Knights rally, fall short in ASAA girls flag football state title game

What you need to know:

• The Colony Knights lost 27-21 to North Pole in the ASAA girls flag football state title game at Wasilla High School, falling just short of a late comeback.
• Sophomore Bri Parrent intercepted a pass and threw a 48-yard touchdown pass to Morgan Gallagher. Colony then used a flag football version of an onside kick to regain possession, but North Pole's defense held on for the win.
• Colony reached the state championship game for the first time, earned the tournament's academic award with a 3.77 GPA and placed three players on the all-tournament team.
• Short on time but need the local news scoop? Get free weekly news in your inbox for Mat-Su, from Mat-Su.

North Pole carried a two-score lead into the final two minutes of regulation, but the Colony Knights still had something left. The Knights used a long touchdown pass from one of the top quarterbacks in the nation and a little-known rule to put themselves in position to come from behind. But Colony’s rally fell just short.

North Pole held on for a 27-21 win over the Knights to claim the ASAA First National Bowl title during the final day of the girls flag football state championships on a wet afternoon Saturday at Wasilla High School.

“We never stop,” Colony head coach Jason Lindstrom said after the game. “It was an amazing game. We fought from the start to the very end.”

Sophomore Bri Parrent used big plays on both sides of the ball to cut North Pole’s lead to just one score. With 2:08 remaining and North Pole deep in Knights territory, Parrent, Colony’s safety, picked off a North Pole pass at the 7-yard line.

After Parrent’s interception return, the Knights took over at their own 19-yard line. On second down, Parrent, Colony’s signal caller on offense, broke free for a 33-yard run. On the next play, Parrent hit a wide-open Morgan Gallagher down the middle of the field for a 48-yard touchdown pass.

“We kept our poise,” Lindstrom said. “We got the interception, reset for offense and went down and scored.”

Trailing by six with 99 seconds remaining, Lindstrom and his staff dug deep into the high school girls flag football rule book and called for the sport’s version of an onside kick. In tackle football, an onside kick is a short, typically bouncing kickoff aimed at the front line of the return team to create a battle for the football. In girls flag football, there are no kickoffs. Instead, the team that elects the onside kick gets the ball at its own 20-yard line with one play to make it to the 40.

“That’s the first time I’ve seen it,” Lindstrom said of the play. “We knew the rule was available. We knew it was in the rule book.”

North Pole committed three straight penalties, giving Colony a first down and possession at the 45-yard line with 1:17 left. The Patriots notched a sack and forced three incompletions on the final four downs to secure the victory.

A swarming North Pole defense frustrated a potent Colony offense featuring two of the top players in the nation, according to MaxPreps.com. Parrent entered the game with 6,055 passing yards, eighth most in the country, and 72 touchdown passes. Senior Ella Richardson headed into the title match with 2,644 receiving yards, fourth most in the country, along with 118 catches and 28 touchdowns. North Pole kept the Colony offense out of the end zone until Gallagher’s late touchdown grab.

“They’re well coached. They’re a good team,” Lindstrom said.

Steady rain poured throughout the game. But that’s not an excuse, Colony’s head coach said.

“We got beat. It wasn’t the weather,” Lindstrom said.

Colony used special teams to build an early lead. Just minutes into the game, Richardson returned a punt 68 yards for a touchdown to help give Colony the early 7-0 lead. Early in the second, Parrent returned a punt 62 yards for a score.

“We had two big punt returns. We practice that a lot,” Lindstrom said.

Parrent’s return gave Colony a 14-6 lead.

North Pole did most of its damage early in the third quarter but scored a pivotal touchdown in the final seconds of the first half. Senior Jade Skipps punched into the end zone on fourth-and-1 with six seconds left in the second quarter to cut Colony’s lead to 14-12.

Early in the third, Skipps caught a 6-yard touchdown pass from her sister, Taimane, to give North Pole its first lead of the game at 19-14. About five minutes later, Taimane Skipps converted another fourth-and-1 attempt for a touchdown to push North Pole’s advantage to 27-14.

Despite the loss, Colony made program history. The Knights used wins over Service and South Anchorage during the first two days of the state tournament to advance to the title game for the first time.

“Going through adversity like this, the girls are going to come back stronger than ever,” Lindstrom said. “We have a great bunch of underclassmen and juniors.”

Colony will graduate seven seniors, including six who have been with the program since its beginning.

“We have amazing seniors. We are going to miss them a lot,” Lindstrom said. “They set the tone. They are the building blocks for the program.”

This was the third sanctioned ASAA girls flag football state championship tournament. In 2003, high school girls flag football was established as an official sport in the Mat-Su Borough School District.

In addition to receiving the runner-up trophy, Colony also earned the tournament’s academic award with a cumulative 3.77 grade point average. Parrent, Richardson and Neveah Crawford were named to the all-tournament team.

Jeremiah Bartz is a longtime local journalist based in Palmer and has been a sportswriter in Alaska for nearly three decades. He writes about student activities for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District, where he works full-time as a community relations coordinator.