Championship Not In The Stars For Bears

Jay Barrett/KMXT

For the third straight year the Kodiak High School Bears football team made it to the state small schools championship game. But unfortunately, so did the Soldotna High School Stars, one of the most dominant football teams in Alaska history. With SoHi’s 28-to-6 victory over Kodiak Saturday, the Stars tied the all-time consecutive win record at 29 in a row.

Given Soldotna’s dominance, and their regular season 48-to-nothing blanking of the Bears here at home, nobody gave Kodiak much of a chance in the championship game. But the Bears held SoHi to a season-low 244 yards rushing, and only a touchdown per quarter, which is more of an accomplishment than it might seem at first.

KVOK announcers Charlie Madsen and Doug Letch made that point in their post game wrap up:

— (Bears 1 49 sec "The team we lost to is … but she still got to the dance.")

Kodiak had three scoring chances inside the Red Zone, but failed to convert on any of them. Early in the second on fourth-and-one, Kodiak had the ball on SoHi’s 10-yard line, but a pitch-out was stopped at the line. Then on second down in the third, a Zach Baylor pass was intercepted on the one-yard line. And early in the final quarter, Kodiak was fourth and goal on the two, but the pass was tipped away. The Bears’ only score came with less than three minutes in the game on a 57-yard pass play from Baylor to Nick VanMeter.

In the post-game wrap, Letch looked forward to Kodiak’s prospects for next year:

— (Bears 2 23 sec "We’ll see how things … those kids on the field.")

Kodiak’s Gary Anthony was named Northern Light’s Conference defensive player of the year. Conner Rogan was named to both first team offence and defense, as center and interior lineman. Alex Woodell (w’dell) also made first team defense, at defensive back.

Kodiak finishes the season with an over all record of 6-wins, 4-losses.

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