Mat-Su prep athletes on the trails, turf enter final weeks ahead of postseason

What you need to know:

• Mat-Su fall sports are nearing the postseason, with cross-country region and state championships approaching and football and girls flag football playoffs beginning in early October.
• Colony is a major contender across all three sports, with strong boys and girls cross-country teams, a 10-1 girls flag football team and a 3-1 football team.
• Several Valley programs have had strong showings, including undefeated Palmer football and a resurgent Wasilla football team, while younger squads at Redington and Houston continue to develop.
• Short on time but need the local news scoop? Get free weekly news in your inbox for Mat-Su, from Mat-Su.

The 2026-27 school year is less than a month old, but athletes in three fall prep sports are rapidly approaching postseason play. There are only two weeks left in the cross-country running regular season. Playoffs in football and girls flag football start in early October.

Cross-country running

Runners are building toward the Region III Championships on Sept. 26 at the Tsalteshi Running Trails in Soldotna and the ASAA/First National Bank State Cross-Country Running Championships at Bartlett High School on Oct. 3.

Colony swept the team titles at the Region III meet last year and was the runner-up in each class at the Division I state championships. The Knights have been on a tear during the first month of 2026. The Colony boys and girls have both finished first at the Wasilla, Colony and Palmer meets and were second at the Ted McKenney Invitational in Soldotna during the second week of the season.

“Our team has been doing great,” Colony senior Josiah Herrick said after winning the varsity boys race at the George Plumley Invitational at Palmer High School. “We’ve got a lot of good friends and seniors who have worked hard all summer.”

Herrick’s win at the Plumley Invite was his third of his senior season. In addition to first-place finishes at Wasilla and Colony, he was also 12th in the McKenney race. Colony used a split squad last weekend, also sending athletes to the Kodiak Invitational. Junior Benjamin Aliberti won that race. He has now finished first in Kodiak, second at Colony and third at Wasilla this season.

Knights clocked the seven fastest times in the Region III Division I boys class this season on the fast Colony Invite course at CHS in August. Herrick and Aliberti lead the group, which also includes seniors Hunter Belliston and London Ramirez. Senior Theodore Stamoolis is Colony’s top returner from the Region III meet in 2025. He was seventh. Aliberti was 25th in the ASAA Division I state meet last year, best among the returning Knights.

Colony senior Aubrey Virgin leads the Region III Division I girls class with her time of 18 minutes, 42.2 seconds at the Colony Invite. Virgin finished a stride ahead of Knights freshman Wren Spangler (18:42.6) in the race. Spangler is one of a pair of standout freshmen on the girls squad, alongside Siri Strabel, who currently has the third-best time in the region this year. So far this season, Virgin has won four races, Spangler has been the runner-up three times and also finished third once, and Strabel has been in the top four three times. The Knights also have sophomore Clara Sensabaugh, who placed 20th at state last season.

Senior Karley Tichenor leads the Palmer Moose and holds the fourth-best time in Region III this year. Tichenor was third in both the Wasilla and Palmer meets and has not placed outside the top 10 this year. She was fifth in regions and 15th at state as a junior. The Moose girls also include freshman River Francom and sophomore Linnaea Trimble.

Sophomore Daniel Marciales led the Palmer boys in the Plumley with his 18th-place finish. Another sophomore, Colt Soper, followed in 21st.

Wasilla senior Hailee Giacobbe is the two-time ASAA Division I girls state champion. She posted a season-best time of 20:17 at the Wasilla Invite in August and currently holds the seventh-best time of the season in the region. The Wasilla girls team also includes freshman Rosemary Maxiner and juniors Amelia Bendon and Jewel Gardner.

Sophomore Justin Dalitsch is among the leaders for the Wasilla boys, with a 10th-place finish at Wasilla and 13th-place finish at Palmer. His team also includes juniors Nathan Stapley and Richard Strick.

Junior Gabriel Thompson is among the leaders on the Redington boys, with his season-best time of 21:12.

The Redington and Houston girls have athletes who compete in the junior varsity and open classes.

Girls flag football

Two Mat-Su squads, Wasilla and Colony, advanced to the ASAA/First National Bank Girls Flag Football State Championship last fall. Both made school history, notching their first state tournament wins. The Valley foes combined to finish 4-2 in the three-day tournament. Wasilla, one of the top squads in the state last year, blasted Service 58-0 in the third-place game. Colony finished fourth in the bracket with a 33-14 win over West Anchorage.

Colony and Wasilla are both back in the mix again this year. The Knights are 10-1 overall and 8-1 in the Railbelt Conference. Wasilla sits at 6-4 overall and 5-1 in conference.

The 2026 ASAA state tournament is Oct. 8-10 at Wasilla High School. The conference event is Oct. 1-3 at North Pole. The top three teams in the Railbelt advance to state.

