![]() |
At the start of each high school football season, players from around Alaska dream of capping it with a victory in the state championship game.Soldotna senior Anthony Griglione has lived this dream for nearly three full seasons. The two-time defending small-school state champion Stars are one win from a hat trick and their second consecutive undefeated season."Three times would be nice," said Griglione, the second-ranked running back in the state.The Stars (9-0) are riding a 28-game winning streak into Saturday's small-school state title game against Kodiak, and Griglione has been a starter in each of those victories.A win over their Northern Lights Conference foe would tie the Stars with East High -- unbeaten in 29 games from 1985-87 -- for the most consecutive victories by an Alaska football team."It's a SoHi tradition," Griglione said. "We want to keep the streak alive. If we had any loss, it would be a big burden on all of us."The Stars have won every game since losing to Colony on Aug. 12, 2006.Griglione remembers the Colony game like it happened yesterday. The Stars got crushed 41-6 by the large-school Knights. Griglione, a sophomore at the time, was Soldotna's third-string running back.A week later, after learning all the schemes in Soldotna's playbook, he became the first-string quarterback and led the Stars to a 10-7 upset win over large-school Palmer.And so marked the birth of Soldotna's streak -- and a new Kenai Peninsula dynasty. For years the Kenai Kardinals were the small-schools powerhouse, winning four straight state championships from 2002-2005.Griglione credits the shift of dominance along the Kenai Spur Highway, the road that connects Kenai and Soldotna, to the many hours second-year coach Galen Brantley Jr. spent installing a variation of the Wing-T offense."He knows the Wing-T inside and out," Griglione said.In Soldotna's version, three backs line up side-by-side behind the quarterback and everybody moves in the same direction at the snap. One player actually runs with the ball and the rest pretend like they do, which fools the defense.The deception frustrated the Eielson Ravens in last week's state semifinal."We worked all week just to stay on assigned players," Ravens coach Dave DeVaughn said. "But it was hard."Soldotna gained nearly 600 rushing yards and nine rushing touchdowns on its way to a 69-33 victory. Griglione rushed for 182 yards and four touchdowns to raise his season totals to 1,505 yards and 24 touchdowns."It's a discipline thing that's worked out," Griglione said. "Brantley teaches us to carry out our fakes 20 yards."No team's been able to stop us for 28 games."Soldotna has, in fact, dominated the opposition during its winning streak. The Stars have averaged 50.6 points a game and given up 11.4 for an average margin of victory by 39.2 points."It's a suffocating defense," Griglione said.Numbers like that prompt people to ask Griglione when Soldotna is moving to a large-schools conference. He tells them not to hold their breath.Soldotna High's enrollment is less than the 850 students the Alaska Schools Activities Association requires of schools playing large-school football."A lot of kids on the team would love to play big schools all the time," Griglione said. "It's just a matter of having more students."Asked if the Stars could compete against powerhouse schools like Juneau- Douglas, Service and South, he answered without hesitation."Of course," he said. "Absolutely."Though Griglione is just a cog in the wheel of Soldotna's variety of sleight-of-hand fakes and misdirection plays, Brantley said Griglione plays a huge role in the Stars' streak."He's one of those gone-in-60 seconds guys," Brantley said.Griglione, who moved back to running back this season, is 31 yards from breaking Garrett Gardner's record for most yards in a single season by a Soldotna running back.He said his inspiration comes from a quote Brantley posted in Soldotna's locker room: "Repetition is the father of learning." Considering the number of times the Stars have won in a row, Griglione said the statement perfectly sums up Soldotna's dominance during his three-year varsity career."We do a lot of reps and practice like we play," he said.