Colony Boys Soccer launches title defense with a “new season, new team” spirit

The Colony High School boys soccer team defeated South Anchorage 2-1 in double overtime in the 2023 Division I state championship game, ending a nearly decade-long title drought.

Being the reigning state champions can come with pressure for some teams and rights for others, but as they prepare for the season, the Knights have adopted the slogan “New season, new team.” However, I did not feel any burden from outside. Expectations.

“Last year was last year. This is a brand new year and a brand new team,” longtime Knights head coach Jeremy Johnson said. “We're just going to take it one game, one practice, one game at a time.”

[Knights use golden goal to cap off a dominant weekend for Colony athletics]

As defending champions, they have a target on their backs, but that doesn't dictate how they approach each matchup every time they step on the pitch.

“We try to get everyone to play hard,” Johnson said. “We always have a (rivalry) against Anchorage schools because we’re from (Matt Suh), so we feel like whenever we play any school in Anchorage, we’re going to stand up.”

Even though the Knights graduated four starting seniors from last year's state title-winning team, they still return a significant number of players who played key roles or were starters.

Coach Johnson said, “It's early and the season is short, but we'll be playing a lot of games, so we'll see how things go depending on the team's cohesion, injuries, and how (other teams) are doing.'' “We feel we have a good team, but we're not making any predictions at this point.”

One of the players who graduated last spring and was an integral part of the team's title win last year is David Elliott, who was named the 2023 Alaska Gatorade Player of the Year. It will be a total group effort to match him and his state-leading 21 goals, as it was when teams looked to him in the state tournament.

“We ended up relying on a lot of other guys and they found goals for us,” Johnson said. “We want to do that again this year and score goals by a committee rather than by one player.”

Players he expects to play a more prominent role in scoring include senior Quinn Dowd, junior Jonathon Figgins and junior Isaac Villa.

Johnson, who expects South to be a formidable contender again, also praised Service and West for always fielding competitive teams, and praised the quality of Fairbanks schools West Valley, North Pole and Lathrop.

Expand the scale of top competition

South also returns a number of players, with Wolverines head coach Brian Lux believing his roster is “even stronger than last year from top to bottom.”

“We are still working on improving and obviously need to get more time on the grass as the training in the gym is tough, but we have a lot of returning players and we will do well. You'll be ready. Just keep packing and you'll get away,” he said.

After a disappointing loss in last year's state finals, many players on this year's team, especially the seniors, feel they have unfinished business.

“We've been talked about a lot, but right now it's about taking it one game at a time,” Lux said. “You don't lose an entire season in one day, and you don't win a championship in one day.”

I also feel there are a lot of good teams outside of South and Colony.

“Service had a very close fight (in the season opener), and last week Dymond and West tied, so I think expectations are still going to be high,” Lux said. “I hope we can come out on top in the end.”

West fell behind in the opening minute against Dimond, but the Eagles fought back and almost had a chance to make it back in the final minute. Head coach Caleb Kuehn was proud of their efforts, which ultimately forced a 2-2 stalemate.

“We lost 2-1 in the first half, but in the second half we fought hard for the first 10 to 15 minutes and the players worked hard,” he said. “We rebounded and scored the equalizer and continued to press, but unfortunately we couldn't score the next goal.”

Kuehn also believes the prospects for Division I men's soccer are wide open this year.

“There are only so many schools out there, but what really matters is the work rate to stay fit and healthy,” he said. “Anything can happen in the playoffs.”

The Eagles have a lot of continuity from last year's state semifinalist team, which reached the finals in 2022 but fell short of returning to the finals.

“It's motivating for anyone to be that close and not be the team that made it to the finals,” Kuehn said.