Colony returned just about everyone from a successful 2025 campaign, graduating only one senior. Key returners include Bri Parrent (quarterback and safety), Ella Richardson (wide receiver and cornerback), Nevaeh Crawford (linebacker), Kayden Makamson (blocker), Avalee Clark (center), Maddy King (linebacker), Katie Jeffreys (wide receiver) and Audrina Cabantan (safety).

“This team plays hard and until the final whistle has blown, has shown resiliency when being down in the fourth quarter and battling back for wins. We are building a program focused on learning the fundamentals of the game in a positive environment. Most importantly we are having a lot of fun this season playing together as one unit,” first-year head coach Jason Lindstrom said recently.

Meanwhile, Wasilla lost six key players, all two-way starters, including Savannah Kroon, the Railbelt Conference Player of the Year, and returns only one starter on each side of the ball. The program’s first head coach, Mat Bredberg, also retired. Former assistant Joey Crum is now at the helm of the program. Wasilla’s strengths include speed at multiple key positions, Crum said, and the Warriors have numerous players who bring experience at multiple positions.

“We have speed at multiple key positions (and) numerous players that have played multiple positions,” Crum said. “Everyone’s skills will help with our depth as a team.”

Junior running back AJ Johnson and sophomore linebacker Faith Skogstad are the returning starters. The Warriors also have wide receiver and cornerback Braydon Guzman, center and linebacker Rylee Crum, and blocker and rusher Izzy Taylor.

Redington started the season 2-4. The Huskies have a pair of options at quarterback, Kaydence Seymore and Daisy Cardoso. Both bring versatility to the team, head coach Dawn Seymore said. Kaydence Seymore plays center and receiver and can rush the passer. Cardoso can fill in anywhere the team needs.

The Huskies also received a boost with the return of Caydence Nunley, who missed last season with a knee injury.

“She makes a big impact as a receiver,” Dawn Seymore said.

Palmer is still in search of its first win of the year. The Moose are a young team, head coach Dustin Wilson said.

“With more underclassmen than upperclassmen on varsity this year, our younger girls are getting great reps and are learning how to compete,” Wilson said.

Palmer lost a pair of all-conference athletes, Jay Jorgensen and Lizzie McQuillen, to graduation. Leading the Moose this year are senior quarterback and linebacker Kilee Gose and senior cornerback Zyra Gonzalez.

Football

Alaska prep football teams reached the midway point of the 2026 season last week. The Mat-Su has five teams spread across three divisions. Three of the local programs — Division I Colony and Division II Palmer and Wasilla — are off to great starts.

Colony is 3-1 overall and 3-0 in the Cook Inlet Conference. With victories over Dimond, Service and East Anchorage, the Knights already have more wins than they did in 2024 and 2025 combined.

Colony head coach Nathan Dahl said the Knights, overall, are young, but they are fast, particularly on defense. The Knights have track standouts in key positions within the linebacker corps and secondary.

Trayvon Lott is Colony’s starting quarterback, an “outstanding athlete who works really hard,” Dahl said. Sam Thaler is a leader on the offensive line. Both Lott and Thaler are seniors who have started since their sophomore seasons. Hudson Broeder is Colony’s utility man, an all-around player.

Keoni Pili, a running back and linebacker, is among Colony’s top losses to graduation from the 2025 team.

“He was kind of like the heart of our program,” Dahl said.

Overall, Colony started the preseason with more than 140 players on the roster. On varsity, the Knights have enough talent that most of their starters play only offense or defense and do not have to consistently play both ways.

“It’s a blessing to have that many kids,” Dahl said.

Colony continues its season against Juneau-Douglas on Sept. 11, against South Anchorage on Sept. 18, at Bartlett on Sept. 26 and against West Anchorage on Oct. 2.

Despite losing a significant amount of talent from a 2025 squad that finished 7-2 and appeared in the Division II state semifinals, Palmer is 4-0 to start the 2026 season.

The Moose beat North Pole 32-26 in triple overtime early in the season and followed that with a tough 14-7 nonconference victory over rival Colony. Palmer, 3-0 in the Railbelt, also has conference wins over Eagle River and Chugiak.

A group led by senior running back and defensive back Ezra Zimmerman, senior wide receiver and linebacker Evan Denoncour, senior offensive and defensive linemen Lincoln Bosch and Makana Alone, and junior offensive and defensive lineman Parker Popowski entered the season as players tasked with filling the void left by last season’s talented senior class. Palmer graduated about a half-dozen two-way starters and Nolan Garner, the program’s record-setting quarterback. Garner, the Division II Co-Player of the Year, threw for 1,527 yards in 2025, breaking a school record that stood for nearly 40 years.

