Eagle River isn’t in football playoffs yet, but chances look good

For the first time in school history, Eagle River has a football team that is very much in playoff contention as the end of the regular season approaches.

The Wolves aren't in the playoffs yet. They completed their conference season last week with a resounding 48-14 road win over Kenai Central, and their 2-1 record in the four-team Northern Lights Conference should be good enough to earn one of the conference's two playoff berths.

The key words there: Should be.

There's a chance that three teams — Eagle River, Soldotna and Kenai Central — will finish tied for first place in the NLC with 2-1 records.

For that to happen, Kenai Central (0-1 with two conference games left) would need to beat Kodiak this week and Soldotna next week. Kodiak is 0-2 with one conference game left and Soldotna is 2-0 with one conference game left.

As their postseason fate hangs in the balance, the Wolves can do nothing but watch the scoreboard. Their final two games are nonconference contests, so as far as the playoffs go, it doesn't matter if they win or lose. What matters is what Kenai, Kodiak and Soldotna do.

"We're just worrying about Chugiak," Eagle River coach Bob Adkins said Thursday, two days before a Saturday afternoon game against the rival Mustangs.

The Wolves have already guaranteed themselves their first regular-season winning record in school history. They are 4-1 and can do no worse than 4-3.

They could make more school history on Saturday in Chugiak. Eagle River has never beaten Chugiak, but the Mustangs of the Chugach Conference are struggling. They're 1-5 overall and were winless until breaking through last weekend with a road win over Juneau.

But this is one of those rivalry games where records can be meaningless.

"The boys are gonna play hard, and Chugiak will come out hard too," Adkins said. "I hope we'll give them a good game."

Adkins said he doesn't know how the Northern Lights Conference would break a three-way tie. He's hoping he won't need to know.

A three-way tie can be avoided two ways:

— If Kodiak beats Kenai Central this week, Eagle River and Soldotna will be the only teams with at least two conference wins and both will advance to the playoffs.

— If Kenai Central loses to Soldotna next week, Soldotna wins the NLC outright with a 3-0 record and Eagle River clinches second place.

The bottom line: In order for Eagle River to miss the playoffs, Soldotna has to lose to Kenai Central in the final game of the regular season.

And Soldotna, the six-time Division II state champion, seldom loses. Since seeing its 59-game winning streak end with a narrow, season-opening loss to the West Eagles, the Stars have outscored their opponents 290-93.

"The chance that Soldotna's going to lose to Kenai is probably pretty slim," Adkins said, "but stranger things have happened."

Safety in football

For the last two weeks, dozens of Alaska high school football players have sported an Alaska Athletic Trainers Association sticker on the back of their helmets.

The stickers were part of the association's "Safety in Football" campaign. And although the campaign to raise awareness ends Friday, the mission doesn't.

The campaign's message: Safety in athletics begins with an athletic trainer. A recent, limited study of high school athletics showed that the rate of overall and recurrent injuries is greater on teams without an athletic trainer.

Currently, 18 certified athletic trainers are working with Alaska high schools in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau and the Valley. With the exception of Juneau, trainers are provided by clinics that employ them, according to the association.

Athletic trainers aren't the same as personal trainers or team managers — they have bachelors or masters degree in athletic training and they have passed a certification exam.

They're trained to diagnose and treat musculoskeletal injuries, which makes their presence on the sidelines critical if a player is injured during a game or a practice. According to the National Athletic Trainers Association, 62 percent of injuries that happen in organized sports happen during practice.