win pushed SoHi to its fourth-straight state football title game appearance.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one of the greatest goals we could have,\u201d said senior running back Mason Prior. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty great to get back there one more time my senior year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prior scored four times with 177 rushing yards Saturday to lead the Stars.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just gave it all,\u201d Prior said. \u201cMy last year, it\u2019s my last two games, I\u2019m going all out.\u201d<\/p>\n
SoHi forced Thunder Mountain to punt on the game\u2019s opening possession, then drove 70 yards in five plays to score on a three-yard pass over the middle from SoHi quarterback Dylan Simons to tight end Trevor Walden before the first three minutes were up. Simons ended the day completing 8 of 14 throws for 83 yards.<\/p>\n
After forcing the Falcons to punt again, that\u2019s when trouble struck.<\/p>\n
Punt returner Jesse Littrell caught the ball on a bad bounce and was quickly mobbed by Thunder Mountain special team players and gave up the fumble. The error left the Falcons on SoHi\u2019s doorstep, only eight yards away from the endzone. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just a mistake, we didn\u2019t get on Jesse,\u201d Prior said. \u201cWe were just going to keep pushing like we always do.\u201d<\/p>\n
On fourth-and-goal from the two-yard line, Thunder Mountain converted with a pass from Falcons quarterback Cale Jenkins that found receiver Sam Bluett on a wide-open fade route. The touchdown tied the game at 7-7 barely six minutes in.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is what it is,\u201d said SoHi coach Galen Brantley Jr. \u201cWe weren\u2019t going to panic, that\u2019s not what we do. We made a mistake on special teams, and we were able to overcome it.\u201d<\/p>\n
From that point on, however, SoHi rebounded by racking up 412 team rushing yards and pulling away with their usual style to claim the win.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d rather win ugly than lose nicely,\u201d Brantley Jr. quipped. \u201cWe didn\u2019t play our best game, I thought emotionally, we were kind of flat.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Stars drove 58 yards on the their next possession to score on a four-yard scamper by Jace Urban, then recovered a Thunder Mountain fumble at midfield, getting the ball back on a recovery by Austin Crowder.<\/p>\n
From there, SoHi moved 58 yards again \u2014 including a fourth-down conversion at the Falcons 39 \u2014 and capped off the 14-play drive with a 10-yard dash through the middle by Prior to take a 21-7 lead early in the second quarter.<\/p>\n
The Stars forced Thunder Mountain into four more punts, an interception and two fumbles in the remainder of the game. At halftime, SoHi led 28-7. Prior added touchdown runs of 28, 1 and 9 in the second and third quarters, and Urban scored his second of the day on a 30-yard romp, adding to his four-yard run in the first quarter. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing I\u2019m most happy with is we are healthy going into next week,\u201d Brantley Jr. said.<\/p>\n
The Stars will have a chance to win a fourth-straight medium-schools championship and an eighth in school history next Saturday against old rival Kenai Central, which beat North Pole 74-6 earlier in the day\u2019s other semifinal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t get excited about being able to blow away a team,\u201d Brantley Jr. said. \u201cWe get excited to play a team and go blow for blow in a heavyweight bout.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nStars 49, Falcons 13<\/strong><\/p>\n Soldotna 14\t14\t21\t0\t\u201449<\/p>\n TMHS 7\t0\t0\t6\t\u201413<\/p>\n 1st Quarter<\/p>\n Sol \u2014 Walden 3 pass from Simons (Jones kick), 9:28<\/p>\n ThM \u2014 Bluett 2 pass from Jenkins (Olsen kick), 6:05<\/p>\n Sol \u2014 Urban 4 run (Jones kick), 3:47<\/p>\n 2nd Quarter<\/p>\n Sol \u2014 Prior 10 run (Jones kick), 9:22<\/p>\n Sol \u2014 Prior 28 run (Jones kick), 6:36<\/p>\n 3rd Quarter<\/p>\n Sol \u2014 Prior 1 run (Jones kick), 9:38<\/p>\n Sol \u2014 Prior 9 run (Jones kick), 3:56<\/p>\n Sol \u2014 Urban 30 run (Jones kick), :28<\/p>\n 4th Quarter<\/p>\n ThM \u2014 Bear-Clark 11 run (pass failed), 3:08<\/p>\n \t\tSol\t\tTM<\/p>\n Rushes-yds\t60-412\t\t28-142<\/p>\n Pass yds\t83\t\t31<\/p>\n Comp-att-int\t8-14-1\t\t4-10-2<\/p>\n Return yds\t42\t\t92<\/p>\n Punts\t3\t\t5<\/p>\n Fumbles-lost\t3-1\t\t2-2<\/p>\n Penalties\t6-41\t\t9-80<\/p>\n INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS<\/p>\n Rushing \u2014 Soldotna: Prior 18-177, Palaniuk 6-37, Simons 7-61, Urban 10-61, Furlong 10-60, No. 27 1-3, Crowder 1-4, Trammell 2-1, No. 13 4-8. Thunder Mountain: Bear-Clark 27-139, Olmstead 1-3.<\/p>\n Passing \u2014 Soldotna: Simons 8-14-1\u201483. Thunder Mountain: Jenkins 4-10-1\u201431.<\/p>\n Receiving \u2014 Soldotna: Urban 2-12, Gomez-Dickson 2-23, T. Smithwick 1-22, Prior 1-12, Walden 1-3, Palaniuk 1-11. Thunder Mountain: Bluett 2-7, Olsen 1-8, Crawford 1-5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Soldotna Stars football team does not endure many uneasy moments, but when they do, their ability to shake off the nerves is uncanny. The Stars survived an early scare Saturday against Thunder Mountain to secure a 49-13 victory in the medium-schools state semifinals at Dimond Alumni Field in Anchorage. The win pushed SoHi to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":436,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-7970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/436"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7970\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7970"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=7970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}