“We’re going to be a young football team. Replacing a lot of starters and seniors is always a challenge,” Palmer head coach Tim Popowski said early in the year.

Palmer replaced four of its five starters on the offensive line, but Popowski has expected the big guys to be strong. He also noted a solid rotation among the skill positions on offense and a physical defense.

Palmer’s biggest tests will come during the second half of the season, Sept. 12 at Lathrop and against Soldotna on Sept. 25. Soldotna and Lathrop have combined to win the last 13 Division II state titles. Most of those banners hang in the SoHi gym. The Stars have 11 championships since 2012. Lathrop won back-to-back titles in 2021 and 2022. There was no state tournament in 2020 due to COVID-19.

The Moose also have home games against West Valley on Sept. 18 and the annual Potato Bowl against a much-improved Wasilla squad on Oct. 2.

Like Colony, Wasilla is enjoying its best season in recent memory. The Warriors are 3-1 through their first four games. The three wins this season are as many as the last three seasons combined. After suffering a loss to Soldotna in the season opener, Wasilla snapped a 15-game losing streak with a 35-15 victory over Chugiak on Aug. 21.

“We weren’t winning games because we didn’t deserve to win games,” Wasilla head coach Matt Jaronik said of recent seasons.

That’s exactly what the Wasilla coaches talked about during halftime of the Chugiak game with the Warriors down 15-7.

“We have to deserve to win this game to actually be able to win it. They came out and I thought their mentality shifted,” Jaronik said.

Since that afternoon, Wasilla has followed with victories over Kenai and Eagle River.

Johnny Devine stepped into a full-time role at quarterback. Brayden Sparrs, who also played quarterback last season, is now in the backfield with Brandon Wadleigh. Alex Barksdale and Markus Patillo are among the leaders on the offensive line. Dylan Reddick is at tight end and Wyatt Shields at wide receiver. Sparrs, Reddick and Patillo also play linebacker on defense.

Big additions on the sideline include defensive coordinator Norm Bouchard and offensive line coach Andrew Devine. Bouchard spent the bulk of his career at Houston but also had a stretch at Colony. Devine is a former Wasilla standout who participated in offseason minicamps with the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs and Indianapolis Colts. Devine, an offensive lineman, capped a stellar collegiate career with Carroll College in Montana in 2025.

Jaronik said the Warriors have better depth and athleticism. The Warriors can use their skill-position players in a variety of ways, Jaronik said, and Bouchard has brought “an incredibly aggressive mentality to the defense.”

Wasilla continues its season at West Valley on Sept. 11, against North Pole on Sept. 18, at Lathrop on Sept. 25 and against the Moose in the Potato Bowl on Oct. 2.

Redington and Houston are the Valley’s Division III teams. The Huskies earned a 45-12 win over the rival Hawks to open the season but have dropped three straight games to Kenai, Chugiak and Barrow.

Redington graduated its best senior class in program history last year, a group of 22 players. The group helped the Huskies advance to the Division III semifinals in 2024 and 2025. Junior Landon Purvis and sophomore Cameryn Ingraham, the Huskies’ quarterback tandem, lead the team this year. Another leader is senior halfback and defensive back Cayden Ingraham.

As the Huskies started their season, head coach Mathias Weinberger said Redington is young, but there’s talent.

“We have outstanding skill players that we need to get the ball to,” he said.

The key early in the season has been working through adversity as the majority of his players adjust to life at the varsity level.

With the lack of small-school football programs in Alaska, Redington has a seven-game schedule, compared with the standard eight, and will face two teams twice. The Huskies continue at Homer on Sept. 11, against Kenai on Sept. 25 and at Houston on Oct. 2.

Houston is in a new era of its prep football program. Longtime Alaska mentor John Jessen took over the program during the offseason. Jessen is in his 39th year of coaching. He spent 27 years at Bartlett, where he earned 99 career wins and led the Golden Bears to three state titles.

Earlier this year, Jessen said he was excited to work with the new squad.

“I really love this new group because of their work ethic, coachability and willingness to get better,” Jessen said. “We are young and inexperienced, and focused on daily improvement.”

The Hawks graduated key pieces on offense in particular, including playmakers Elias Johnson and Blake Baskett. Jessen listed tight end Archer Christensen, defensive lineman Kash Fortune, center Hunter Kirby, fullback and linebacker Brendan Newman and running back and safety Nate Widener as key returners.

Houston continues its season Sept. 19 at Kenai, Sept. 26 at Barrow and at home against Redington on Oct. 2.

The Division I playoffs start Oct. 9, and the state championship is Oct. 23 at Colony. The Division II and III postseasons also start Oct. 9, with the state championship games at Wasilla High on Oct. 17.

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.