The Chugiak Mustangs and West Eagles are headed to the Division I state football semifinals Friday, but they took different paths to get there.
Chugiak remained undefeated with a 63-27 blowout of the Service Cougars in a quarterfinal game in Chugiak, while West eked out a 14-10 come-from-behind victory over the Colony Knights in Palmer.
Both winners will play in next week's semifinals at Anchorage Football Stadium. The other two semifinals will be decided Saturday when Bartlett takes on visiting Lathrop at noon and East hosts Wasilla at 3 p.m.
West grabbed its first and only lead in the fourth quarter when A.J. Su'esu'e scored the game-winning touchdown on a pass from Qyntyn Pilcher.
Colony led 7-0 on a run by Caden Jimenez in the first quarter. West tied it 7-7 in the third quarter, and Colony regained the lead, 10-7, with a fourth-quarter field goal.
In Chugiak, the Mustangs outscored Service 21-0 in the second half to turn a close game into a rout.
The Mustangs led by one or two touchdowns through most of the first half, which ended with a touchdown by each team in the final seconds.
Service's Xavier Harris scored with 31.4 seconds left to narrow the Chugiak lead to 35-27, but Chugiak answered almost immediately when Ramal Maad caught an 18-yard pass from Hunter Harr with 13.2 seconds remaining.
That lifted the Mustangs to a 42-27 halftime lead. They expanded it to 63-27 in the third quarter with touchdown runs by Austin Harr and Ty Huffer and a 17-yard touchdown pass from Harr to Maad.