The Chugiak Mustangs celebrated the end of their first season in the Railbelt Conference by capturing the conference title Friday night with a resounding victory over Colony.
Karletty Faamatuainu rushed for three touchdowns to lead the Mustangs to a 30-7 win in the pivotal football game in Palmer.
Chugiak, which moved to the Railbelt Conference this season after decades in the all-Anchorage Cook Inlet Conference, earns the top seeding based on the Railbelt's tiebreaking system.
Even so, Mustangs coach Roger Spackman said he's waiting to hear officially that his team is the conference's No. 1 seed.
"We think we are and we hope we are," he said. "… I'm just glad we had a good game and we won."
Chugiak (5-3 overall, 3-1 Railbelt) got 10 points from special-teams play — a punt return from Terry Park and a field goal by Jacob Morey — plus the big game from Faamatainu to deny the Knights (6-2, 3-1).
The Mustangs led 13-0 on Faamatuainu's first touchdown and Park's punt return.
Cade Havel's long touchdown run for Colony made it 13-7 with less than two minutes left in the half, but Faamatuainu scored his second TD with time running out to lift Chugiak to a 20-7 halftime lead.
"We had a few breaks go our way," Spackman said. "They had a funky little punt off the side of the punter's foot and we picked it up and ran it in for a touchdown. And we were able to score on the last play of the half — we downed the ball with one second left and then ran the last play."
After a scoreless third quarter, Morey kicked a field goal for a 23-7 Chugiak lead. Faamatuainu provided the final margin with his third touchdown, a short scoring run.
Near the end of the game, Chugiak missed a field goal that Spackman said he was hesitant to attempt. But he knew that point-differential is one of the Railbelt tiebreakers, so he had his team try the field goal even though the Mustangs already owned a healthy lead.
"I wanted to kneel on the ball," Spackman said. "People were saying we needed three more points — even the Colony people were saying the same thing. To be honest, we weren't sure."
As it turned out, Chugiak didn't need three more points.
Chugiak and Colony both finished conference play with 3-1 records. Lathrop can do the same with a win over West Valley on Saturday, but in every tiebreaking scenario, the Mustangs come out on top.
If Lathrop wins on Saturday, the three-way tie would be broken by point differentials in games between the top three teams, according to conference bylaws. Chugiak beat Colony by 23 points and lost to Lathrop by two, putting it at plus-21. Lathrop beat Chugiak by two and lost to Colony by six, putting it at minus-4. Colony beat Lathrop by six and lost to Chugiak by 23, making it minus-17.
That would make Chugiak the champs. According to the conference bylaws, the remaining tie between Colony and Lathrop would be decided by their head-to-head game, giving the No. 2 seed to Colony.
If Lathrop loses to West Valley, the two-way tie between Chugiak and Colony gets broken by Chugiak's win on Friday.
"I tell you what," Spackman said. "Going into that game against a tough Colony team, we just wanted to do whatever we could to get a win. We were hoping we could win by one (point)."