Defense

The Stars have averaged nearly 50 points a game for the past three years. And in their last three meetings with Kenai, Soldotna won by scores of 44-0 in 2007, 50-0 in 2008 and 52-27 earlier this year.

Saturday was a different story.

The Kenai defense made the big plays when it had to, keeping Soldotna out of the end zone until the fourth quarter and holding the Stars to 10 points in the small-schools state football championship game.

"The defense played their guts out," Kenai assistant coach Jim Beeson said. "Nobody expected us to hold Soldotna to 10 points in the championship game. If you are going to a pick a player of the game on the defensive side of the ball you'd have to pick 11 guys. The whole team played great."

Soldotna thrives with excellent ball fakes that usually keep defenses from knowing which back has the ball, creating confusion while the ball-carrier often scampers untouched toward the end zone.

"The first time we played we were just guessing the whole time," said Kenai defensive back Billy Kiefer.

Kenai defensive coach Jim Dawson prepared for the second meeting by watching film, breaking down the Stars tendencies, creating a plan and getting his players to buy into it.

"We wanted to be disciplined and look at the keys, instead of just trying to guess where the ball was going," Dawson said. "At Kenai we pride ourselves on playing pretty good defensive football and we were highly disappointed in our performance the last time out."

"Coach Dawson did a phenomenal job," Beeson said. "He came up with the scheme. The kids believed in what he told them to do and they went out there and did it."

Dawson put the defensive backs further downfield as a last line of defense in case Soldotna broke a big play. That tactic worked perfectly. Twice Soldotna looked to be on its way to long touchdown runs, but both times Kiefer managed to steer the players out of bounds.

"That was the idea, to keep people back far enough that if their backs did break free, the play was still in front of us and we had a second chance at them," Dawson said.

Kenai maintained gap responsibilities throughout the game, never over pursuing and wrapping up guys whether they had the ball or not.

"It was an absolute team effort, from the people up front to the linebackers and the defensive backs," Dawson said.

It resulted in the biggest shutdown of a Soldotna team since the Stars edged Palmer 10-7 on Aug. 18, 2006.

And for Kenai, it also resulted in a state championship.

Find Richard Larson online at adn.com/contact/rlarson or call 257-4335.